Fuck Nintendo. All they have done is ensure I never buy one of their products again.
Same! In fact, I have a switch, but tears of the kingdom was the last thing I bought for it.
I’ve skipped everything else. It’s not worth supporting an evil company.
I will always say this in these "Nintendo shuts down beloved fan project" threads: why don't the people working on these projects operate anonymously and release via torrent? I feel like I've been reading the same story for 20 years. It shouldn't come as a surprise to anyone at this point that Nintendo will come after you.
Because emulation is legal. It shouldn't have to be hidden. This was taken through the courts in 2001 with the Sony vs Bleem lawsuit.
What appears to be happening is Nintendo is abusing its power and money to make threats of legal action that these groups just can't afford to fight, even though they haven't done anything illegal. It should be coming as a surprise that Nintendo is coming for them, because this is completely legal, and not some fan game using Nintendo IP (which is what they normally shut down).
The Sony verdict didn’t establish emulation as legal
At most you find that it established using mods/creating derivatives is illegal
And on the low end it found that using pictures from competitors in advertising as comparison isn’t illegal
From what u understood It's a bit more complicated than that. Emulation is rather not illegal and in very thin ground.
Emulation might be legal, but it's software specifically designed to run illegal copies of the games.
I dislike Nintendo, but I can't blame them for taking down that kind of software development. They're still selling many of their old games through their own store for their own emulators. They're perhaps charging way too much for it and/or lock it behind a subscription wall, even if you ever bought the original copies. Absolute garbage business practice, but from the corporate point of view I can see why they go after emulators. Especially since it's easier to take those down than trying to go after all digital emulator copies of the games (if not impossible).
They're probably gonna try and set an example to scare off others trying to make new emulators too.
Edit: lol people really are shooting the messenger here.
Also, the amount of excuses that people have to make backups of their already purchased games is very weak. You damn well know that a vast majority of people don't use it for such reasons, the amount of people that still own original copies, and also have the hardware to even extract software for personal use must be like less than a percentage of the entire community using emulators. They're just people pirating games they never paid for. It's very naive to assume otherwise.
Nintendo didn't put legal pressure on emulator devs for decades at this point, which made devs less cautious about preserving their pseudonymity.
Now it's too late and they can't stop Nintendo from finding out who they are and which mistakes they did at some point over the years.
Maybe a new generation of emulator developers will be more protective of their identity, by using hosting providers like Njalla or privacy networks like i2p. The latter would limit access (as it requires i2p), which isn't desirable for most users.
While that's true, it's incredibly reductive to a baseline of "nintendo should win because they are powerful and others aren't"
How many of these emulators were shut down through legal action or threat of legal action? I mean, the list goes on and on
https://emulation.gametechwiki.com/index.php/PlayStation_emulators
https://emulation.gametechwiki.com/index.php/PlayStation_2_emulators
https://emulation.gametechwiki.com/index.php/PlayStation_3_emulators
https://www.ppsspp.org/
https://emulation.gametechwiki.com/index.php/PlayStation_Vita_emulators
https://emulation.gametechwiki.com/index.php/Xbox_emulators
https://emulation.gametechwiki.com/index.php/Xbox_360_emulatorsOh right, this happened https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sony_Computer_Entertainment,_Inc._v._Connectix_Corp.
Nintendo is using every action possible to stop switch emulation, because, unlike other console companies, they don't produce any advanced or specific hardware anymore, and they purely survive through their IP.
And because these are never finished projects. People can rant and rave about cloning the git all day, but without active, knowledgeable developers with the knowledge of the original dev team, these projects are dead. It's not about using the emulators as they exist today... it's about continuing to keep them working going forward. Anything that releases in the last year or two of the Switch's life is now at risk of being lost forever into Nintendo's archives.
This is the first time they've been suing emulator developers.
Yeah! And they've been so cool and supportive of the gaming community thus far, <3 nintendo https://www.thegamer.com/a-snapshot-of-nintendos-convoluted-legal-history/
There were so many Nintendo apologists when Yuzu was taken down because "Yuzu used actual nintendo source code, so that's why they were taken down, it won't happen to Ryujinx." Yet here we are. Nintendo is by far the shittiest company when it comes to protecting their IP, because it's all they have. Turns out, Mario is a fucking bootlicker
I don't understand how people think getting rid of emulators is good. Having emulators is better as a consumer than not having them at all, since it can give gamers more ways to play their games and might incentivize Nintendo to add features to compete with emulators (think better res and fps, mod support, save states, no online requirement).
