Dolphin emulator is officially coming to Steam

Mikemk · Mar 28, 2023

Hmm, I can see this as a path for developers to sell retro GameCube games on Steam. Hopefully we can use our own ISO libraries on the Steam version.

jeffyTheHomebrewer · Mar 28, 2023

ShadowOne333 said:
The Dolphin developers teased some weeks ago a hint about Dolphin possibly coming to the Steam store in the nearby future, and today, this tease has been confirmed officially by the dev team through a blog post on the Dolphin website.

The emulator is still not available though, despite the store page for it existing, as the store front only details the current release date for the emulator, which only says "Q2 2023". The dev team mentions that this is due to how Steam works currently, but surely the emulator shouldn't be that far off from the official release.

It is currently unknown what features will the Dolphin emulator on Steam will include, as it wasn't mentioned in the post, though many users would like to see save cloud storage possible through the Steam app. Steam Deck accessiblity will most likely be one of the features as well, but we have yet to see.

Source
Dolphin's Store Page on Steam

inb4 Nintendo tries to sue

Post automatically merged: Mar 28, 2023

But for real, this is kinda funny considering how many other things are on steam, like aseprite, blender, goddamn Godot engine...
That and I've already seen the worst of the worst of the worst. This is nice to see.

Noctosphere · Mar 28, 2023

Cease & Desist when?

Bladexdsl · Mar 28, 2023

beat me to it but what the fuck anyway

INCOMING DMCA!

jeffyTheHomebrewer · Mar 28, 2023

Noctosphere said:
Cease & Desist when?
View attachment 361751

I was the first to mention Nintendo taking legal action, but this is better.

gamecaptor · Mar 28, 2023

I would love for someone to explain how this can legally exist. Don't get me wrong, I am glad that it does, but it seems like it is falling into a very small gray area.

JFizDaWiz · Mar 28, 2023

[redacted]

The3DSWannabeBoozer · Mar 28, 2023

Dumb move, Nintendo gets super aggressive when things associated with their stuff hits steam.

SilverWah · Mar 28, 2023

I like this as a far less tech savvy person, less clutter and everything on one application.

PopcornSweetie · Mar 28, 2023

Noctosphere said:
Cease & Desist when?
View attachment 361751

Nice SMG4 ref there.

(I don't think Nintendo can DMCA them from a legal standpoint. I do remember a certain member here from the Podcast who is a Lawyer, who might know this. But i don't know their name anymore)

AkikoKumagara · Mar 28, 2023

Mikemk said:
Hmm, I can see this as a path for developers to sell retro GameCube games on Steam. Hopefully we can use our own ISO libraries on the Steam version.

You can. It's the same software being distributed on another platform. The Steam Store page for it says you must provide your own legally-obtained ROMs.

Sorry, the exact quote: "This app does not come with games. You must own an original copy of any game you want to use with Dolphin."
"However, Dolphin itself does not provide any of the games. It is just a tool to run legally obtained copies of these games. Once you have dumped copies of your games into a compatible format, you can launch them directly in the emulator."

Ettino · Mar 28, 2023

AkikoKumagara said:
You must own an original copy of any game you want to use with Dolphin.

Wink wink, nudge nudge.

SylverReZ · Mar 28, 2023

jeffyTheHomebrewer said:
inb4 Nintendo tries to sue

Dolphin has been out of years and Nintendo hasn't taken them down.

Deleted member 194275 · Mar 28, 2023

I don't know why anyone would choose to download a probably nerfed version of Dolphin on steam instead of using the "add a non steam software" option that works just fine.

About Nintendo suing, they can't. period.

About Nintendo doing commercial pressure on Valve, they can, but never done it on other cases like the RetroArch one.

Noctosphere · Mar 28, 2023

Btw, anyone has news about Dolphin supporting wii u games?
There was a prototype or something but it vanished soon after and we had no news of it since...

jeffyTheHomebrewer · Mar 28, 2023

Just use Cemu for Wii U games.

Ducolamia · Mar 29, 2023

For the people asking, "How can they get away with this?" I want to remind others that emulation is perfectly legal in the US specifically. RetroArch has been on Steam for awhile now (which is technically a frontend for emulators). It's considered fair use. Roms are copyrighted, though. Which is why Nintendo specifically goes after rom sites. They know they can't go after emulators themselves so they attack the parts that make emulation worthwhile (e.g. roms/archives). If they truly wanted Dolphin off the grid, they would've done so before this point, but they can't.

There was already a number of cases regarding this issue. Companies have tried going after emulators in the past and failed.
I link a sample case here: https://publicknowledge.org/apple-v-corellium-demonstrates-a-clear-example-of-fair-use/

If anyone is worried, I doubt that precedent will be broken as game companies use emulation and their own specialized emulators when it comes to their own services for older games. The risk of trying to make emulation illegal would be a risk to their own services. They aren't going to shoot themselves in the foot.

AkikoKumagara · Mar 29, 2023

lokomelo said:
I don't know why anyone would choose to download a probably nerfed version of Dolphin on steam instead of using the "add a non steam software" option that works just fine.

Why would it be "nerfed" in any way? That's some weird speculation without any evidence.
In some ways, depending on what features they take advantage of, it has potential to be better. They could synchronize save data and settings via Steam Cloud if they wanted to go that route, for example.

Deleted member 194275 · Mar 29, 2023

AkikoKumagara said:
Why would it be "nerfed" in any way? That's some weird speculation without any evidence.
In some ways, depending on what features they take advantage of, it has potential to be better. They could synchronize save data and settings via Steam Cloud if they wanted to go that route, for example.

View attachment 361849

the retroarch steam version was nerfed when I tried, that where my thought came. Also, save manipulation and cheats are forbidden in Japan, like illegal for real, so at least those functions will be removed most likely.
Save data cloud may be useful for transfer your setups across multiple devices. If they will back up the saves from the games and sync across multiple devices it will be awesome indeed. I 100% doubt that they will put your ISOs on the cloud.

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