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Eurogamer: BotW running on CEMU showing remarkable progress

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RoadHazard

Gold Member
But GAF has one.

If you come out and post that you downloaded X game, you'll be automatically banned. The thing here is that some less-experienced people around emulation have problems making the nuance that you can obtain your own ROMs yourself.

I'd suggest reading the FAQ about that.

You missed an "a" in the post you quoted, I think.
 

FeD.nL

Member
Because I literally own the game.

I have purchased the disk, containing the code, for the game to operate. If at that point I want to design (or use) a system that can interpret that disk and play it outside of the original manufacturer's hardware, that is within my legal right. Nintendo cannot physically, nor legally stop me from doing so. I have not stolen from Nintendo, because I actively purchased their game. Buying a WiiU is not a requirement to legally play a WiiU game. If this is the line of thought, then all emulation is bunk. For all systems. No one could "legally" play any game on any emulator for all of time.

What can Nintendo do? They can deny me support if something went wrong, as the emulator is not "their" software. They could, if they so chose, deny me the ability to purchase games from them directly, as is their discretion at any time for any reason. They can't stop me from doing what I do with the thing that I physically own and legally purchased.

Correct, the disc's data also must be your own, so it must be ripped via your own Wii U to be legit.

It's not complicated at all, if you already own the consoles and games that permits you to casually play as 'normal', you have the right to play it on your PC as long as all the data comes from your own personal stuff.

So who is right?
 
I'm confused as to why people think cutting the hardware out of the equation is fair or okay or anything like that.

Nintendo is a hardware and a software company. They create great software so you'll buy the hardware.

They create hardware primarily so that you'll buy the software and accessories. I'm not saying that they don't make money off of the console itself, but they benefit much more from you buying software and accessories from them than they do if you buy a refurb Wii U with NintendoLand and never buy anything else again.
 

cw_sasuke

If all DLC came tied to $13 figurines, I'd consider all DLC to be free
But GAF has one.

If you come out and post that you downloaded X game, you'll be automatically banned. The thing here is that some less-experienced people around emulation have problems making the nuance that you can obtain your own ROMs yourself, thus relating emulation to straight piracy.

I'd suggest reading the FAQ about that.

....but thats what i wrote.

Piracy and co isnt a Topic on GAF. Many people immediately think emulation co. = piracy...thats why we have such responses in these threads. Usually its okay because it involved older games...so yeah FF XII looking great on PC or Wind Waker HD is fine for most people - but seeing a brand new full price title being emulated this fast with an easy way to pirate it without owning the system....can be difficult to differentiate for many users.
 

KAL2006

Banned
Fun stuff:
People were able to emulate Ocarina of Time 64 back then as well. The game logic was 100% perfect, just some bad effects in some parts.

Cool, but back then internet wasn't as prevelant. People weren't that aware of it, you definitely won't see it on the headlines of Eurogamer. Also downloading is faster now and people are more computer literate especially with YouTueb tutorials.
 

Jebusman

Banned
So who is right?

I mean technically both of those statements are true.

You don't need to own a WiiU to be able to play a WiiU game (from a legal standpoint), but the reality of the disk technology means you need access to a WiiU to be able to rip the data.
 

Costia

Member
Are you, though? That's what I was asking before. Is there no such thing as "software X is licensed to be used on hardware Y"? I don't know, that's why I'm asking.
Are you presented with such a license at the time of purchase of the game in a physical shop?

Edite: I found "shrink-wrap license" on google. And it looks like there is no clear decision, so nintendo will have to sue each user to find out if in their specific case the limitation is enforcable.
 

shiyrley

Banned
I will leave some facts for the anti-emulation crowd and then leave:
- Emulation is legal
- Emulation helps game preservation & enhances the experience in many cases.
- Some people emulate purchased games. This is legal.
- Some people emulate pirated games. This is not legal.
- Emulation is still legal.
- People who emulate don't care about your opinion of emulators and will continue to use emulators.
- Emulators will continue to exist regardless of how much you cry about it.
- Emulation discussion is allowed on gaf
- Saying that emulation is piracy on an emulation thread is shitting the thread
- Shitting a perfectly fine thread is not a good behaviour
- Emulation is still legal
- I use emulators
- I own a Switch
- I don't pirate
- I don't care about your opinion
- Emulation is still legal :)
 
Zelda especially a Zelda with the most perfect scores in metacritic history is a system seller.

