Homebrew, emulation, piracy

Homebrew, emulation, piracy

In recent days there have been reports about the fact that hackers made the first real steps in getting homebrew running on a Nintendo Switch with a lower firmware version,

I therefore saw an opportune time for NintendoReporters to express their view on homebrew, emulation, piracy and the like.

What is homebrew?

homebrew-switch-mockupHomebrew is a term that is often applied to video games where software by consumers is produced to focus on specific hardware platforms (usually with hardware limitations) which usually can not be programmed by the user or which usesspecific written procedures.

Well atleast that is what Wikipedia says.

Homebrew is in fact nothing more or less than code running on a system that was not intended to run on  that system. Homebrew can expand the system in terms of possibilities. To make one general thing stand out before we go deeper; homebrew is not equal to piracy or warez .

Sadly this is often the image it has.

When homebrew grows and becomes more accessible these things can, however, be possible but it’s usually not the goal of creating homebrew. Homebrew is usually more about enriching the system than going the other route. Think of being able to develop for a system without having to use the actual devkit (devkits are not cheap despite the low cost of the Nintendo Switch devkit at about $450), but also things that would normally be limited by the system, be it through a hardware or software limitation.

That’s why you often see technical demos emerge when homebrew kicks of, which shows that system can perform specific tasks only if the OS would allow it.

To give an example, names such as Steve Jobs, Steve Wozniak and many others have been active in homebrew. That’s because it does not only apply to video games, but in fact basically exists for everything that works with an OS. 

You could compare homebrew a bit to what you might see on an iPhone as jailbreaking and rooting on an Android device. After using an exploit (a way to get enough access on the system so you can use homebrew) you add custom code in order to enrich your device.

Is homebrew legal?

In essence, yes, it is legal to develop custom code for a device. But please note in regard to branch and / or device quite a few different nuances could be exist.

Depending on disclaimers / conditions that could mean that you can not change the original function or can tamper with it in any way. In short, it is sometimes quite a gray area. It is also highly debatable what it means to your warranty.

What is NintendoReporters opinion on homebrew?

Homebrew in itself is a wonderful thing , but we do believe that there is a proper time and place for it in regard to a platform. The reason is that there are always parties that will push homebrew into another direction than just the principle of custom code as an enrichment of the system. And that can harm a system which is still massively produced.

Emulation

The one word which most likely the most known form of homebrew is emulation.

For those who have never heared the word emulation or emulator before; With emulation you mimic an environment on another environment through software. I think that is the shortest description I can possibly give of it. You actually make it possible to make something that would run on machine X also run on machine Z (not be confused with porting though). An emulator is the application that allows the emulation.

What does that mean?

Let’s take a Nintendo Wii as an example. The Nintendo Wii was originally backwards compatible with Nintendo GameCube titles. For the record that’s not emulation. It was intended when the Wii was launched and meant it could read the physical game discs of Gamecube titles.

But through homebrew it was possible to make other consoles playable on the Nintendo Wii, and then we actually mean all other consoles prior to the Nintendo Wii, including a Super Nintendo, Nintendo 64 etc.

Benefits of emulation

If we keep to this sample; playing a Nintendo Entertainment System (NES) game on a Nintendo Wii means you supply that same game with enormous power compared to what the NES hardware was limited to. This extra power can be used to enhance the experience (think of graphic filters. upscaling to a higher resolution than the native resolution of the console in question, but also save states, etc.).

What about the games you use for emulation?

That is where things start to get interesting; emulators never come supplied with actual games, better known as roms (Read Only Memory). If you find them as a bundle then someone and normally not the author of the emulator has created the bundle. Because frankly no emulator author would ever do this.

piracy-icon Why? easy; making software which mimics (emulates) another system in itself is not illegal. Supplying a set of roms is however, because it concerns intellectual property and at that point you are passing the line of piracy and not conducting emulation.