Because a subset of people are and always will be idiots. Remember: some people think unions exist to steal your money, socialism is communist dictatorship propaganda, and privatization of government services is good for everybody.
Nintendo fanboys are a special breed of stupid, arguing with them about Nintendo's policies and anti consumer practices is just a wasted effort.
because it’s all they have
I'm not quite sure you fully understand what you said here, given your surrounding arguments. Nintendo literally cannot exist if they allow emulators without becoming just another Sony/Microsoft. And they cannot realistically compete against those two.
fuck Nintendo and fuck fanboys who defend them at every turn. breath of the wild was a 7/10 game
All the more reason to buy their next system at V1.0 with 0 games.
...keep it in the box for a year and keep an eye on a hack hitting the news.
Botw is easily a 9/10 for me . Totk too. I really like Nintendos take on open world. However, I still appreciate the other Zelda games a lot and I hope they don't completely abandon that linear formula
The world is interactive but bland. Except a few scenic vistas, there's nothing interesting about the botw's open world.
I desperately wanted a switch 2 and been gaming on my mac using emu and a handful of native games until release.
But at this point I'll probably pick up the ps5 or steam deck just to avoid these folks ^
I say this as a die-hard 3D Zelda fan:
I was soooo boooored in BOTW! There was no current main story. It all happened in the past. You're basically playing through the climax the entire time. And I hated it. I mainly play Zelda for the story, and this was a very poorly told one.
TOTK was somewhat better because it gave us better characters (I will die for Tulin), a bit better characterization (I enjoyed Zelda getting a lot more fleshed out this time), and a somewhat better story... but there were still way too many reused story beats. That is to say, the story was fleshed out much better, but they still reused the overall story structure from BOTW (get the memories fight the four bosses in the four temples, etc.). They did add a fifth temple and a mid-game story thing, but that's mostly it. They also didn't even acknowledge how similar some things were to their counterparts in BOTW (ex. the
MaliceGloom), which really bothered me. Also, some stuff just felt... unfinished. Like the reporter bird who, by the end of it all, just ends up pondering and trying to figure himself out... and that's it. It felt like setup for DLC, but there wasn't any.... That was a very unintentionally long rant.
To summarize: hated BOTW; somewhat enjoyed TOTK, though it could've been much better.
BOTW is not a real Zelda game IMHO.
'offered an agreement'
So bribed them?
Probably more of a "Do x, y, and z and we agree not to sue you about it"
If Nintendo is smart, they should offer a job. Those guys most probably know more about those systems than many of their employees. And also Nintendo develops emulators for their online service. They could clearly profit by hiring them.
Make good sense
They sent people to his house
I'm Brazil
motherfucker had goons sicced on him
FWIW Brazil has the largest population of Japanese people outside of Japan.
Honestly that in itself sounds illegal. What was the emulator's license? The guy taking the money isn't the only code contributor.
I'm a bit salty this was apparently announced through Discord. Was it even posted anywhere else?
The future of social media is fragmented siloes, I guess.
I wouldn't have an issue with many different communications platforms if they didn't all require an account (also Discord not being indexable sucks).
Discord is even worse, as you need to find an invite to a specific Discord, and sometimes go through a lengthy sign up process for each Discord.
Some won't let you sign up without a phone #.
I will never not be pissed off that the overwhelming majority of communities that made the internet vibrant especially when nerding out about niche stuff just happily moved to discord and foreclosed their futures.
Everytime I get down on the fediverse I think about what discord did to online communities I loved and I get fired up again.
Yeah, this is a big part of why I stopped using discord recently. Not yet sure of any alternatives but leaving is step one.
Yeah, why don't they send an owl to each interested party?
Some of us like to be contacted via cute and fluffy snow owls...
You are a wizard Joe!...
...but an average one.
Yeah... even worse, it appears the admin didn't even announce it, this is just one of the developers clarifying what the admin probably did.
As someone who uses Ryujinx, I literally spent the afternoon curious about an error I was getting while updating about the build server being down "probably because it's building a new version, check back in a few minutes", only to find a Twitter screenshot of this linked in slack that evening.
