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It’s a tale as old as the Switch itself. Nintendo has a big game coming up, yet rather than having to wait until the release date, gamers – should they be so inclined, and many are – can simply download a leaked version of the ROM from countless places on the internet.
It happened with Breath of the Wild, Tears of the Kingdom, Echoes of Wisdom, Pokemon, and now, surprising nobody, Mario and Luigi: Brothership is all over the torrent sites an astonishing two weeks before release. That’s bad, even by Switch leaks standards. From memory Tears of the Kingdom was eight days.
Now Nintendo has crushed from existence Switch emulators Yuzu and Rjujinx in terms of downloads, but existing versions are still installed on countless PCs and Steam Decks the world over. And apparently, Brothership works just fine. It also works just fine on modded original Switch hardware. No emulator required. So it’s happened again.
The eradication of the emulators may stop new people from seeking out how to do it, but it doesn’t fix the problem. Far from it.
Indeed, Nintendo’s actions around Switch and DS emulation have irked the emu community – which, don’t get me wrong, deserved it in some respects and nobody should really be upset that Nintendo wants to protect its assets, but there are some powerful enemies to make out there and there are currently seemingly a lot of people out there who want to hit back. We have already had the hack of Pokemon dev Game Freak and now this super early leak of the next big Nintendo game? Are they all connected, nobody knows, but what we do know is that the games keep being leaked. And aside from fanboys, Nintendo is a not popular corporate overlord right now.
We have covered before why Nintendo potentially finds it hard to clamp down on ROM leaks. The cartridges are sent out well in advance to retail and reviewers under embargo and it only takes one to have connections to the pirating community well, the game is out two weeks ahead of time.
The issue for Nintendo is the Switch is not the only portable that can play Switch games now
Even back in the Amiga days software houses were digitally fingerprinting early copies of games sent to reviewers to help track leaks. Cable broadcasters fingerprint their live sport on many occasions so they can track back to the box where an illegal stream may be originating from, but even these methods would not stop the kid in the games shop from uploading the ROM online.
There have been theories that Switch 2 games may use the same protection and format as the compromised original Switch and this might explain the determination to halt development on the existing Switch emulators. We think that’s unlikely, but retaining a cartridge-based format is always asking for trouble.
While it is true many PC players of Switch games on emulation probably would not have bought the game anyway and don’t own a Switch, the sudden arrival of handhelds such as the Steam Deck or ROG Ally being able to play the games, and play them better in many cases suddenly took away the Switch’s one trump card right before the launch of a new machine – portability.
It’s a huge headache for Nintendo that is not going to be solved solely by removing the emulators. Some of its issues are much closer to home. Games on pretty much all formats get pirated, but it is rare to see a pirated PC game days before release, easily obtainable by the masses at least.
Unless the Switch 2 has dramatically ramped up its protection, we are going to see Switch 2 games online before release. Even if nobody can actually play them yet. And how long will it be before they are?
