The issue is that it is an incredibly dangerous precedent.
There are already a decent number of emulators where the devs have done a good enough job making plausible deniability but it is still VERY obvious they looked at the “leaks”. But if it is decided that “used a pre-release leak to develop code/support” is a no-no, then everyone knows to not do a 0-day update. But they start getting wary of doing day 1 updates because… it is still pretty obvious that they had that ready to go.
Which… could even be nintendo’s plan. The example I always like to use is Mass Effect PC. For those who were likely born well after that, MEPC was INCREDIBLY anticipated because we were all cool and didn’t need Mass Effect because Bioware were traitors who abandoned PC but… motha fugging Mass Effect. It was one of the early activation model Securom games DRM wise. And the warez groups did a bad crack that broke like two hours in (which meant they already “won” the release and fixing it was low priority). Which led to waves of pirates (self included) rushing Best Buy because we needed it NOW.
So if this makes for “okay, we can’t add support for this game until a week after launch”, that does wonders for sales figures. And, in a uniquely nintendo way, it avoids the ever more popular “So… this runs at like 10 FPS on the switch and 120 FPS on a potato laptop” problem.
I know it’s hard to hear because sometimes we are so passionate about these things, but it’s okay to have to wait for support on an unsupported platform. Having to wait a week is, in fact, incredibly fortunate. Consider how long it takes to get mac or Linux support on many PC games. A week? We’re laughing.
And if the sales figures are bumped in the first week? Let’s try to understand why it’s bad that developers, publishers, and those other middle-men get paid for their work. Not all games are wildly successful. Most aren’t. And evil Nintendo making more money… Well, if they don’t make money you don’t get any games. And consider that this is a platform which for the most part has avoided sinking into shady and unethical loot box practices. You can fault Nintendo for a lot, but from their perspective, free 0-day access to their games is an existential crisis.
I am all for support of devs. But it has increasingly become clear that playing a nintendo game on a nintendo platform is an objectively worse experience because even nintendo first parties have difficulty utilizing the switch. People love to pretend that “piracy is a service issue” but… it kind of is in this case. Was it Metroid Dread that had significant slowdowns on switch AND lots of qtes and parry windows?
But also? Regardless, I have very serious issues with using lawsuits and the legal system to muscle The Little Guy (even if they were idiots) to protect corporate interests.
The issue is that it is an incredibly dangerous precedent.
There are already a decent number of emulators where the devs have done a good enough job making plausible deniability but it is still VERY obvious they looked at the “leaks”. But if it is decided that “used a pre-release leak to develop code/support” is a no-no, then everyone knows to not do a 0-day update. But they start getting wary of doing day 1 updates because… it is still pretty obvious that they had that ready to go.
Which… could even be nintendo’s plan. The example I always like to use is Mass Effect PC. For those who were likely born well after that, MEPC was INCREDIBLY anticipated because we were all cool and didn’t need Mass Effect because Bioware were traitors who abandoned PC but… motha fugging Mass Effect. It was one of the early activation model Securom games DRM wise. And the warez groups did a bad crack that broke like two hours in (which meant they already “won” the release and fixing it was low priority). Which led to waves of pirates (self included) rushing Best Buy because we needed it NOW.
So if this makes for “okay, we can’t add support for this game until a week after launch”, that does wonders for sales figures. And, in a uniquely nintendo way, it avoids the ever more popular “So… this runs at like 10 FPS on the switch and 120 FPS on a potato laptop” problem.
I know it’s hard to hear because sometimes we are so passionate about these things, but it’s okay to have to wait for support on an unsupported platform. Having to wait a week is, in fact, incredibly fortunate. Consider how long it takes to get mac or Linux support on many PC games. A week? We’re laughing.
And if the sales figures are bumped in the first week? Let’s try to understand why it’s bad that developers, publishers, and those other middle-men get paid for their work. Not all games are wildly successful. Most aren’t. And evil Nintendo making more money… Well, if they don’t make money you don’t get any games. And consider that this is a platform which for the most part has avoided sinking into shady and unethical loot box practices. You can fault Nintendo for a lot, but from their perspective, free 0-day access to their games is an existential crisis.
I am all for support of devs. But it has increasingly become clear that playing a nintendo game on a nintendo platform is an objectively worse experience because even nintendo first parties have difficulty utilizing the switch. People love to pretend that “piracy is a service issue” but… it kind of is in this case. Was it Metroid Dread that had significant slowdowns on switch AND lots of qtes and parry windows?
But also? Regardless, I have very serious issues with using lawsuits and the legal system to muscle The Little Guy (even if they were idiots) to protect corporate interests.