Twitter screenshot of this linked in slack that evening.
The modern internet in a nutshell, lol.
As with Yuzu, I won't be buying any more switch games. I'll still be playing switch games, and so will my friends, but we won't my buying them.
Honestly, I've lived watching emulators for decades. They can come and go and there's always more, even ones that aren't forks. Just today I was reminiscing on my first emulators, zsnes, no$gmb and nesticle. Y'all remember the peaceful zsnes snowfall? Good times.
I used all of those. Nesticle had that bloody hand as a cursor. Also, Genecyst for Sega Genesis/Master System emulation.
Remember when emulation really blew up after UltraHLE successfully ran Ocarina of Time? That was when I first became aware of emulators (IIRC, it was front page news on IGN). Nintendo filed a lawsuit and took UltraHLE down, but we all know how that turned out (at this point, I believe I've lost count of how many N64 emulators were developed in the ensuing years). This recent Yuzu/Ryujinx drama is just history repeating itself. Emulation will never die.
There's a very very interesting story about nesticle but unfortunately I've forgotten it. Some kind of drama, a bit edge lord stuff, and I think someone died? It's actually one of the first emulators, ever, though.
It was a very niche community back then though, long before IGN caught wind. Weird I only found out because of a crazy conspiracy theory uncle, though. Thanks for reminding me about UltraHLE, though!
People think emulator protections in the law are stronger than they really are. Sony vs Connectix made emulation legal, but it wasn't heard by the supreme court. PS1 games weren't encrypted and relied on other methods like disc wobble to prevent piracy...so without proactively violating any measures you could just not include that check in your competing emulator and play retail discs without breaking any laws.
In steps the DMCA anti-circumvention laws for bypassing video game / console encryption measures, which is an even bigger untested minefield without precedent in favor of emulation. And since games are default encrypted on new consoles and arguably not subject to exemption (at least while still supported) it really might be a disaster to fight it.
Nintendo is a dick but it's not in our interest or theirs to really push the boundary on the status quo. The get to slap suit whatever they want taken down, we get to play the emulation hydra game where it's still legally grey.
Personally I don’t give a flying Fuck what the law says, breaking copyright is the only thing preventing the world from being more of a dystopian nightmare with subscription mice and trains that break down if you take them to a mechanic and I can’t wait for someone in china or India to take the Open source code and make a better emulator.
If they had an actual plan or history of preserving games I'd not care about emulator development. But with the industry track record being so poor we need emulators if for nothing else for preservation.
So much culturally interesting data has already been lost to time which I bet future historians would absolutely love to have access to. The internet archive is missing much of the early internet, while old iPhone and Android apps are largely unable to be run even if you have the APK/IPA required,
I own a Nintendo, and I haven't used it in years. I bought some games which were ridiculously priced compared to what I was used to on steam. I'm rather annoyed they keep their games console exclusive for this reason, they have like a monopoly of a market they control, it feels.
I was gonna get some more games to put on it, but with then shutting down these emulators, I think I'll use one of those instead. Fuck Nintendo.
Yeah I haven't used my switch in a long time. I think I might have power surged it, but I don't really care enough to even double check.
I have a switch emulator on my external HD along with a bunch of other emulators. When I get my next PC I'll just play whatever switch games I want on that.
Obligatory fuck Nintendo, but I also blame the selfish dumbfucks who keep posting videos of themselves playing unreleased games on YouTube and Reddit. If you want nice things contingent on having software which exists in a legal gray area, don't openly poke the litigious hornets' nest.
That's inevitable though, blame them all you want those people will always exist
I need to remind some people here who don't seem to understand something.
Forks may be dead and development may not be as fast as the original.
However - you must think about the future and not the situation right now. Yuzu and Ryujinx sources will be invaluable information for people making emulators later down the line.
It's a matter of when and not if someone picks it up again.
Agree. Was thinking exactly the same this afternoon. If there would be a new generational console evolution (like it happened from the Wii to the Switch), then the when would be much faster. However, since it seems Nintendo is going for a Switch 2, I am just sad that Switch emulators will be halted for several years :/
Yeah hopefully.
