Games

They killed Splatoon's grassroots Esport community thanks to them making a quick buck with splatoon 3, that promised a bunch of network functionality improvements that never materialized.

So now, a game that used to have multiple small but growing international tournaments now has nothing. Hell, they used to have tournaments on the main stage at PAX East.

I don't think people remember, but there was a time when no twitch streamer or youtuber would play Nintendo games because they fucking take down their streams for copyright infringement.

Folks pointing out GCN/Wii internet abilities are missing that the experience was awful. Like sure, the guts of broadband were there, but actually playing a game with friends online was way more trouble than it was worth.

So to your point, real online gaming was indeed way behind other consoles (IMHO).

I'm pretty sure the switch didn't support Bluetooth connectivity for years until they finally decided to enable it just after I bought one.

That is the action of a company either incredibly incompetent, or that was hoping to exploit it for financial gain.

Idk their emulation is garbage except for the suspension and rewind. A lot of the open source emulation I have seen, especially of Nintendo products, is immaculate.

Not really. It sounds like they haven't gone after them for emulation, but instead for emulation-adjacent things: copying ROMs, circumventing digital locks, etc.

They explicitly mention (one of?) the developers of Yuzu sharing ROMs in the article.

In other words, the emulator itself isn't illegal, but in order to use the emulator the way most people want, you have to do illegal things, and that's what they go after you for.

Yes, this wasn't an admission because it's a well-known fact that is not inconsistent with Nintendo's earlier actions. The headline is deceptive and people don't read the article. The article itself contains no new information and it is only worth reading for someone who has been deceived by the headline and needs to be set straight by the same people who wrote the deceptive headline. It's click bait that shouldn't exist.

Repeal the DMCA. One of the worst pieces of legislation ever passed.

emulation is only legal if you pay Nintendo to steal open-source code for their emulator as a service subscription

Yea, if I recall correctly, the Yuzu team was sharing roms of latest Nintendo releases internally and Nintendo was able to prove it. At least Jeff Gerstman podcast suggested something to that accord when reporting on it.

I imagine the steam deck will be capable of emulating switch 2 titles nearly immediately, so there’s little reason to buy it. They really need to make their hardware comparable to their software (minus the notoriously awful Japan™ netcode)

See also: https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Strategic_lawsuit_against_public_participation

Strategic lawsuits against public participation (also known as SLAPP suits or intimidation lawsuits), or strategic litigation against public participation, are lawsuits intended to censor, intimidate, and silence critics by burdening them with the cost of a legal defense until they abandon their criticism or opposition

There are many, many variants. The idea is the smaller player can't really afford to fight in court, so even if the larger actor has shaky legal claims they will still win.

. You’re barely even buying a console anymore, a lot of this hardware has more or less converged. What you’re buying is access to the cultivated ecosystem.

Bingo. In an age where most people's phones have better hardware than the Switch, it's all about access to the walled garden instead of hardware.

The Switch 2 has a new hardware size and some software (like Labo and Ring Fit) has a physical component that is sized to the original Switch/Joy-Con. It could be referring to that.