Update #2 [Mon 29th May, 2023 03:30 BST]:
A Nintendo spokesperson gave official statement to Kotaku o DMCA against the Dolphin Steam site:
“Nintendo is committed to protecting the hard work and creativity of video game engineers and developers. This emulator illegally bypasses Nintendo’s security measures and runs illegal copies of games. Using illegal emulators or illegal copies of games hurts development and ultimately stifles innovation. Nintendo respects the intellectual property rights of other companies, and in turn expects others to do the same.”
Update #1 [Sat 27th May, 2023 13:45 BST]:
Dataminer and Nintendo Life user LuigiBlood has highlighted part of the DMCA – it reveals the Wii Common Key in the Dolphin Emulator source code.
LuigiBlood: “Quoting the DMCA: “The Dolphin emulator works by embedding these cryptographic keys without Nintendo’s approval and decrypting the ROMs during or just before execution.” …that’s objectively correct. I just checked, the Wii Common Key is in the emulator’s source code. “
Game developer MVG also shared his own summary of the situation based on this information, and even found evidence (dating back to 2020) of an individual known as ‘Littlemac123’ warning others about “copyrighted code from the Wii system” in the Dolphin Emulator and the problems it would cause could cause if published on Steam.
MVG: You can still download Dolphin in other ways… but I’m a little worried, I’ll be honest with you, Nintendo is now smelling blood because they found these keys and apparently spent a lot of time going through the Dolphin source code mostly line by line, finding problem areas, especially where there are illegal things or keys like this that really just shouldn’t be there…”
“…’Littlemac123′ until 2020, you had your finger on the pulse here…unfortunately Dolphin will not be part of Steam and hopefully that will change…in this particular case, I” I’m not going to say that Nintendo guilty…but Dolphin messed this up and they really need to sort it out and we hope they do.”
Original article [Sat 27th May, 2023 04:05 BST]:
In March, the team behind the GameCube and Wii emulator Dolphin announced a release on Valve’s Steam service.
In an update on Fr Today’s Dolphin website, it was revealed that Nintendo had issued a DMCA against Dolphin’s Steam page. The release, which was scheduled for “Q2 2023”, has now been “delayed indefinitely”.
Here’s the full statement from the development team, which mentions that it’s “currently exploring” its options:
“It is with great disappointment that we have to announce that the release of Dolphin on Steam has been delayed indefinitely. Valve has informed us that Nintendo has issued a DMCA against Dolphin’s Steam page and has removed Dolphin from Steam until the matter is resolved. We are currently investigating our options and will have a more detailed response soon. in the near future. We appreciate your patience in the meantime.”
In Dolphin’s Steam description, it noted that “the app does not come with games” and would require players to “own an original copy of any game.” The release of the emulator on Steam also promised support for 4K displays, modern controllers, netplay, was completely open source, and was “free” to download.
Other emulators already exist on Steam, like RetroArch – so there’s still a chance that Dolphin will be released on Valve’s service at some point or in the near future.
If there are any further developments, we will let you know.