I said this in another thread; I hope whoever picks it up keeps their dev team anonymous or prepares to enter this era's legal battle, especially since it was supposedly already decided with an old Sony lawsuit against emulators.
Yeah, this is dumb.
I own original hardware and buy 100% of my games but sometimes you just wanna run games that aren't originally crossplatform on your Steamdeck for convenience, or on a PC with resolution upscaling, or for ease of streaming the gameplay, or tons of other legitimate reasons.
Nintendo has some great IP and gameplay, and I guarantee you their sales are not meaningfully hurt by people who pirate/emulate games. Those people were never their customers anyway. If anything the emulation community enabled streamers to boost the popularity of their games. (People like PointCrow did more for the sustained popularity of BOTW than all of Nintendo's marketing efforts combined)
I own original hardware and buy 100% of my games but sometimes you just wanna run games that aren't originally crossplatform on your Steamdeck for convenience, or on a PC with resolution upscaling, or for ease of streaming the gameplay, or tons of other legitimate reasons.
Can't wait until our courts decide that, due to the prevalence of "remasters" that are just upscaled ROMs running on emulators, that this is no longer considered "fair use."
Fair use has nothing to do with this. Fair use has to do with distributing a copyrighted work. Emulators are (ideally) running completely original code that isn't copied from the company's source code. This is why, for example, PCSX2 has you use "your own" PS2 BIOS instead of including it.
The PS2 BIOS is copyrighted, so it's illegal to distribute it (and it's never been "fair use" to distribute it). But it's not illegal to do whatever you want with it (including dump it) as long as you own the console you're dumping it from and as long as you don't upload it to the internet for the purpose of distributing it to others. As far as the law is concerned, you bought the console and can do to it whatever you wish, provided you keep it to yourself and don't distribute it to others.
Games fall under the same category. You're free to dump your games and play them however you wish, provided you don't distribute the dumped game to other people. However, companies are also free to implement measures (DRM) to stop you from doing that as much as possible, likely because they know more people would illegally distribute them if they didn't.
I'm one of those weirdos who actually dumps all my own games with my own modded launch Switch mainly for preservation purposes.
But then TotK came out and performed so poorly on the console itself, I exported my save to play on PC and Steam Deck. Every part of my Switch emulation journey has been legal and by-the-book: dumped my own firmware, my own keys, and my own games.
Fuck Nintendo for bullying these developers.
I know it's not happening, but I'd love it if Nintendo went the way of Sega, and just made games. They've always been hit and miss with their consoles anyway, it's the games people love. Just fuck it, start releasing games for multiple platforms and focus on what you're actually fucking good. Pipe dream, I know
I imagine Nintendo could make a tonne selling Zelda games for PC for 1.5x what they normally charge, simply for performance and controller compatibility.
Nintendo DS and Switch are the second and third most sold consoles ever, respectively. Gameboy and GB Colour comes in fourth of you count them together. Wii is sixth or seventh depending on if you group the above.
I think people like their consoles.
Oh I know they do great on some (most?) of their consoles, but I still think they do better at actual games than they do at consoles. Also, aren't consoles almost always money losers, anyway? Like, they take a hit so that they can sell more games, which actually make them the money? Or is Nintendo the exception to that rule or thumb?
They've had some flops...Wii U, DSi, Virtualboy...but they ain't no game.com. Way more hits than misses in the console realm.
Now and then I bought Nintendo games for my nephew. This stopped right now.
I mean. I understand the sentiment but I don't think your nephew will understand 😅 you should keep buying games for your nephew bro. I'll stop buying games in his place
I'm sure there's plenty of other things they'd appreciate too. Maybe instead they could help them move over to PC even.
Teach your nephew about the evilness of Nintendo and why he shouldn't support them anymore.
I think anyone still in the scene will want to lay low for a while and work in the shadows. Only releasing after a few years.
I hope they dont go for dolphin or cemu claiming that certain games are in their e-shop for the switch 2 release.
Either way I think we should start backing up emulators and their source and require files regularly as a fallback.
I hope they dont go for dolphin or cemu claiming that certain games are in their e-shop for the switch 2 release.
That's exactly what I'm afraid of
I mean, all of these emulators are already very well archived and available from several sources, not to mention downloaded to the devices of millions of people. I highly doubt we would be in danger of losing any of them even if Nintendo were to sue literally all of them overnight. Well, except for things like Github issues and pull requests, nobody bothers to archive those unfortunately.
