Exophase, the developer of the DraStic Nintendo DS emulator, has made a statement regarding the future of the emulator. DraStic has been a popular closed-source DS emulator on Android that has been available for many years. However, following the fallout from both Yuzu and Citra emulator's situations, Exophase has decided to take DraStic off of the Google Play Store. According to them, DraStic was already going to be pulled from the Google Play Store, regardless of current events, but that things made the issue, "more urgent".

Before the app gets delisted, Exophase has made DraStic free to download, when it had previously cost $4.99 to buy. They plan on eventually releasing the source code for the emulator as well. You can grab DraStic DS Emulator from the Google Play Store here.

Source: The Verge

 

[ShadowOne333]

It's not going open source though. It remains closed source but it will be free on gplay.
I wish it was open source but I bet it would've been taken down a lot soone, the devs must have somethin to hide

He does mention releasing the source in his Discord post tho, separate from making it free on Google Play:

...but I want to make it clear that I don't have any kind of financial incentive to not opening the source. Releasing the source in short order is something I fully intend on doing.

 

[Bladexdsl]

sounds like he wanted out anyway and this whole yuzu fiasco gave him the chance to do it

 

[Ryab]

Nintendo has been encrypting their games since at least the Wii, they waited this long to bring the pertinent law to attention.

This is not what I meant in the slightest.

 

[Jacobh]

An emulator moving from paid and closed source to open source and free is a good thing for emulation.

I’m not seeing how this specific example is a “win” for Nintendo. The situation with Yuzu kicked the Dev into gear on something that ideally would have been done earlier.

 

[LeyendaV]

No I disagree… and this is why we never have something and the good things we do have we don’t have anymore….
When someone is making no money from something it will not really be desire of the emulator will get abandoned. When someone is making a good amount of money from something the big corporations will shut them down.

If you guys not noticed this whole YUZU thing is going to make others jump ship. These guys not going to be risking their neck out for people sorry.

It looks like the beginning of the end

You are completely wrong. There are emulators that have been around since the 90s and still kicking today, that doesn't charge anything, some that don't even take tips, and are still there.
Making money out of a project only means the devs will put more time into it (or that they should, at least), and nothing else.

And my comment wasn't even related to the whole yuzu thing. But now that you brought it into the conversation without any reason, remember they had hardcore anti-piracy stance and even spammer bot on their Discord, and, at the same time, they (mostly still) have a Drive folder for devs, full or pirated roms, despite them ranking in plenty of cash to buy games; they got greedy and worked with a sketchy NSO clone, and tried to implement online play as Patreon-exclusive feature, removing it the very same day it was released out of finding out it was plain illegal; they stole code from other users, and from RyujiNX; they purposely delayed updates for Patreon-bucks and wasted months of time on the exclusive online that was trashed; they have been in permanent communication with YTubers and "content creators" since the beginning, exchanging favors and possibly money, in affiliations that were never disclosed, even when they constitute sponsorship, and disclosing that kind of relationship is illegal under the US law... And I could go on for hours,
I'm a fan of emulation, has been using emulators since the early 2000s, and will ALWAYS stand for emulation and game preservation. But don't expect me to be sad or feel bad for what happened to yuzu, because I'm not, nor will.

And, again, the whole yuzu thing has, literally, nothing to do with my first statement,

 

[Clydefrosch]

i've read about them planning to release the source code years ago. i'm not really seeing it happen

Post automatically merged: Mar 6, 2024

You are completely wrong. There are emulators that have been around since the 90s and still kicking today, that doesn't charge anything, some that don't even take tips, and are still there.
Making money out of a project only means the devs will put more time into it (or that they should, at least), and nothing else.

you have to consider that every once in a while, someone writes a retro emulator over a few months for fun.
that is not something that really happens for modern systems, the amount of work needed, barely anyone who could do it can afford to do it without any support

 

[eternal]

Just don't monetize your emulator and you won't be targeted? They can't do shit to the 90% of emus out there.

Do y'all think donations are as bad as direct monetizing in regards to emulators? Like buy me a coffee type stuff?

 

[LeyendaV]

you have to consider that every once in a while, someone writes a retro emulator over a few months for fun.
that is not something that really happens for modern systems, the amount of work needed, barely anyone who could do it can afford to do it without any support

Y'all are speaking about writing emulators as if it were something people are forced to do. Breaking news, folks: It's not.
If you are gonna code an emulator, do it in your free time, even if it takes you years. Get people who like the same things and build a team of fans making things for fun. Otherwise, don't do it.
These are things that are done because people like to do them, STOP thinking as if it were an obligation.

They said it's going to be open sourced a while back... in 2019! I even broke the news.

https://gbatemp.net/threads/drastic-ds-emu-to-be-made-open-source.544162/

View attachment 424125

Well, he did say he's "terrible at doing things", so...

 

[Clydefrosch]

Y'all are speaking about writing emulators as if it were something people are forced to do. Breaking news, folks: It's not.
If you are gonna code an emulator, do it in your free time, even if it takes you years. Get people who like the same things and build a team of fans making things for fun. Otherwise, don't do it.
These are things that are done because people like to do them, STOP thinking as if it were an obligation.


Well, he did say he's "terrible at doing things", so...

what makes you talk about it as obligation?
modern systems will require more and more work to create an emulator for it.
it's long since past free time projects. your take essentially would have meant that current, next and pretty much last gen emulation just wouldn't be a thing now. just organizing as many people as these modern systems need is a part time job on its own.

also, support is different than purely profiting. without early access, this would unlikely have been an attack vector in a court of law. dev groups can have patreons and get money to finance themselves. within reason.

