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

 

[TomSwitch]

This late in the game = ultra fail.

Actually it is not, emulation is getting good enough only not too long ago. The potential audience is unlimited unlike CFW which is limited to the number of unpatched Switch out there. Emulator can potentially run forever unlike unpatched Switch which will die out. No, ultra is perhaps too strong a word and it's actually not late if one consider the life of emulation which can be decades. MAME is running very very old games and is kind of ever popular in a sense.

I don't like the development anymore than anybody here. For argument sake what you said isn't true though I would rather it be true, the facts of the matter don't change by what I prefer.

Did the likes of Netflix reduce video piracy, I suspect it did. Netflix provide a superior experience at a reasonable cost. That should be the way to go rather than made paying customer suffers for virtually no benefit. Take the case of MAME, how much money is on the table if there were no MAME?

I am not sure if I got it correctly but as a part of the game, Denuvo for Switch is and only runs at user state? That doesn't sound safe at all as a rigged kernel/driver could easily get it disabled or spoofed. If you aren't at kernel level then you can't anti anything.
Even if the anti-piracy/anti-cheating is running at the kernel level, there are also cheats that actively does kernel confrontation but that is not that common as one step wrong, no matter the anti-cheat side or cheat side, bang, BSOD.

Can't prevent hacking but making the game unplayable is very very easy. Destroying fun for many people (most of them paying customers) will be easily achieved.

 

[smf]

Emulation is legal.

Emulation can be legal, emulating commercial switch games is illegal.

You probably won't accept that, but it's true. If you were interested in why, then you would already know.

 

[mituzora]

Emulation can be legal, emulating commercial switch games is illegal.

You probably won't accept that, but it's true. If you were interested in why, then you would already know.

DMCA at least here in the US protects citizens by allowing you to make your own copy of your media. It's when it's distributed is when it becomes illegal, so in theory, you can legally emulate commercial Switch games as long as you rip the copy yourself and don't go and download it on a warez site.

 

[Freqman]

in the grand scheme of things, the amount of people who actually own a hacked switch has to be such a small percentage of their userbase..

As for people who would set up an emulator on their pc to play switch roms? I don't know how much of a dent it actually makes in their sales.. i can't imagine it be that big of a problem. I think most people wouldn't even know how or where to find and set up a switch emulator.

 

[urbanman2004]

What a joke... Bad enough that the Switch's specs are pretty much gimped to run modern-day titles w/o making tons of compromises compared to its other console counterparts, but it has been proven that Denuvo hurts performance on PC game titles based on many users' gameplay experience (mine included), comparing 'before' to 'after' the removal of Denuvo, and if game studios/devs plan/attempt to implement this cancer of DRM onto their Switch games, they might as well be burning their own money.

 

[urbanman2004]

DMCA at least here in the US protects citizens by allowing you to make your own copy of your media. It's when it's distributed is when it becomes illegal, so in theory, you can legally emulate commercial Switch games as long as you rip the copy yourself and don't go and download it on a warez site.

But its Nintendo's fault for not implementing a higher degree of protection onto their games and hardware to ward off hackers.

 

[Freqman]

What a joke... Bad enough that the Switch's specs are pretty much gimped to run modern-day titles w/o making tons of compromises compared to its other console counterparts, but it has been proven that Denuvo hurts performance on PC game titles based on many users' gameplay experience (mine included), comparing 'before' to 'after' the removal of Denuvo, and if game studios/devs plan/attempt to implement this cancer of DRM onto their Switch games, they might as well be burning their own money.

A lot of companies patch their games after like 4-5 months to get rid of Denuvo, usually because it causes problems and people complain.

 

[gisel213]

Denuvo Lolwut? Trillion's of unpatched switches hmmm = Kernel Access Sniffing Execution Code Output C'mon Nintendo... Can't the devs see everything going on i.e how roms or legitimate cartridges load up while in CFW. Meaning they can see how the so called denuvo works??? Give it a month this reminds me of those AP25 checks on DS titles like Bowser's Inside Story. I can see a universal patcher that will locate and remove it yupp just my 2 cents... Oh Yeah Long Live Emulation btw here's something cool check out nintendo switch running on a 1st generation intel xeon man this is running on a $7 to $10 dollar CPU

 

[smf]

DMCA at least here in the US protects citizens by allowing you to make your own copy of your media.

Show me, because I think you're mistaken. In fact that was a criticism of DMCA, that it overrode previous law that did allow backups.