But yeah, IMO the danger is moreso that the attacks are leading to a massive chilling effect and loss of developer talent in the emulation community.
What do they think they achieve with this?
Forcing people to purchase the Switch 2 for their handheld needs, obviously </sarcasm>
@nichtburningturtle @mr_MADAFAKA not sure, there's already like 500 forks up, may the one with the coolest name win.
it's in the repo for basically any linux distribution too so the source and executables are mirrored on literally thousands of servers and easily downloadable, so absolute worst case scenario it's version froze at 1.1.1388 for the time being.
all that happened to yuzu is a slight name change so i don't expect much more here.
all that happened to yuzu is a slight name change so i don't expect much more here.
All of the commits for Suyu, the most active yuzu "fork" this year is like 20 different readme/URL changes, lol. Nintendo 100% succeeded in killing it.
@nichtburningturtle @mr_MADAFAKA confirmed, the full git history up to yesterday is preserved and already mirrored all over, so it's all good 👍
More like may the one with actual development and updates win
What kinda question is that? Mobbing the developers out of switch emulation.
The only two options where you and ryujinx and they are both taken out, all the forks are jokes because the developers that had real abilities worked on the main projects.
And then nobody ever made another emulator for Nintendo products again and this definitely does not foreshadow an endless game of whack-a-mole powered by spite.
Surely not.
Go to hell Nintendo. I will never buy anything from them again and I will advise gamers I know to do the same.
Is there still an alternative left for the switch?
Both ryujinx and yuzu are open source, there are loads of forks
Suyu is a fork of Yuzu: https://suyu.dev/
Imagine not developing a controversial emulator anonymously...
doesn't matter if they don't know who you are, Nintendo can still offer you a ton of money to delete it. it wasn't necessarily legal threats or I assume they would have sent the cease and desist to GitHub and gotten the repo removed first
You're not wrong. I just think that if you believe there is a good chance of having legal problems for your project (I don't see why they wouldn't have thought that), then it makes the most sense to do it anonymously from the beginning to avoid getting sued. Yes they can still possibly offer you money, but it might not be worth revealing your identity at that point either, as any continued development could be assumed to be you, and then you must defend yourself in court if they sue, even if it was never you.
Emulators have been legal in the past I thought. Sure, there's something to be said about common sense and developing emulators for current generation platforms.
IIRC, they're legal as long as they don't explicitly distribute any of the copyright owner's own code or files. That's why, for example, PCSX2 requires you to dump "your own" PS2 BIOS and doesn't provide any itself. Because PCSX2 doesn't distribute the PS2 BIOS and because its way of talking to the BIOS doesn't copy the source code, that emulator is in the clear.
Some modern emulators (ex. Ryujinx) don't even need BIOS files (or whatever they're called on Switch) to be able to run games. But they also don't use Nintendo's original code to run the game.
Take all this with a grain of salt. I'm saying it from memory.
Yes, I wasn't trying to refute that. But Nintendo can still ruin your life fighting a losing battle if they wanted to. To me it's just not worth the risk of putting your name on it.
Whole reimplementations have survived. IBM BIOS was the only original BIOS for PCs. Phoenix Technologies had a team read the source code for IBM BIOS (it was published in the user manual for troubleshooting) and wrote a specification for it which a different team wrote software from, making IBM compatible machines possible
I don't know what law an emulator could be killed under, unless a license holder breached the user license as part of the development
I've always wondered that. Why not just throw a git repo behind I2P or onto IPFS? It's like they want to be attacked.
Attention and recognition.
Well that sucks.. I'm still pissed at Roblox for their DRM rug pull on Linux. Didn't stop the bots and hackers for more than two weeks anyways - bet Ryujinx 2.0 will be out soon too.
Anyone know if DRM is cracked on Roblox yet? Just a yes or no I can find it nevermind I'll go look
Not yet you need android emu to do it like sober
sober works.
Yesss! Closed source (not surprising let's not share the recipe with Roblox devs) and only available as flatpak but I'll take it! Thanks bru
The last version released is 1.1.1403. Easy to find with a google search.