It is allowed to have a digital copy of the games that you actually own but also have dumped yourself (because it is extensive let’s say backed up). 

That means that downloading a “random” rom the web, even if it is a game of which you own a original copy, is not allowed. See; https://www.nintendo.com/corp/legal.jsp#download_rom 

What about the Virtual Console?

As we are a Nintendo focussed entity let’s restrict ourselves to what Nintendo has actually been doing for years to combat emulation and the loss that they suffer through it. That probably would be the best definition of the Virtual Console.

As you can read on; https://www.nintendo.com/corp/legal.jsp#emergence emulation does Nintendo enormous damage which ever way you look at it. 

The Virtual Console Nintendo was started in 2006 and has had a different approach for each console and perhaps that is also it’s main problem.

We understand Nintendo’s viewpoint on emulation but if your Virtual Console starts at zero each and every time, and you as a gamer would like to keep your collection of games complete on your current system, it is frankly impossible. You then become more or less forced to have to pay your hard-earned money for the same game again because there now is a new console.

That situation is far from ideal and explains a lot of the uses of emulation.

What is NintendoReporters opinion on emulation?

Emulation itself and the thoughts behind it is something we applaud but that does not mean we want to give piracy even just one finger. We find emulation wonderful because it usually adds features and improvements such as the aforementioned upscaling etc.

Additionally emulation brings a touch preservation with it and that is one thing we want to point out; how big and enormous the Virtual Console from Nintendo will be, it will probably never be able to accommodate all of its wonderful history. If that were the case … we would not even give emulation the light of day. But that idea is probably not feasible and that’s more the point we want to make.

If it were, then people would not have to resort to emulation if they want to play an old title for a system that is no longer available (or for that fact the game in question).

To conclude

To clarify once again; NintendoReporters is no way pro piracy in whatever field.

Given the Nintendo Switch now has only been available for less than a year, and we already see steps are being taken towards homebrew, we find that to be a thorn in the side of Nintendo. See the impact that Nintendo estimates when it comes to damage; https://www.nintendo.com/corp/legal.jsp 

We want nothing more than that Nintendo is succesful again after the unsuccessful years  they have had with the Nintendo Wii U (also partly due to the whole homebrew / emulation situation) so they can return back to where they belong and that is right in the console wars between both Sony and Microsoft. 

That is why we have decided that NintendoReporters will not report on these topics from this moment on. There are plenty of other places that do so and that is their own choice.

That however does not take away that we see an enormous opportunity for Nintendo in this area ;

Please finally take on the Virtual Console / Switch Online principle in a appropriate fashion. Make it so people don’t have to reach to emulation to enjoy your wonderful and content rich history.

Start building a system based on a Nintendo ID in which the situation of having to re-buy a Virtual Console title can be prevented.

But also make sure it is a system which will remain standing even when the successor of the Nintendo Switch comes around. (Also think of what that means for slow months or even launches, people will always be able to use the game database and always have something to do).

That way you as company handle the preservation of games which all collectors would really appreciate for sure. But you would also make it so that both generations from the present and future have an incredibly rich gaming database they can fall back on. And that with out them having to reach to methods that could bring harm to your company.

Let’s close this of with a personal note;

I have had the joy of experiencing every Nintendo console and handheld, If I still would have had all the titles I have ever owned and I could actually play them that would be awesome. But one other relevant thing is space ( I simply would not have room to store them all anywhere honestly) but also they would come with hardware that is not really feasible more in this current time. (let’s mention a Lightgun or Super Scope, good luck on finding a Tv they would work on).

If there where to a come a system which can supply me with alle titles in a digital fashion which would always work in the future (thus meaning the successor to the Nintendo Switch and further). And would not force me to buy Super Mario Bros for the fifteenth time. Well you would have me as a Nintendo for life but also I would be 100% sure my kids would become Nintendo fans later on.


Of course I would like to hear what you the community think about this, so as always feel free to let me and the outside world know!