Irdeto is a brand that some may not be familiar with, but many will know the name of their controversial anti-piracy software, Denuvo. After attempting to crack down on the piracy of PC games, Irdeto has set its sights on the Nintendo Switch. Believing piracy to be rampant on the platform, either through modded consoles or emulation, Irdeto has unveiled their aptly named "Nintendo Switch Emulator Protection" technology.

As with all other Denuvo solutions, the technology integrates seamlessly into the build toolchain with no impact on the gaming experience. It then allows for the insertion of checks into the code, which blocks gameplay on emulators.

They claim that their solution, which would run similarly to Denuvo, would have occasional checks to ensure the software was legitimate, and prevent the games that use it from being emulated. Irdeto also promises that there is no impact on the gaming performance with it enabled, a claim that has led to many controversies in the past with Denuvo.

Beyond the press release, there's not much known about the Nintendo Switch Emulator Protection, when it will launch, and what games it will launch with. By the phrasing in the announcement, however, it appears that Irdeto is targeting indie developers or third-party studios more than they are Nintendo itself, specifically for multi-platform games that can be protected from piracy on both PC and Switch.

Source

 

[sombrerosonic]

Right, because those sanity checks to bypass emulators always worked forever, just look at those games that specifically targeted Dolphin Emulator in its later days.
Sure, it did work for some time, but at the end, more accurate emulation rendered those hacks pointless since the emulated console ultimately behaved exactly like the real thing, and thus became undetectable.

I give at most 1 week for 1 game release that uses this fancy new Denuvo for Switch to run without any issue.

The only way i think that they would be able to prevent emulation them they would do something like this is to do a stargate way and have to have the games to be cracked by modders down the way

 

[ut2k4master]

...But what's the fucking point? Emulation itself is legal. If someone legally owns the game, they have every right to emulate it. Doesn't matter what Nintendo thinks.

its not quite that simple

 

[Marc_LFD]

They [Denuvo] must know they're hated by many for their bs drm and seems they like it.

 

[Haymose]

I bet Team Xecutor could have cracked it.

Imagine paying a license to play a pirated game on an emulator.

I'll give it two weeks before the first game gets cracked and able to be played on emulators.

That would be considered a success since the first two weeks of game sales are the most valuable.

 

[Marc_LFD]

DRM never is and always will be the wrong answer.
Like come on, it's getting figured out and the guys who made said DRM will look like asshats after it happened.
Modern games already suck, don't make it worse. At least there's always emulation.

GOG (games) and Bandcamp (music) sell their content digitally and without any DRM so you could share it with anyone you'd want, but the point of being DRM-free is for paid customers to use it wherever they want.

Denuvo is despised and they deserve it. These assholes act like gangs and coyotes trying to control where we play what we buy.

 

[Ryab]

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Irdeto is a brand that some may not be familiar with, but many will know the name of their controversial anti-piracy software, Denuvo. After attempting to crack down on the piracy of PC games, Irdeto has set its sights on the Nintendo Switch. Believing piracy to be rampant on the platform, either through modded consoles or emulation, Irdeto has unveiled their aptly named "Nintendo Switch Emulator Protection" technology.



They claim that their solution, which would run similarly to Denuvo, would have occasional checks to ensure the software was legitimate, and prevent the games that use it from being emulated. Irdeto also promises that there is no impact on the gaming performance with it enabled, a claim that has led to many controversies in the past with Denuvo.

Beyond the press release, there's not much known about the Nintendo Switch Emulator Protection, when it will launch, and what games it will launch with. By the phrasing in the announcement, however, it appears that Irdeto is targeting indie developers or third-party studios more than they are Nintendo itself, specifically for multi-platform games that can be protected from piracy on both PC and Switch.

Source

And knowing how all DRM goes. It will be bypassed within days.

 

[nl255]

That would be considered a success since the first two weeks of game sales are the most valuable.

Except that is often already the case when it comes to emulation, especially any emulator that uses HLE, as it often takes time for the stuff the new game uses to be implemented especially if it takes advantage of new syscalls or other APIs implemented in later firmware versions. Hell, there are still some Switch games that won't run in either emulator, for example the last time I checked it is not possible to play any official English version of Dragon Quest Builders 1 on a PC in English, you have to use the fan translated PS3 version which due to the nature of fan translations is not going to be anywhere close to the official version.

 

[pustal]

Could've fooled me, the major game releases for it have slowed down considerably.