Switch emulators specifically violate the DMCA, regardless of whether you download the game or backup your own cartridge.

https://legalbeagle.com/12719622-dmca-backup-of-copyrighted-content.html

Circumvention​

What the DMCA does, through DRM, is make the circumvention illegal, not the actual copying. So, now, even if you own your DVD and are trying to make a personal copy for when, not if, your children scratch the original, or you want to make a copy to watch on your computer, it is illegal to bypass DRM protection measures to make your backup. Circumvention means avoiding, bypassing, removing, deactivating or impairing a technological measure without permission from the copyright owner. This includes bypassing iTunes DRM to copy the music files you bought or using software to break DRM locks to copy DVDs.

 

[EnigmaExodus]

My bet it will look for specific things like cpu speed etc

To get a glimpse of what these protections could be look to the Wii with the 'anti-counterfeit' protections of the HackMii installer and Homebrew channel. Could remember something about the loader for either having been able to observe the fact certain IOS APIs were not stubbed correctly in emulation among other telltale signs.

Do not know much about the Horizon OS and its emulation but if certain APIs perform or return differently on emulation versus a real console you can bet certain people are going to utilise this.

 

[mituzora]

Show me, because I think you're mistaken. In fact that was a criticism of DMCA, that it overrode previous law that did allow backups.

Switch emulators specifically violate the DMCA, regardless of whether you download the game or backup your own cartridge.

https://legalbeagle.com/12719622-dmca-backup-of-copyrighted-content.html

Circumvention​

What the DMCA does, through DRM, is make the circumvention illegal, not the actual copying. So, now, even if you own your DVD and are trying to make a personal copy for when, not if, your children scratch the original, or you want to make a copy to watch on your computer, it is illegal to bypass DRM protection measures to make your backup. Circumvention means avoiding, bypassing, removing, deactivating or impairing a technological measure without permission from the copyright owner. This includes bypassing iTunes DRM to copy the music files you bought or using software to break DRM locks to copy DVDs.

well by this logic, emulators should be illegal too because they bypass CRC lockout chips, and other means of DRM. removing the CIC lockout chip from an NES is illegal too.

Besides, I never said anything about DRM circumvention, I said that the COPYING was legal.

 

[Kioku]

Emulation can be legal, emulating commercial switch games is illegal.

You probably won't accept that, but it's true. If you were interested in why, then you would already know.

Amazing how ignorant you are without even realizing it...

 

[shadow121678]

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

i give it 8 hours

 

[nl255]

I am not sure if I got it correctly but as a part of the game, Denuvo for Switch is and only runs at user state? That doesn't sound safe at all as a rigged kernel/driver could easily get it disabled or spoofed. If you aren't at kernel level then you can't anti anything.
Even if the anti-piracy/anti-cheating is running at the kernel level, there are also cheats that actively does kernel confrontation but that is not that common as one step wrong, no matter the anti-cheat side or cheat side, bang, BSOD.


When devs need to consider external security on a console, that means the DRM provided by the console sucks, like really sucks.
But third-party or self-made DRM precautions could date back to PSX era.

Of course it only runs in userland, do you really think Nintendo is going to allow games to load kernel drivers that could bypass their security? Hell, even 3DS games aren't allowed to use self modifying code which is why emulators that use dynamic recompilation have to be run either under recent version of Luma or as a cia. It is highly unlikely that Nintendo allows self modifying code on the switch at all. Hell, it wouldn't surprise me if that was the reason behind some of the poor performace of game ports on consoles, on the PC they can use JIT interpreters for Lua and such but on modern consoles they have to use a pure interpreter which is much slower.

 

[realtimesave]

Actually it is not, emulation is getting good enough only not too long ago. The potential audience is unlimited unlike CFW which is limited to the number of unpatched Switch out there. Emulator can potentially run forever unlike unpatched Switch which will die out. No, ultra is perhaps too strong a word and it's actually not late if one consider the life of emulation which can be decades. MAME is running very very old games and is kind of ever popular in a sense.

I don't like the development anymore than anybody here. For argument sake what you said isn't true though I would rather it be true, the facts of the matter don't change by what I prefer.

Did the likes of Netflix reduce video piracy, I suspect it did. Netflix provide a superior experience at a reasonable cost. That should be the way to go rather than made paying customer suffers for virtually no benefit. Take the case of MAME, how much money is on the table if there were no MAME?


Can't prevent hacking but making the game unplayable is very very easy. Destroying fun for many people (most of them paying customers) will be easily achieved.