I've already found two repos that successfully copied everything over before the main repo disappeared. I even built a working copy of Ryujinx from one of them. I'd probably find several more easily if I tried hard enough.
I don't even use emulators for Switch because mine is hacked, but I felt the need to get the last Yuzu and Ryujinx on principle.
Why is Nintendo in particular this aggressive against emulators? Why haven't we heard of Sony going after PCSX2 and RPCS3, or Microsoft going after Xenia and Xemu?
It is likely due to age and popularity. At this point PCSX2 is the only widely popular emulator you've listed, but is older, in the same way Dolphin is old and less of a concern of harming their limelight. That isn't to say those other emulators aren't making waves lately, but there is a window between age and popularity that makes this software a prime target. Especially emulators for current gen, which has been historically very rare, and when it did exist were no where near as good as CEMU, Yuzu, and Ryujinx were.
I think this also shows how underpowered Nintendo consoles are; the Switch is essentially a slightly upgraded Wii U, which itself was only marginally better than the PS3 and Xbox 360! If Nintendo really wanted to combat piracy, all they had to do was beef up their flagship console to the point where it's hard to emulate.
Nintendo sucks that's why
According to what i've read around, the Switch 2 will be retro-compatible with the Switch and a big sellout will be possibility run all the old games in full hd with higher frames (something emulators already do better). Also this may have been used to adapt current emulators to the new console games.
Because none of those emulate current generation systems.
People act weirdly entitled about Nintendo product, throw shitfits when Nintendo reacts exactly like Sony or Microsoft would to them doing the same thing, then act extra hurt that Nintendo did it.
Still on Flathub though.
Yuzu was like that soon after being taken down. I assume Flathub has some sort of delay.
These asstards really hate fun.
The SWITCH, is my last Nintendo product I will own.
The Steam Deck is the last nintendo console I'll need
Guys quick a question. At the moment i have Ryujinx installed on my deck through Emudeck. Will it disappear with my next update???
Nah, Yuzu is still working fine on mine. Basically, if you had the emulator installed prior to the takedown, EmuDeck will continue to use it.
Which is honestly a pretty good argument for just installing every single emulator (even if you never think you’ll use them!) because they don’t really take up that much space, and you could potentially lose access to them if you never bothered before a takedown.
Historically, no.
When yuzu went down Emudeck was very specific that they will not remove any emulators that you have already installed.
I'm glad it was done amicably to everyone but the gamers who seem to have their life support connected to these projects.
To them I hope they'll some day grow up and learn that when the ball owner decides to take the ball and go home it's game over, they aren't beholden to you, if you want to make your own ball feel free to do so. Appreciate the time you had with it, and play a different game, or wait for it to come back.
The guy I bought the ball from 20 years ago thinks he still owns it because he's a dunbass. Nintendo's assinine legal theories have never been tested because nobody has an incentive to fight them in court. That's why people are still streaming gameplay on twitch. Nintendo isn't going to sue Amazon because they'll face the possibility of setting a precedent and never being able to make idiotic hamfisted legal arguments again.
I can't wait until you kids grow up and realize you're not entitled to everything.
Ok Boomer
I agree. We should realize the following:
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There are things we are not entitled to.
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There are things we are entitled to.
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There is Nintendo's opinion on which is which.
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There's someone else's opinion on which is which.
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There's law which should be a dignified compromise between these.
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The law may or may not be such a compromise.
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Our obligations before law mirror our rights.
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Our engagement with law mirrors our participation in forming it.
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We have been robbed of that ability and raise our voice where it matters.
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Hence Nintendo's opinion and said law don't matter shit.
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‘Free’ always tastes better. It’s my favourite word. Free. It’s free. For free. 0 dollars. Gratis. Free of cost. On the house. Never had buyers remorse from acquiring something for free
My second favourite is ‘Cheap’
Especially when the cheap or free service is better than the expensive service.
who said they where entitled to this. Nentendo is the one who is acting entitled, Netendo did not put in any work, employees at nentendo did, but they where not payed the full value of their labor. Copy right for ever and ever was only 20 years now its essentaly forever, no way for these to legaly enter the public domain.
Given the 2 sides I would say Nentendo, who has more money than god, is the entitled ones
Entitled? Nintendo didn't produce this code nor did they make this, what exactly do you think is being demanded of Nintendo?