To have a system seller like Zelda to be emulated on PC with better graphics within 6 months of release will obviously hurt Nintendo.

Imagine if all the top PS4 exclusives can be emulated on PC. There would be no reason for alot of people to buy a PS4, which could potentially mean Sony loses out PS4 hardware sales, software sales and online fee sales.

Again, emulation does not mean piracy. Yes, pirates copies of games are played on emulators. But I personally would never whine about someone creating an emulator for any platform, including one I own like PS4.

If someone could make a functional PS4 emulator today, I would be amazed at their skill and the technical achievement, just like I am with Cemu. I don't know why some people need to feel it is their job to worry abut the IP rights of others. They have attorneys they pay to do that, it is not your job. Don't pirate yourself, but you don't have to go to bat for billion dollar corporations about the bare hypothetical that others might.

Maybe the best defense against this form of piracy, if Nintendo was so inclined, is simply for your flagship titles to be on hardware powerful enough that it cannot be emulated on existing PCs and will take years before that is possible. Of course, this doesn't solve people playing pirated software directly on their Wii U, which does aldo happen.
 

KAL2006

Banned
They create hardware primarily so that you'll buy the software and accessories. I'm not saying that they don't make money off of the console itself, but they benefit much more from you buying software and accessories from them than they do if you buy a refurb Wii U with NintendoLand and never buy anything else again.

If I owned Nintendo hardware i would be like umm may as well but Splatoon, may as well pay for online etc. I'll be part of the userbase. However if i can just emulate Zelda i probably won't give other stuff ago. Basically when someone buys hardware they are likely to buy more software. Nintendo wants you to buy their hardware, not emulate their games.
 

Peltz

Member
I never argued that stealing the game is ok. I think you are misconstruing what I'm arguing entirely. What I'm saying is that if my intentions are pure, I'm not all that worried that other people might be using this bad things. And I realize that this is almost venturing into gun control territory where I sound like a "guns don't kill people, people do" advocate. And I want to note that I'm just using that as a springboard here and really, really don't want to turn this thread into a gun control debate. But using that as an inspiration, I'll admit that it is of interest to try and determine actual negative impact from this. Like if you told me that you could definitively prove that Nintendo lost "X millions of sales" from this and that of all the people playing the game on CEMU, only 10 had legitimately bought a copy, that might give me pause. I might conclude that this emulator's existence is doing more harm than good in the grand scheme of things. But if it's just "any piracy is bad and thus this is bad!" then I don't find this particularly compelling.
I just don't think lost sales should have ANY bearing on the analysis because it's not something proveable for any game.

Saying, "I don't think my behavior was bad because you can't prove outcome XYZ was affected by it" isn't a very compelling rationale. There's such things as reckless (or even negligent) behavior that can attribute immeasurably to a risk of harm, even if such behavior isn't motivated by immoral underpinnings.

Saying we cant know if sales are impacted so it's not worth worrying about this emulator is too laissez faire.
 
Outside of this forum the emulator is used by a lot of pirates, simply downloading the game for free.

Now that I understand CEMU isn't piracy at all (and awesome), is there anything Nintendo could do to stop people from downloading Breath of the Wild illegally on the internet?

If I see anyone in real life do that, is there anything I could do about it?
I'm sure calling the cops won't do shit but technically it is illegal, right? How do I get those people arrested?
 
Fun stuff:
People were able to emulate Ocarina of Time 64 back then as well. The game logic was 100% perfect, just some bad effects in some parts.