 

[spotanjo3]

Nah. Big N will never win. There will be more and more on the way to fight back. The reason Yuzu loses because of patreon, I believe. For their profits.

 

[Coderman64]

You guys are acting as if creating an emulator purely for profit is not a perfectly legal thing to do. Commercial, closed-source emulators have existed for a long time and will continue to exist. For a commonly used example, see Redream.

Where Yuzu got caught up was in providing builds that were expressly compatible with software that could only be obtained (at the time) through piracy. Therefore (as the argument goes), they not only knew pirates were using their software, but they also catered to and financially benefitted from this piracy. Other (older) emulators have a more robust defense, as there are legal ways to get software for them.

Charging users to create software that allows them to run legally obtained software is perfectly legal. Charging users (or even distributing) software expressly made for piracy is not.

This is why Ryujinx could escape unscathed, especially if their initial compatibility with TOTK was only due to having better compatibility overall through regular reverse engineering rather than illegally obtaining software and encouraging others to do the same.

I expect that the Drastic emulator is being discontinued mostly out of fear, but also because they were planning to anyway. I doubt they'd be in any real legal trouble.

(As always, I am not a lawyer, and this is not legal advice)

 

[ScaryHobbit]

Something I've noticed with these "Wah wha, Nintendo won! Wah wah!" is that Nintendo tends to do these when they're planning to release something alike themselves.

Allow me to elaborate:

• Another Metroid Remake, got taken down, months before Nintendo announced a proper 3DS remake of Return of Samus.
• Went after rom sites months before releasing the "virtual console" in the Switch.
  
  My guess is that, why wait this long to take down a Switch emulator?
  Well, according to tradition, I'm guessing that Nintendo is planning to emulate Switch with their new console.

Very much so.

One of the big Switch 2 rumors going around is that Nintendo showed off BOTW running at 4K 60fps in a closed door meeting to developers.
Whichever way this is implemented, this would put the Switch 2 in direct competition with the exact features that Yuzu was advertising. And to make this even more of a pressing issue for them, Yuzu can do this all on the Steam Deck... the Switch's main competitor.

 

[urbanman2004]

.....
This is why Ryujinx could escape unscathed, especially if their initial compatibility with TOTK was only due to having better compatibility overall through regular reverse engineering rather than illegally obtaining software and encouraging others to do the same.

.....

The Ryujinx devs are located in Brazil and from my understanding Brazil doesn't adhere to the WIPO Copyright law so any lawsuits brought against them by Nintendo wouldn't be admissible.

 

[aoimatsuri]

He wanted to release the source ages ago ...

At this point, I want piracy to kill Nintendo. If supporting them means dragging down emulators, then I hope Nintendo dies

Kind of weird sentiment.

Yuzu same as ShanghaiEXE asked for it.

Don't try making buck with companies stuff.

Sure it's reverse engineered, but did you SEE their website?
Even the yuzu on steam deck was nothing but high res screenshots.

If anything, be angry at yuZu folk for being stupid.
First they cash in madly, tell people "Here is how to haxorz your switch", then they go ahead and fold like pansies ..?

Had they fought this one they'd have redeemed emselves.
They are kind of responsible at least 75% .

Nintendo Nenjaas are well known.
Also all this " pirated x times at release" was getting silly.
Had they at least hacked their switches ? But now, Nintendo made no cent from Hard OR Software.
I ve been reading this forum for long enough, if Nintendo wanted to really make a dent, here would be the best place,
but gbatemp stays online, I'm sure you know why...

7+ years Nintendo did nothing and *now* ppl complain.
The outcome sucks, but it was clear it would end up this way.

This is all just silly.

And if Ninty were gone, what then ?
Sony ? F@#€ em
M$? Nothx

That leaves Valve.

And so the storyends

PS: to all you angry folk:
There is a very silver lining:
Had Nintendo somehow won this at court, imagine the outcome then ?!
This should make the homebrew community more cautious.
Which is good

 

[Slinger]

At this point, I want piracy to kill Nintendo. If supporting them means dragging down emulators, then I hope Nintendo dies

I have to agree. I also feel this about most big movie companies: if piracy and free streaming is "killing" them, good riddance!

Of course we all know that isn't going to happen. Piracy never was a big problem for the game/music/movie industry. And these companies also know it. This is all a disguise. This is a power grab. They want to control people. In their eyes the world belongs to them and we are here to obey our masters.

But how do we even begin to fight back?

 

[The Catboy]

But how do we even begin to fight back?

Hear me out, just keep pirating

 

[RENBA_XL]

Uhhh does this means the proyect, won't have future updates any longer?

 

[ganons]

Uhhh does this means the proyect, won't have future updates any longer?

Yea pretty much. Don't see what other features it requires other than higher rendering scales.

 

[nl255]

Uhhh does this means the proyect, won't have future updates any longer?

I don't think it has had an update in at least a year. If it ever ends up actually going open source then expect a whole bunch of updates.

 

[Maximo101]

And the nominee for "I don't understand the law" 2024 goes to ....


You are assuming that the people who monetize their emulator, would have written their emulator if it wasn't for the $$$

They saw a way of making easy money, even though it was bad for preservation.



You understand that they would look for interpretations of laws, or changes to laws, to cover that circumstance and it would be bad for everyone, not just these money grabbers? It's better for the long term survival of preservation if yuzu loses.

Hey are you intimating I don't understand copyright infringement law or that you don't understand a joke?