Irdeto is a brand that some may not be familiar with, but many will know the name of their controversial anti-piracy software, Denuvo. After attempting to crack down on the piracy of PC games, Irdeto has set its sights on the Nintendo Switch. Believing piracy to be rampant on the platform, either through modded consoles or emulation, Irdeto has unveiled their aptly named "Nintendo Switch Emulator Protection" technology.

As with all other Denuvo solutions, the technology integrates seamlessly into the build toolchain with no impact on the gaming experience. It then allows for the insertion of checks into the code, which blocks gameplay on emulators.

They claim that their solution, which would run similarly to Denuvo, would have occasional checks to ensure the software was legitimate, and prevent the games that use it from being emulated. Irdeto also promises that there is no impact on the gaming performance with it enabled, a claim that has led to many controversies in the past with Denuvo.

Beyond the press release, there's not much known about the Nintendo Switch Emulator Protection, when it will launch, and what games it will launch with. By the phrasing in the announcement, however, it appears that Irdeto is targeting indie developers or third-party studios more than they are Nintendo itself, specifically for multi-platform games that can be protected from piracy on both PC and Switch.

Source

 

[xbmcuser]

Hackers love these challenges

 

[Purple_Shyguy]

I bet Team Xecutor could have cracked it.

 

[Wolfy]

I'll give it two weeks before the first game gets cracked and able to be played on emulators.

 

[K3Nv2]

I vote China just preloads yuzu to every new emulator handheld they push out going forward

 

[Bladexdsl]

yuzu devs read this and their response is: like hold ma beer

 

[gbatempfan1]

Alternative release announcement here: https://blog.irdeto.com/video-gaming/emulating-nintendo-switch-games-just-got-harder/

>How does it work? It integrates seamlessly and automatically into your build toolchain and detects differences in the way the game behaves compared to what it has been designed for. In this way, our software can tell that your game has been tampered with – and will make it unplayable.

So it just tests for inaccuracies in emulation, I wonder is that is just perhaps timing, service call, or a cpu/gpu/fpu instruction.

 

[Flame]

thats great. Time for @VinsCool to make some cool Chiptune for those cracktros

 

[Sono]

If you're able to think about it objectively, this probably solves less than 0.01% of "piracy".

Most people would've either pirated the game regardless (which should NOT be counted as revenue, as it's not revenue you would've had regardless of AP measures or not), or they already own the game, but it's more convenient to play on PC, most likely due to controller support, and better visual fidelity.

As for the website itself, it's just immoral towards everyone. Not only does it contain blatant lies, but it's downright malicious.
I'd say not only does this NOT "help protect against bad reviews and expand the previous playerbase", but it most likely does the exact opposite. There are a lot of people I know who wait for others to try the games before they decide to buy. If there is negative feedback coming their way, it's guaranteed they'll not buy the game, and either not buy it at all, or just wait until AP patches become available, and just pirate it, as to not support this kind of anti-consumer behavior.
Oh, and the "protect against bad reviews" part is just a straight-up lie, but even then I'm greatly underselling just how bad that part is. There isn't even a review system in the eShop anymore, and AP measures are proven to bring negative reviews just for the mere existance of them, so this lie fails the test instantly.

Also, this becomes just a cat-and-mouse game between this and the emulator devs. There is nothing stopping the emulator devs to just analyze the behavior and work around it? Okay, in reality it's much harder than I make it out to be, but I assume it's certainly not impossible, it's just wasting a lot of human power which could've been spent on bettering the actual emulator itself.

 

[Maximumbeans]

Yeah, yeah. Two/three years ago people were saying that PSX emulation on the 3DS was impossible. So many impossibilities have come and gone. We'll see about this one

 

[Xzi]

A couple Youtube videos of Steam Deck emulating Switch and suddenly Nintendo thinks Switch piracy is "rampant." Hilarious. Also a total waste of money on the tail end of Switch's lifespan, and a performance hit on already-limited hardware.

 

[linuxares]

I don't want Denuvo in my console

 

[SkittleDash]

...But what's the fucking point? Emulation itself is legal. If someone legally owns the game, they have every right to emulate it. Doesn't matter what Nintendo thinks.

 

[Chary]

Alternative release announcement here: https://blog.irdeto.com/video-gaming/emulating-nintendo-switch-games-just-got-harder/

>How does it work? It integrates seamlessly and automatically into your build toolchain and detects differences in the way the game behaves compared to what it has been designed for. In this way, our software can tell that your game has been tampered with – and will make it unplayable.

So it just tests for inaccuracies in emulation, I wonder is that is just perhaps timing, service call, or a cpu/gpu/fpu instruction.

A funny line in that post: "One Google search will show you hundreds of free emulators you can download and use to access a Nintendo Switch game"

Hundreds! There are hundreds of emulators! Forget Yuzu and Ryujinx, there's hundreds of other emulators that work perfectly!

 

[sarkwalvein]

Ha.

 

[linuxares]

...But what's the fucking point? Emulation itself is legal. If someone legally owns the game, they have every right to emulate it. Doesn't matter what Nintendo thinks.

Well they also have the right to try to stop it. However many do you think owns the games if they only got a PC? Channels like Linus Tech Tips doesn't really help when it boasts how everyday man can do it

 

[appleburger]

Lol, they should know better. I thought Microsoft and Nintendo getting burned from claims like this was common knowledge at this point.

 

[TesseractStorm]

Given how Denuvo frequently causes performance issues on high spec gaming PCs, imagine how badly their poorly written crap will degrade performance on something like a Switch...

 

[linuxares]

Given how Denuvo frequently causes performance issues on high spec gaming PCs, imagine how badly their poorly written crap will degrade performance on something like a Switch...

My bet it will look for specific things like cpu speed etc

 

[Xzi]

My bet it will look for specific things like cpu speed etc

Yeah it's also gonna be making an unnecessary number of calls home whenever you're online. Might even require validation for single-player games.