In what could possibly be the worst way to start October for emulation enthusiasts, as of just a few minutes ago the Ryujinx repository appears to be down, with the usual "404" message being given when trying to enter any of their related GitHub pages. Not even the main Ryujinx developer account seems to be active.

Currently there hasn't been any official reports as to why this occurred. None of the official social media accounts for the emulator have given any response, nor has any of the developers talked about why the repository is down, but we'll be sure to keep you updated whenever any new developments towards this situation are known.

UPDATE #1: Given the nature of the page being down with a 404 message, it's possible that this could be related to the removal of the Ryujinx account, and not a DMCA. If the repository suffered from a DMCA claim, then the DMCA notice would appear when entering the repository. However, that is not the case, and the DMCA listings from GitHub doesn't have any recent entries for Ryujinx.

UPDATE #2: The Ryujinx Discord server has paused invites for the moment, and additionally, one of the Discord mods posted the following message:
"To clarify, it's not a DMCA, it's not an issue with GitHub. Please wait for further information and refrain from spreading misinfo thanks."

UPDATE #3: According to an official statement on Ryujinx's Discord server, developer gdkchan was contacted by Nintendo and they were offered an agreement to stop working on the emulator project, and while the agreement wasn't confirmed yet, the organization has been entirely removed.

UPDATE #4: According to other devs, the developer was not only contacted, but actually tracked down by Nintendo to his location, and pressured to developer to cease and abandon development altogether for the emulator.

This marks now the 2nd and only main remaining Switch emulator that Nintendo has taken down as of today, and without any proper and clear protection when it comes to emulation and preservation down the road, it's likely that Nintendo will continue on its efforts to bring down emulation as a whole.

Ryujinx GitHub Repository

 

[ertaboy356b]

Section 103 (17 U.S.C Sec. 1201(a)(1)) of the DMCA states: No person shall circumvent a technological measure that effectively controls access to a work protected under this title.

Technically, if a game uses any copy protection, it is against DMCA to circumvent that protection in order to make the backup.

This is actually correct. Backups like NSP are encrypted though. This is where the emulator comes in. The problem with current gen emulators is that they decrypt the file so in simple logic, they are circumventing protection, unless of course stated under exemptions (there's none for video games).

One thing I suggested a while back is to have a way to decrypt the file outside of the emulators, like an external tool to decrypt NSPs. Of course this tool is simply illegal under DMCA but it puts the responsibility to the user instead of the emulator.

 

[Maximo101]

It's all going to be ok guys.. Modded Hardware guy has decided to represent himself against Nintendo instead of hiring lawyers.

Nintendo are screwed!

(how can any person be this dumb?)

He's going for an insanity plea...

 

[LunaBeauty]

execpt for every five people who "rip thier own media", there's 50 who's just going to take the easy way out and do the sailing

This is also an silly absurd debate, Same with the dude saying in encourges piracy, You literally do not look at everything from all sides.
For 1 downloading a game thats not for sale anymore shouldnt even matter, for 2 whats the difference if i just bought a game and ripped and then proceeded to resell it?, what if i owned the game before hand and lost it or had it stolen? etc etc the assumption on pirates is wild when you dont look at the entire spectacle, Like nothing is literally stopping me from buying 200 games ripping all the files and then just going Re sell re sell re sell and at extreme market price if its like earth bound or something absurd, now im just abusing the people in this scenario;. I get that this emulator is Nintendo's current selling device, but saying this about all emulation is just wild. 99% of my entire PS3 library on PC i literally owned ages ago before I had to all stolen i owned it at one point in a time i aint rebuying it sorry not sorry, companies can get over it.

Also i just use switch emulation because playing at 720p dynamic resolution scaled with force depth of field and motion blur and 30 FPS in 2024 is wild; thats their own skill issue; another reason why PC remains top on everything. I want to actually enjoy video games not simulate damaged eye sight.

