Update #2 [Mon 29th May, 2023 03:30 BST]:
A Nintendo spokesperson confirmed. Official statement to Kotaku Regarding the DMCA to Dolphin’s Steam page:
“Nintendo is committed to protecting the diligence and creativity of our video game engineers and developers. This emulator illegally circumvents Nintendo safeguards and runs illegal copies of games. Illegal emulator The use of pirated copies of games and products negatively impacts development and ultimately stifles innovation.Nintendo respects the intellectual property rights of other companies and expects others to do the same. I have.”
Update #1 [Sat 27th May, 2023 13:45 BST]:
Dataminer and Nintendo Life users blood of luigi highlighted part of the DMCA, revealing that the Wii common key is included in the Dolphin emulator source code.
Luigi’s Blood: “To quote the DMCA, “The Dolphin Emulator works by embedding these cryptographic keys without Nintendo’s permission, and decrypting the ROM at or shortly before execution.” …this is objectively true is. I just checked and the Wii common key is in the emulator source. code. “
game developer MVG He also shared an overview of his own situation based on this information, where an individual known as “Littlemac123” warned others about the Dolphin emulator’s “copyrighted code from the Wii system” and the problem. We also found evidence (dating back to 2020) that If it’s released on Steam, that could be the culprit.
MVG: There are other ways to download Dolphin… but to be honest, I’m a little worried that Nintendo smells blood right now. Because they found these keys and obviously they spent a lot of time investigating. Dolphin’s source code goes almost line by line to find problem areas, especially where illegal things and keys that shouldn’t be there exist like this…”
“…Littlemac123 was way back in 2020 and knew what was going on here…Unfortunately Dolphin will not be part of Steam. Hope that changes … As for this particular one, I’m not saying Nintendo is bad… but Dolphin screwed this up so they really need to address it and I hope you will. ”
Original work [Sat 27th May, 2023 04:05 BST]:
Back in March, the team behind GameCube and Wii emulator Dolphin announced its release on Valve’s Steam service.
with the update of Dolphin Website Today, Nintendo has issued a DMCA against Dolphin’s Steam page. The release, which was scheduled for “Q2 2023,” has been “postponed indefinitely.”
Below is the development team’s full statement, stating that option is “currently being investigated.”
“It is with great regret that we have to announce that the release of Dolphin on Steam has been postponed indefinitely. We have been notified by Valve that it has been removed from Steam.We are currently evaluating our options and will provide a more detailed response in the near future.Thank you for your patience.”
Dolphin’s Steam description stated that “the app does not come with the game” and that players must “own the original copy of the game.” The emulator’s release on Steam also promised 4K displays, modern controllers, netplay support, and was completely open source and a “free” download.
Other emulators already exist on Steam, such as RetroArch. So it may still be possible that Dolphin will be released on Valve’s service in some form in the near future.
We will keep you informed of any further developments.