Hasn't game dev been stalled considerably by the pandemic of the last couple of years?

And you have a few major first party and exclusives released this year like Kirby and and Xenoblade 3, and some upcoming, like Splatoon 3, Mario + Rabbids 2 and Pokémon Scarlet/Violet. You have Breath of the Wild 2 for next year as well.

 

[Olmectron]

A couple Youtube videos of Steam Deck emulating Switch and suddenly Nintendo thinks Switch piracy is "rampant." Hilarious. Also a total waste of money on the tail end of Switch's lifespan, and a performance hit on already-limited hardware.

This is not a Nintendo statement or development. This is the Denuvo development company trying to get more money from stupid developers that think Denuvo actually does any good.

 

[gudenau]

No impact? Extra garbage running in the background will always degrade the experience.

 

[Deckard5621]

I really hope this leads to cfw on all switches

 

[NerevaRising]

Switch games already struggle on the hardware as it is and now paying customers will have to deal with online check-ins, longer loading times and reduced performance

 

[Deckard5621]

Switch games already struggle on the hardware as it is and now paying customers will have to deal with online check-ins, longer loading times and reduced performance

It’s almost if Nintendo want everyone to pirate lmao

 

[AndorfRequissa]

where is the swtich going to get the extra resources to make all these antipriacy calls without downgrading performance on the switch for those that do pay. it seems like nintendo wants to punish paying customers as much as those that dont pay.

if the swtich was actually powerful and could play the games without degrading the quality and performance of the game to make these checks it maybe would be a good idea. but its not performance and quality of graphics will take a hit to handle these extra API calls thats take resources to complete

 

[ov3rkill]

I guess Irdeto needs that Nintendo money and whatever bs they're selling on those poor sods.

 

[Purple_Shyguy]

If you're able to think about it objectively, this probably solves less than 0.01% of "piracy".

Most people would've either pirated the game regardless (which should NOT be counted as revenue, as it's not revenue you would've had regardless of AP measures or not), or they already own the game, but it's more convenient to play on PC, most likely due to controller support, and better visual fidelity.

As for the website itself, it's just immoral towards everyone. Not only does it contain blatant lies, but it's downright malicious.
I'd say not only does this NOT "help protect against bad reviews and expand the previous playerbase", but it most likely does the exact opposite. There are a lot of people I know who wait for others to try the games before they decide to buy. If there is negative feedback coming their way, it's guaranteed they'll not buy the game, and either not buy it at all, or just wait until AP patches become available, and just pirate it, as to not support this kind of anti-consumer behavior.
Oh, and the "protect against bad reviews" part is just a straight-up lie, but even then I'm greatly underselling just how bad that part is. There isn't even a review system in the eShop anymore, and AP measures are proven to bring negative reviews just for the mere existance of them, so this lie fails the test instantly.

Also, this becomes just a cat-and-mouse game between this and the emulator devs. There is nothing stopping the emulator devs to just analyze the behavior and work around it? Okay, in reality it's much harder than I make it out to be, but I assume it's certainly not impossible, it's just wasting a lot of human power which could've been spent on bettering the actual emulator itself.

I hate this absolute lie that people "would just pirate the game regardless"

It's simply not true. Before the switch was hacked I had spent $600 on switch games. I bought about 20 games over the first 12 months. The second it got hacked I never paid for another game. 4 years on not a penny spent. The same for my WiiU, my 3DS, my PS4. I own games for all those systems when there's no piracy and the MOMENT they're hacked I never buy another game again.

 

[DSoryu]

"... with no impact on the gaming experience..."

PC players know this is UTERLY BULLSHIT hahahaha.

 

[BlueFox gui]

ah, see, the performance in this glorified tablet isn't shit enough, let's shitfy it even more

 

[linuxares]

Yeah it's also gonna be making an unnecessary number of calls home whenever you're online. Might even require validation for single-player games.

Probably not. How else would it work offline?

 

[Sono]

I hate this absolute lie that people "would just pirate the game regardless"

It's simply not true. Before the switch was hacked I had spent $600 on switch games. I bought about 20 games over the first 12 months. The second it got hacked I never paid for another game. 4 years on not a penny spent. The same for my WiiU, my 3DS, my PS4. I own games for all those systems when there's no piracy and the MOMENT they're hacked I never buy another game again.

By that I meant those who would never pay for the game, no matter the circumstances.

I excluded people like you who start pirating as soon as it becomes easy, as they are a minority compared to the rest of the pirates.