Ryujinx (Nintendo Switch) has ceased development after a message from Nintendo

John Elden Ring

The Thread Maker
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5 Jul 2022
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Yesterday, gdkchan was contacted by Nintendo and offered an agreement to stop working on the project, remove the organization and all related assets he's in control of. While awaiting confirmation on whether he would take this agreement, the organization has been removed, so I think it's safe to say what the outcome is. Rather than leave you with only panic and speculation, I decided to write this short message to give some closure.

These words are my own. I don't want to speak for anyone else here, so just remember that while reading.

Thank you to @everyone who has contributed code, documentation or issue reports to the project. Thank you all for following us throughout the development. I was able to learn a lot of really neat things about games that I love, enjoy them with renewed qualities and in unique circumstances, and I'm sure you all have experiences that are similarly special. I'm extending my own massive thanks to our moderation team, who have been here through some rough circumstances and always found ways to make light of it.
 

Systemshock2023

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8 May 2023
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Here's an easy way for Nintendo to kill emulation and entice customers at the same time: Release proper hardware.

As long as they keep using the stuff that powers Jen tsen Huang's toilet this will happen. I never saw games being playable way better than in a console days before release.

You don't see Sony or MS games being emulated this fast. Hell even proper Saturn emulation took ages. To this day you can't run god of war 3 at solid 60 FPS on RPCS3 and that's on an emulator with 10 years of development and in top of the line hardware.
 
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thicc_girls_are_teh_best

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Here's an easy way for Nintendo to kill emulation and entice customers at the same time: Release proper hardware.

As long as they keep using the stuff that powers Jen tsen Huang's toilet this will happen. I never saw games being playable way better than in a console days before release.

You don't see Sony or MS games being emulated this fast. Hell even proper Saturn emulation took ages. To this day you can't run god of war 3 at solid 60 FPS on RPCS3 and that's on an emulator with 10 years of development and in top of the line hardware.

The Saturn was something of an engineering nightmare and wasn't that popular for hobbyist in the retro scene for a long while, so not the best example.

Also even if systems like PS5 or Series X are powerful for their time, the hacker community that's somewhat parallel with the emulation community don't waste anytime jailbreaking those consoles to do things like, among other stuff, running unofficial games and game hacks.

So Switch 2 could be the most powerful computing device in the world...still wouldn't stop jailbreaking and emulation efforts (or ROM/ISO rips to then unofficially distribute to others).
 

Systemshock2023

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So Switch 2 could be the most powerful computing device in the world...still wouldn't stop jailbreaking and emulation efforts (or ROM/ISO rips to then unofficially distribute to others).

But jailbreaking, pirating and emulation are not the same.

If we talk about emulation I think it would slow it to the point where it's not practical at all. Nintendo games run and look like crap on the console. This is not the case with Sony and MS.

BOTW ran at 1800p 30 on an ancient FX PC with an RX 580 and some mods to boot. That level of image quality you will get on a Nintendo system around 2050. When it's that simple to obtain a massive boost in performance and IQ, enthusiasts will choose that option.
 

TrishaCat

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17 May 2024
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This is really lame
The worst part is is that unless Ryujinx stole some code, they're legally in the clear (see Sony v. Connectix and Sony v. Bleem). They just can't fight back because its frankly too expensive and too dangerous to do so. Its basically a major rich corporation bullying small time developers without the funds or resources to fight back.
With Yuzu and Ryujinx both dead, Switch emulation has been all but entirely stifled. I'm sure some people will create forks where possible but this is doing a lot of damage. Emulation is a great tool for game preservation, and beyond preservation, it also allowed paying customers to be able to play their Switch games at in some cases better performance and resolution than the Switch allows for.

I don't doubt that people felt emboldened and encouraged to pirate by it, but emulation itself is not piracy, and it is entirely possible to emulate something without pirating it. My fear with this is that years of quality work will have been lost, and that it will take a lot of time and effort to recover. There are several older consoles (sega consoles, the N64, Xbox, and Xbox 360) whose emulation is not particularly great, and that is at least in part due to there simply being a lack of interest from programmers and developers to work on the projects. If a console is still modern, interest in development is going to naturally be higher, which helps ensure game preservation for future generations.
 

TrishaCat

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17 May 2024
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Sony should do the same.
Wish Sony would do this for the PlayStation emulators.
What is Sony waiting for?
Have some courage and kill the PlayStation 4 emulator. It's your goddammit right to do so.