Yeah, but I'm willing to bet that

-way more people-

have PCs today that can run Wii U games than had PCs that could run N64 games in '98
 

KAL2006

Banned
Let's live in a lovely world where we can emulate every game upon release from Nintendo, Sony and MS in 4k easily from day 1. I'm sure Sony and Nintendo would love this and out more resources to making first party games and this wouldn't effect them
 

MUnited83

For you.
Wait, CEMU is for-profit? Now THAT I don't see how you can think is fine. They're, at least indirectly, making money off Nintendo's software then.
It's absolutely fine. They are using their own code, not Nintendo's, so it is absolutely fine and leg. Just like DraStic, a paid Nintendo DS emulator for Android.

So who is right?
A Wii U is technically required, either to use the Eshop to aqquire the digital license, or to use it to dump a disc. You don't need any internal Wii U console files, so it is legal to just borrow a Wii U to buy/dump the games on, then return the Wii U to the original owner and still be able to play the games you got.
 

Seik

Banned
So who is right?

Me, you need to own the hardware to do legit emulation.

Not being able to play the game by yourself without having to resort to emulation makes it piracy.

I own a Switch and the game in question. If the opportunity arises to play at a solid 60fps, I'll take it.

Most likely won't happen, the best you'll get is 4K+ at locked 30fps.
 

sirap

Member
It really is remarkable how far they've progressed. Might just up my pledge, the CEMU team are doing good work.

A few more months/weeks and I'll be able to play Zelda in glorious 4K/30fps.
 

Peltz

Member
Fun stuff:
People were able to emulate Ocarina of Time 64 back then as well. The game logic was 100% perfect, just some bad effects in some parts.
Your better example would be Neo Geo. It had games emulated/pirated almost the moment they came out in the later years of the platform.

N64 lagged behind a bit due to the poor emulators of the time.
 
Now that I understand CEMU isn't piracy at all, is there anything Nintendo could do to stop people from downloading Breath of the Wild illegally on the internet?

If I see anyone in real life do that, is there anything I could do about it?
I'm sure calling the cops won't do shit but technically it is illegal, right? How do I get those people arrested?

Copyright infringement is a civil offense not a "crime" at least not in most cases. Nintendo may sue anyone who illegally downloads a copy of their software, just like the music or film/TV industries can and do.

They can also request takedown of any site that hosts their copyrighted material, and clearly they do, to the extent they go after youtubers who use footage of their games in videos.
 

DavidDesu

Member
These people are earning over 20 grand a month to essentially pirate a brand new game... isn't this dodgy as fuck? Won't this be shut down in quick style. Working on this completely on your own in an unofficial capacity, sure, crowd funding your efforts.. not so much.
 

KNT-Zero

Member
Nintendo should realise that people who work on homebrew and emulation can help them boost the library of their systems (adding functionalities to enhance their value, improving the Virtual Console platform, etc).

But their most likely response will be "But our intellectual property". Legally they are entitled to, but won't let them evolve...
 

RoadHazard

Gold Member
It's absolutely fine. They are using their own code, not Nintendo's, so it is absolutely fine and leg. Just like DraStic, a paid Nintendo DS emulator for Android.

I'm not saying they're using Nintendo's OS code or BIOS or whatever. I'm saying they're indirectly making money off of the games Nintendo make, because playing those on your PC is the entire point of the emulator.

But sure, you could say the same about any company that makes gaming PCs or sound systems or whatever. With the difference that Nintendo never intended for Wii U games to be played on anything else.
 

Jebusman

Banned
Me, you need to own the hardware to do legit emulation.

Not being able to play the game by yourself without having to resort to emulation makes it piracy.

What? No.

If I own a Retrode, with the capability of ripping my Gen/SNES carts directly to PC, I don't actually need either piece of hardware to play those games.

Piracy, in this sense, means "stealing the game". I own the game. There is no piracy involved.