 

[FluffyLunamoth]

Everyone got too happy with shoving the massive amount of piracy in Nintendo faces, flaunting it on front fucking pages of major websites, what did y'all expect? Piracy is illegal, and should be kept under wraps, for this exact reason. Every company will go after mainstream stuff, that's a given. Especially current gen stuff. The internet as a whole needs to put it's piracy boner back in its pants, and go back underground.

I miss the days of piracy not being "lol in your face I'm pirating everything and you can't do a thing about it~"...and then people act surprised...so stupid.

Post automatically merged: Oct 13, 2024

They should really stop naming direct game fixes in the changelog. That's one of the reasons Yuzu got canned

People, even devs, are just too damn blatant about this, obviously Nintendo is going to go after them, and they are right to do so.

Piracy needs to go back to being under the table. The only way it truly flourishes and thrives.

 

[Bladexdsl]

Everyone got too happy with shoving the massive amount of piracy in Nintendo faces, flaunting it on front fucking pages of major websites, what did y'all expect? Piracy is illegal, and should be kept under wraps, for this exact reason. Every company will go after mainstream stuff, that's a given. Especially current gen stuff. The internet as a whole needs to put it's piracy boner back in its pants, and go back underground.

you can blame the fuck-tards on youtube and twitch for that

 

[JustABadger]

Everyone got too happy with shoving the massive amount of piracy in Nintendo faces, flaunting it on front fucking pages of major websites, what did y'all expect? Piracy is illegal, and should be kept under wraps, for this exact reason. Every company will go after mainstream stuff, that's a given. Especially current gen stuff. The internet as a whole needs to put it's piracy boner back in its pants, and go back underground.

I miss the days of piracy not being "lol in your face I'm pirating everything and you can't do a thing about it~"...and then people act surprised...so stupid.

Post automatically merged: Oct 13, 2024

People, even devs, are just too damn blatant about this, obviously Nintendo is going to go after them, and they are right to do so.

Piracy needs to go back to being under the table. The only way it truly flourishes and thrives.

I remember when the NDS was the newest Nintendo handheld and there were many many many people pirating new NDS games because they “didn’t consider NDS games to be worth the money”, despite many of them being solid masterpieces.

This mindset continued with the 3DS and, surprise surprise, with the Nintendo Switch. People claim “Nintendo bad” for this, but they don’t dare hacking their PlayStation and Xbox because they know it’s a lot harder to get away with that. Nintendo’s main focus is offline gaming with the online used as a “plus”, so they’re a lot more vulnerable.

I’m not going to act like I have never pirated any game in my life, or that I did it because I didn’t have the money, or other bullshit that’s so prevalent in forums. What annoys me is when people act like it’s morally acceptable to do it because “Nintendo bad”, conveniently forgetting about everyone else, but they’re fine because reasons. And then they act surprised when some companies push the free to play aspect of gaming hard. I can excuse this behavior to little kids, definitely not to grown ass adults really believing this.

 

[Lostbhoy]

I've said before, the games industry needs to be like the music or movie industries as I can purchase a peice of music or a movie from the 1920s for example to be played on modern hardware but I can't get a game from 1980s or the 90s without a long and arduous search for a physical game and it's accompanying hardware?? It's ridiculous in this day and age.

We need a centralised digital market for after market games to be sold legitimately. I can't understand why it hasn't been spoken about anywhere as a solution, even just for the obvious demand.

One could say that this 'exclusivity' to only be played on one console at Nintendo or Sonys whim is purposely preventing further sales and revenue opportunities for the developers of said games... Has to be a loop hole there somewhere since the whole 'i made a game but they own it' is akin to slave labour.

But don't worry, that sound guy from the 1920s is still receiving royalties to his estate.

 

[kijetesantakalu042]

This mindset continued with the 3DS and, surprise surprise, with the Nintendo Switch. People claim “Nintendo bad” for this, but they don’t dare hacking their PlayStation and Xbox because they know it’s a lot harder to get away with that.

Most PS5 and Xbox games are on PC now, and if they aren't they will be ported

 

[FluffyLunamoth]

you can blame the fuck-tards on youtube and twitch for that

Oh I definitely do. Them and the idiots on Twitter, Reddit, and other mainstream social media where they just...put it all out in the open. Even some people here.