It's still fail after 25+TB of games that have come out LOL

 

[smf]

Amazing how ignorant you are without even realizing it...

I can see why you think that, but I am not sure you sufficiently understood the discussion.

well by this logic, emulators should be illegal too because they bypass CRC lockout chips, and other means of DRM. removing the CIC lockout chip from an NES is illegal too.

Besides, I never said anything about DRM circumvention, I said that the COPYING was legal.

CIC isn't covered by DMCA, “[n]o person shall circumvent a technological measure that effectively controls access to a work protected under this title.”. CIC doesn't control access to the copyrighted data in the NES/N64 cartridge.

How are you going to backup up the cart without circumventing DRM? Even atmosphere circumvents DRM.

Any legal right to backup up carts is overridden by DMCA, the only exemption for video game consoles is when repairing optical drives.

With respect to video game consoles, the recommended exemption is limited to one specific type of repair—namely, repair of optical drives. To be clear, if a console does not contain an optical drive, it is not eligible under this exemption; and if circumvention is done to repair any part of a console other than the optical drive, that activity too falls outside the scope of the exemption. Narrowing the exemption for consoles in this manner appropriately balances the specific adverse effects experienced by users against opponents' legitimate concerns over links between console circumvention and piracy.

 

[smf]

i can't imagine it be that big of a problem. I think most people wouldn't even know how or where to find and set up a switch emulator.

Linus tech tips did a video on it, which has been viewed 1,824,371 times. If each of those viewers pirated one game each, then that would more than justify using denuvo.

With a global population of 7.97 and switch sales of 111 million, I'm not sure that "most people" is a useful metric.

I'm sure there are things that you care about in your life, that I wouldn't consider that big of a problem either. You can't tell game developers how important something is.

Denuvo Lolwut? Trillion's of unpatched switches hmmm = Kernel Access Sniffing Execution Code Output C'mon Nintendo... Can't the devs see everything going on i.e how roms or legitimate cartridges load up while in CFW. Meaning they can see how the so called denuvo works???

What do you mean "so called?"

How good it will be depends entirely on how it works, which we don't know yet. If it can rely on attestation techniques that are difficult to reproduce in an emulator and it's buried deep in the game, then each game could take months to reverse. At that point, you probably have skills that can be rewarded far more than getting to play some nintendo switch shovelware.

Or they might just have a if (!validSystem()) ShowMessage("Go Away") that can easily be patched out in five minutes.

From a technology point of view, I hope it's more the former, as it will be more like the scene in the 80's/90's

 

[lolcatzuru]

ill be honest, im not really sure HOW this will work. I mean i understand ( generally) how AP tends to work, im not sure i see an avenue here. How do you secure the keys to the kingdom the person you are securing against, already has all the keys.

 

[Xzi]

Any legal right to backup up carts is overridden by DMCA, the only exemption for video game consoles is when repairing optical drives.

Which is why the DMCA has always been on shaky legal ground from the start, and enforcement of it is largely voluntary. It's just a bunch of corporations trying to avoid stepping on each others' feet.

 

[Guacaholey]

A funny line in that post: "One Google search will show you hundreds of free emulators you can download and use to access a Nintendo Switch game"

Hundreds! There are hundreds of emulators! Forget Yuzu and Ryujinx, there's hundreds of other emulators that work perfectly!

I also like that they're claiming there are several forums dedicated to (specifically) pirating Switch games, with the most popular each (so more than one) having over 1,000,000 followers. The Switch has currently shipped 111 million units. This isn't 111 million sales to end users, this is sales to retailers. The Switch sales were only 36M to retailers before the revised model was released. I'd be surprised if there are 50 million of the original model out there. I can't imagine more 500,000 people out of that have modded consoles, let alone actually pirated games. Videos on Switch CFW installation have 50-200K views for the most part, excluding outliers like when Linus Tech Tips makes videos about emulators. Even the popular videos on how to set up Yuzu have a couple hundred thousand views each. There aren't millions of people out there pirating Switch games. I'd be surprised if there's anything over 1 million. I don't think DS piracy was as bad as people think either, cause I only remember a few people I knew having R4 cards.

This is all just a scare tactic by the company behind Denuvo so publishers will pay to have Denuvo put into their games. The only possible way I can see it actually working without impacting performance is if every time the game starts or resumes from the home menu it checks a hash. But we already know Denuvo impacts performance on PC despite claiming otherwise, and they don't care about how the end user who pays for the software is affected.