At BEST you could argue emulators that actively require a BIOS would require you to own the hardware, along with a method of ripping the BIOS from it. But in that situation, given you are actively using copyrighted code from the system in question, that makes sense. You "owning" the system allows you to use the BIOS in the same way that "owning" the physical copy allows you to use your ripped copy.

You sell the console, you don't "own" that BIOS anymore. Same as if you sell the game.

But if the emulator functions without a BIOS, then no console is needed.
 

Baleoce

Member
I think the real discussion to be had here is whether a patreon-backed for-profit, closed-source emulator (and one that is the first major emulator of the system to see any success) is actually healthy for the longterm preservation of the Wii U. But the way the thread seems stuck on a single and irrelevant topic that's been active for decades, I don't know if that discussion is going to happen.
 

Lifeline

Member
I haven't seen anybody arguing that here.

I see multiple people arguing buying the game and playing it on PC is just as bad and they should be getting a Wii U instead.

Same here! Gonna be glorius. I've spent 800 bucks across a ps4 and a Pro, and if someone made an emulator making bloodborne possible at 4k/60 i'd starve myself to be able to afford to support them.

I certainly wouldn't let concern and entitlement or loyalty to a corporation make me think otherwise. Eveyone should get to play BB.

Yeah exactly.
 
These people are earning over 20 grand a month to essentially pirate a brand new game... isn't this dodgy as fuck? Won't this be shut down in quick style. Working on this completely on your own in an unofficial capacity, sure, crowd funding your efforts.. not so much.

Man, it's like a broken record. The developers of Cemu are not pirating any software. I don't know how that's so hard to understand.

I'm not saying they're using Nintendo's OS code or BIOS or whatever. I'm saying they're indirectly making money off of the games Nintendo make, because playing those on your PC is the entire point of the emulator.

They are providing no access to a copy of those games or any portion of them, so that does not matter in the least.
 

NOLA_Gaffer

Banned
My only real takeaway is that I wish that $22k a month was going towards an emulator for a platform that needs it more - the Xbox.
 

Seik

Banned
These people are earning over 20 grand a month to essentially pirate a brand new game... isn't this dodgy as fuck? Won't this be shut down in quick style. Working on this completely on your own in an unofficial capacity, sure, crowd funding your efforts.. not so much.

Haven't you read the thread? Because you should before spitting shit everywhere like that.

They work on the emulator, they don't work specifically on Zelda. They work on the emulator so that Zelda runs nice on it.

What? No.

If I own a Retrode, with the capability of ripping my Gen/SNES carts directly to PC, I don't actually need either piece of hardware to play those games.

Piracy, in this sense, means "stealing the game". I own the game. There is no piracy involved.

This is a point I don't necessarily agree with, but can understand.

However, I don't think it is legit to emulate if you don't have the OG console to play the games you own, imo. But this is a 'loose' point in what's legit or not, honestly.

EDIT: See the BIOS point I touched later after this post. I stand corrected.
 

Borman

Member
Bleem already decided legality. If it doesn't use copyrighted code, it is legal. And it can be sold. You can argue morals all you want, but the law is clear. And you can go back way further than that, with Pong clones, heck, Atari 2600 clones that allowed you to use Atari software on otherwise unlicensed consoles. Which were also deemed legal.
 
I just don't think lost sales should have ANY bearing on the analysis because it's not something proveable for any game.

Saying, "I don't think my behavior was bad because you can't prove outcome XYZ was affected by it" isn't a very compelling rationale. There's such things as reckless (or even negligent) behavior that can attribute immeasurably to a risk of harm, even if such behavior isn't motivated by immoral underpinnings.

Saying we cant know if sales are impacted so it's not worth worrying about this emulator is too laissez faire.

I'm trying to be clearer here. My actual argument is simply that the existence of a tool being able to be used to do harm does not automatically invalidate its good intentions. I do acknowledge that the harmful usage is so vast that it's worth considering that it does way more harm than good. However, there has to be some good faith attempt at measuring this impact. The fact that this will probably be utilized for some piracy is not in and of itself compelling.
 

