The first of the tools Denuvo is offering to Switch developers is Nintendo Switch Emulator Protection, a “revolutionary technology to protect games launching on Nintendo Switch from piracy”.
According to Denuvo, the new tech can be applied to Switch games to block the ability to play them on PC emulators.
“Even if a game is protected against piracy on its PC version, the version released on Nintendo Switch can be emulated from day one and played on PC, therefore bypassing the strong protections offered on the PC version,” the company says. “This can happen with any of the numerous games available on Nintendo Switch.
Personally, I’m not much of a PC gamer, so I don’t have a lot of personal experience with Denuvo; but this sounds pretty concerning.
My understanding is that by Denuvo LoJacking into every part of the game, it seriously hampers performance; and the Switch is underpowered enough as it is. I can only imagine how poorly games will run if the Switch has to devote resources to Denuvo as well.
Plus, from a preservation standpoint this is terrible too. Even if the studio drops Denuvo down the line, it will forever be included on the cartridge. This means that in the future, the only way to play this game will have to be an emulated copy, since you won’t be able to get the update to clear the (no longer supported) Denuvo from the game.
Exactly. But AFAIK every Denuvo game eventually gets cracked, so at least we will have the pirate copies. From a preservation standpoint, a dumped ROM is much better than a physical cartridge anyway, since it’s more portable and easier to back up. It’s the contents of the cartridge minus the physical limitations.
There’s plenty of games which haven’t been cracked. More often than not, a game is updated to remove denuvo or a drm-free .exe is released accidentally.
It’s been hard to crack games and from what I’ve read, it now relies on one person and they have been a bit of a lunatic.
I hope most developers stay away from Denuvo on Switch. Devs already have to squeeze the thing for every fps they can get out of it, it really doesn’t need anything else bogging it down.
As a Switch owner, fuck this. This is reason enough for me to stop buying games on the Switch and go full piracy/emulation mode. I don’t have any Denuvo games on my PC and I am not having any on my Switch.
And yet my friends wonder why I play ancient games and indie games. Less shit I have to out go with
How is this going to affect battery life? Some of us don’t have the switch connected to power 24/7. Sounds like a bad idea for an underpowered handheld device.
It’ll probably rely on offline checks
Will be equivalent to steamdrm, uplay, etc
Is this some hardware they’re activating or software that’s going to hurt already struggling performance?
Software probably, it already hurts performance on PC versions.
It will hurt performance, yeah. DRM is evil.
Welp, I guess we’re going to be getting a DRM-breaking emulator accompanied by some weird new rant by Empress.
Was she the one who released an nfo where she went off on a random insane rant against trans people?
yes
it would be preferable to have someone other than her cracking denuvo lol
No one else is batshit insane enough to wanna warp their minds working with this garbage. She is already warped, so it doesn’t affect her. Much.
personally I think that theres loads of people with the skillset to do it, but they all have nice jobs in cybersecurity instead of cracking video games.
Surely a 1:1 emulator would just run DRM as expected and it would never know… Feels like it may stop day1 piracy via emulators but anything beyond I’m sure would be patched.
[This comment has been deleted by an automated system]
And like every other DRM, it’s just going to be something that the people who bought the game and play it unaltered will be forced to deal with in one way or another… while those who modify the game, emulate or pirate it, won’t. I love DRMs. Nothing like feeling like a sucker for actually buying the game and not cracking it.