@Systemshock2023 Dude Sony could easily tell their lawyer to shut down the PS4 emulator.
A certain company should take notice.
They tried 20 years ago. Twice. And failed both times. Unless there is stolen code, Sony would have no legal leg to stand on.
 

Eternal_Wings

Dein Nomos
24 Jun 2022
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Well times do change. Laws for intellectual property are stricter than 20 years ago. If Sony calls their lawyers it's over with PS4 emulation on PC.
 
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Systemshock2023

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8 May 2023
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This is really lame
The worst part is is that unless Ryujinx stole some code, they're legally in the clear (see Sony v. Connectix and Sony v. Bleem). They just can't fight back because its frankly too expensive and too dangerous to do so. Its basically a major rich corporation bullying small time developers without the funds or resources to fight back.
With Yuzu and Ryujinx both dead, Switch emulation has been all but entirely stifled. I'm sure some people will create forks where possible but this is doing a lot of damage. Emulation is a great tool for game preservation, and beyond preservation, it also allowed paying customers to be able to play their Switch games at in some cases better performance and resolution than the Switch allows for.

I don't doubt that people felt emboldened and encouraged to pirate by it, but emulation itself is not piracy, and it is entirely possible to emulate something without pirating it. My fear with this is that years of quality work will have been lost, and that it will take a lot of time and effort to recover. There are several older consoles (sega consoles, the N64, Xbox, and Xbox 360) whose emulation is not particularly great, and that is at least in part due to there simply being a lack of interest from programmers and developers to work on the projects. If a console is still modern, interest in development is going to naturally be higher, which helps ensure game preservation for future generations.

There's not much to worry about. Ryujinx is open source, there will be more forks of it and development will continue.

Besides the switch generation is reaching it's end and no more demanding games will be released on it.
To me this reeks of lack of confidence in their upcoming console...

Switch 2 will have BC so they want to keep selling switch games, but the BC solution must be pretty lackluster as in just using the extra power to reach FPS caps or avoid extremely low dynamic resolutions.

Nvidia hand me down, will be as off the shelves as it gets... around Xbox one/ PS4 in power which means it won't make much of a difference with switch 2 releases and would look bad vs a potential switch 2 emulator in a year or 2.

Emulators just expose how lackluster Nintendo hardware is. That's why they hate them. If this was solely against piracy they would have done more measures against MIG carts or R4 back in the day which is way more popular. Nintendo consoles since the DS are the most pirated by a country mile.
 
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Neversummer

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The way Nintendo bends over these people is honestly respected it puts Sony/PS leadership look like complete jokes.

Nintendo cracking down on emulation entirely, not surprising even if you argue from a game preservation perspective it still undermines Nintendo business as now subscription & cloud play a big role in monetizing game preservation.
 

Neversummer

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27 Jun 2023
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So this is what it looks like protecting your exclusive IPs and not letting them be played anywhere else to devalue the Nintendo brand.

A certain company should take notice.
This action by Nintendo is showing companies aye if you even think of using our ip/copyright/trademark that undermines Nintendo business including its hardware/storefront being diminish you will be dealt w legal action.

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Nintendo ^

Sony/PS should take note. Bloodborne should not be receiving a pc version w out the proper license & control from Sony/PS. Really think about it & tell yourself what does that mean for the control of your ip this is what Nintendo is making these action. It’s like the Nintendo/Donkey Kong vs WB/Donkey Kong situation that put fear in Nintendo & likely the reason Nintendo is so aggressive against any form of eroding.
 
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Systemshock2023

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8 May 2023
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The way Nintendo bends over these people is honestly respected it puts Sony/PS leadership look like complete jokes.

Nintendo cracking down on emulation entirely, not surprising even if you argue from a game preservation perspective it still undermines Nintendo business as now subscription & cloud play a big role in monetizing game preservation.

Drip feeding the same tired old games in a subscription service is not game preservation. Thanks to emulation you also get patched roms with translations. There are lots of obscure japanese games untranslated.

Take a game like Bulk Slash that got an English translation patch to the Sega Saturn. Or how games like gran turismo 2 and 4 are getting extra content thanks to modders. To me three kind of efforts are what highlights modding and emulation and not wanting to play a brand new game emulated at release for free.

Nintendo is undergoing this crusade against emulation because it exposes their anemic hardware and mediocre services.
 
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