Lord Error

Insane For Sony
They're technically donations, you don't have to donate to use CEMU.
You do have to pay if you want access to newest builds, as soon as they are released. Which kind of makes it not a true "out of goodness of your heart" donation IMO.

Bleem already decided legality. If it doesn't use copyrighted code, it is legal.
It also showed that a big company doesn't need the law to strictly be on their side to shut down a project like that.
 

MUnited83

For you.
Me, you need to own the hardware to do legit emulation.

Not being able to play the game by yourself without having to resort to emulation makes it piracy.



Most likely won't happen, the best you'll get is 4K+ at locked 30fps.
Once again, false. Ownership of the hardware is not a requirement, since the emulator does not use any kind of BIOS files. You just need a Wii U to be able to dump it, but it doesn't matter if it's yours, lent by a friend or rented for a day.
how does CEMU handle the tablet stuff?
TAB to check what is in the tablet screen. Mouse to emulate the touch. On games where the screen is mirrored on both, you can just use the mouse on the main screen and it will translate it to the second.
 

RoadHazard

Gold Member
Man, it's like a broken record. The developers of Cemu are not pirating any software. I don't know how that's so hard to understand.



They are providing no access to a copy of those games or any portion of them, so that does not matter in the least.

Viewing it from that angle, neither were the Pirate Bay founders. They were simply enabling it, just like the CEMU developers are. They still got screwed. Which you can think whatever you want about, of course.
 

Lifeline

Member
Let's live in a lovely world where we can emulate every game upon release from Nintendo, Sony and MS in 4k easily from day 1. I'm sure Sony and Nintendo would love this and out more resources to making first party games and this wouldn't effect them

This isn't Day 1 and this isn't the Switch version. This is a 5 year old console being emulated.

You do have to pay if you want access to newest builds, as soon as they are released. Which kind of makes it not a true "out of goodness of your heart" donation IMO.

It's only a week of early access I think.
 

Twiforce

Member
Now that I understand CEMU isn't piracy at all (and awesome), is there anything Nintendo could do to stop people from downloading Breath of the Wild illegally on the internet?

If I see anyone in real life do that, is there anything I could do about it?
I'm sure calling the cops won't do shit but technically it is illegal, right? How do I get those people arrested?

What the fuck is wrong with you? You want to throw people in a cage over this? You want to deprive a human being of their freedom and bodily autonomy because they played a video game for free??
 

Theonik

Member
The progress is kind of exciting but closed source emulators are a massive waste of time to be quite honest especially projects of this nature.

At $22k per month CEMU is going to rapidly become the best emulator of all time lol.
That's pitiful money. Barely enough to pay a couple of devs to work full time on it.
 
Viewing it from that angle, neither were the Pirate Bay founders. They still got screwed. Which you can think whatever you want about, of course.

That is a factually distinct scenario, as Pirate Bay provided links to directly download copyrighted material. YEs, there is a question whether they actually provided the material, but they at least allowed you to search and access them.

Cemu does no such thing or anything remotely similar.
 

Seik

Banned
Once again, false. Ownership of the hardware is not a requirement, since the emulator does not use any kind of BIOS files. You just need a Wii U to be able to dump it, but it doesn't matter if it's yours, lent by a friend or rented for a day.

This is a very valid point for which I never gave any thoughts.

You're right, since CEMU doesn't need any root files from the console, it is legit.

I retire my earlier statement.
 

Baleoce

Member
Now that I understand CEMU isn't piracy at all (and awesome), is there anything Nintendo could do to stop people from downloading Breath of the Wild illegally on the internet?

If I see anyone in real life do that, is there anything I could do about it?
I'm sure calling the cops won't do shit but technically it is illegal, right? How do I get those people arrested?

lol...
 
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