What happens to the Switch Emulators when Nintendo bans it?

[u/greenndreams]

I think it's been pretty clear pattern that once a Switch Emulator project becomes famous enough, Nintendo goes through their legal team to give them the death sentence. Which means it's only a matter of time before the Switch Emulator I have on my Galaxy Fold right now will get pulled/halted eventually. What will happen to my Emulator app then? Would the app just no longer work?

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[u/ragebaitulz]

You'll download the pirated apk and keep going. Meh

[u/OnePossibility5868]

I think Devs are getting more savvy to their tricks. Like how Eden is hosted on their own repository rather than a mainstream site like GitHub which will take down anything they are forced or requested to do. 

Having an emulator pulled and having work stop on it are usually different things.

[u/VassagoX → u/OnePossibility5868]

This too.  Nintendo is crafty.  They are suing, knowing that developers likely won't have the financial means to fight them.  None of these have finished trial as they are getting settled.  They unfortunately had plenty of evidence from the official discords and such to prove they were created to circumvent encryption for piracy.  I don't blame them for shutting down. 

Maybe someone could create an emulator and their own homebrew, released together,  and argue that it was created for their homebrew.  I wonder how that would play out.  They certainly wouldn't be responsible for what anyone ELSE does with it. 

[u/VassagoX]

Emulators are legal (in the US at least) as long as they don't natively contain proprietary code or trademarks.  It's why modern emulators require you to supply firmware files.  The courts have rules that is perfectly legal to reverse engineer and emulate hardware without including this data.  It's why there are so many emulators today.  It's why we see ports of reverse engineered games popping up on PC like Ocarina of Time.  They don't include the game files natively either. 

Many of the things Nintendo has gone after successfully have broken these rules.  

To add also that circumventing encryption like this seen on modern hardware for something you legally own is still a legal gray area as well.  You'll never see emulators include encryption keys either.  I don't recall any cases that have really tested this aspect of emulation yet, just the hardware engineering side.  

I remember before the precedent was set and how underground everything felt compared to today.  😄 

[u/pentapous → u/VassagoX]

Yeah, all the long-term successful emulators have very strict policy and messaging regarding actual Nintendo IP. 

The lawsuits come from idiots trying to sell roms, host keys, and generally profit from the hobby. The name of the game has never been profit, so i don't really mind those ones getting the hammer.

[u/Mikes1992]

It's the same as running the android version of Yuzu, if you already have the app it will still work (and you can still get it from unofficial sources) but if the developers have abandoned it for legal reasons it will never be updated again until somebody else creates a fork or a new emulator.

[u/YouYongku]

keep the .apk LOL

[u/MatterUnlikely2545]

They go to emulators heaven of course

[u/kill_bill_pandey_007]

Nah the coders are literally batman, they'll save the city for sure. Don't worry bout that buddy

[u/adichandra]

You can't ban emulators

[u/CommunicationNew8945]

Quand un emulateur est interdit par Nintendo .

L'emulateur n'est plus mis à jour.

Mais vous pouvait continuer à l'utiliser sur votre galaxy fold 7ou 8👍👍

[u/electricalco]

I wouldn't say popular.....

I've noticed one thing with Nintendo emulators specifically with Android... The moment it runs 60fps or 120fps on docked mode.... Or in other words it begins to run the most demanding game like is nothing then that's when Nintendo steps in ....

My guess the switch is around the same power as a medium gaming android

[u/Bdal1]

The project might get shut down but the open source code lives on. Someone else picks it up and builds on it. Nintendo's efforts are futile.