One thing that Nintendo has become very notorious for is their very strict policies on fan content as well as emulation. There have been many examples of this by the company over the years, but Nintendo has been very quiet about why they were doing it in the first place.
Well, that has changed somewhat. Kotaku has reached out to Nintendo for a response on the removal of the Gamecube/Wii emulator Dolphin from Steam. Nintendo responded by saying that “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.”
So Nintendo seems to think that emulation and ROMs are holding back development and innovation. It doesn’t explain why the company has also targeted things like fan games, YouTube videos, and game mods, but this is the first time Nintendo has provided some insight into why they’re being so strict about it.