It's so braindead stupid.

 

[tivo76]

Quick question, will twitch ban people now if they try to stream the ryujinx emulator?

 

[Lostbhoy]

Just gonna drop this in here....

Nintendo Museum using SNES Emulator on a Windows PC!

https://www.pcgamer.com/hardware/th...-a-windows-pc-which-is-slightly-embarrassing/

 

[FluffyLunamoth]

Quick question, will twitch ban people now if they try to stream the ryujinx emulator?

Frankly, I'm surprised they already weren't.

 

[PrincessLillie]

Just gonna drop this in here....

Nintendo Museum using SNES Emulator on a Windows PC!

https://www.pcgamer.com/hardware/th...-a-windows-pc-which-is-slightly-embarrassing/

Remember kids, emulators are bad and illegal! Unless we do it of course, then they're good and legal.
I guarantee they're just using a ROM downloaded from the internet and emulating with RetroArch, bsnes, or Snes9x. What a hypocritical company.

 

[Lostbhoy]

Remember kids, emulators are bad and illegal! Unless we do it of course, then they're good and legal.
I guarantee they're just using a ROM downloaded from the internet and emulating with RetroArch, bsnes, or Snes9x. What a hypocritical company.

Exactly! I mean they could have at least used a snes mini, has to be a few of them still knocking about ninja hq or easily replicated for this purpose.

Someone should send them a dmca

 

[PrincessLillie]

Exactly! I mean they could have at least used a snes mini, has to be a few of them still knocking about ninja hq or easily replicated for this purpose.

Someone should send them a dmca

It would be such a funny role reversal if we figured out what emulator they're using and then the author sends them a cease and desist

 

[Rya687]

It would be such a funny role reversal if we figured out what emulator they're using and then the author sends them a cease and desist

Unless the emulator in question has a license that prohibits this kind of use, Nintendo is in the clear here. Though it's not unthinkable, as I'd expect this to fall under commercial use, which would make Snes9x illegal to use.

 

[PrincessLillie]

Unless the emulator in question has a license that prohibits this kind of use, Nintendo is in the clear here. Though it's not unthinkable, as I'd expect this to fall under commercial use, which would make Snes9x illegal to use.

If it's an emulator using a license like the GPL, which bsnes does, they're legally required to have a copy of the program's license accessible and, if they modified the source code, to publish said modified code. They could be sued under a license violation.

 

[Rya687]

If it's an emulator using a license like the GPL, which bsnes does, they're legally required to have a copy of the program's license accessible and, if they modified the source code, to publish said modified code. They could be sued under a license violation.

True, I didn't consider that even many FLOSS licenses require giving credit or at least making the license accessible. Although I don't think it's likely Nintendo had a need to modify whatever emulator they used.

 

[PrincessLillie]

True, I didn't consider that even many FLOSS licenses require giving credit or at least making the license accessible. Although I don't think it's likely Nintendo had a need to modify whatever emulator they used.

Even if they didn't modify the source code, to my understanding they're still required to include a copy of the GPL and credit the developers for commercial use. Admittedly I haven't and probably won't visit the Nintendo Museum, so I don't know if they did this or not. If they didn't and they are indeed using an emulator under a license like this, they may be legally liable for violating said license.
I'm not a lawyer though.

 

[LoggerMan]

Can't blame Nintendo for trying to shut all this down. Switch 2 will surely be backwards compatible so sales of Switch games are going to be strong for a whiles yet, with so many Switch 1s out there. Being able to easily emulate, and improve on, Switch games could cost Nintendo a fortune if left unchecked. Whether or not they have the legal or moral right to do it, I think if I were Nintendo CEO I would ask for it be done anyway. If the Nintendo experience isn't exclusive to Switch hardware then that erodes a tonne of company value.

But, the GBATemper in me of course blames Nintendo, and wants these emulators to be perfected, released for free, and ported to all platforms.