The makers of Dolphin announced the GameCube and Wii emulator will come to Steam Early Access later this year. It promises to let users play classics like The Legend of Zelda: The Wind Waker and Super Mario Galaxy with improved graphics and better performance than the original consoles offered. I’m sure Nintendo’s lawyers are thrilled.
“We are pleased to announce our great experiment—Dolphin is coming to Steam!” the creators wrote on Tuesday (via Nintendo Life). “We’re pleased to finally tell the world of our experiment. This has been the product of many months of work, and we look forward to getting it into users’ hands soon!” While Dolphin’s Steam page is already live, the emulator won’t officially be available through Valve’s storefront until sometime in the next few months.
The open-source emulator, which has been in ongoing development for two decades, will be free to download and will support 4K displays as well as modern controllers. It also has built-in netplay for online multiplayer, as well as support for community mods, randomizers, and custom level packs. Other perks include playing with save states, slow motion, and rapid fire.
The emulator’s makers are quick to point out that Dolphin doesn’t actually come with any games, something they note repeatedly on the Steam page. “This software is built to run legally acquired games,” one of the notices reads. “Dolphin Emulator does not come with games. We do not condone piracy in any shape or form.”
While players can take their existing game collections, rip them to PC, and then use those disc images on the emulator, there’s also no shortage of ways to download pirated copies of console games, which is one of the reasons Nintendo has historically treated emulation and all amateur development for its locked-down platforms with contempt.
Steam Deck users in particular have had a field day recently with using emulators to access their old game collections on the go, and often with better performance. Valve even accidentally included the icon for a Switch emulator called Yuzu in one of its trailers for the PC gaming handheld, before quickly deleting the reference.
In lieu of robust “Virtual Console” features on the Switch, emulators like Dolphin are a boon to retro gaming enthusiasts and preservationists alike. Just this week, Nintendo turned the Wii U and 3DS eShops’ lights off for good, making it impossible to digitally purchase a ton of amazing games. Homebrew projects like Dolphin are one way for the community to try and keep those games alive.
Exposure to average people is more and more coming straight through closed marketplaces.
People are atomised so there's no local communities with the local pirate selling their warez anymore.
Piracy communities all died and reddit is pretty much the only place for them now.
The "piracy is bad" brainworm took hold after being pushed by countless fucking liberals over the last decade. This succeeded because subreddit moderators wanted to cozy up to the developers of games/products for some sort of prestige or to get their participation (however shallow) in the subreddit.
This creates a climate where spreading piracy has become quite difficult compared to the past. Especially with a lot of people having absolutely no tech-savvy, no idea how to torrent, no idea what a torrent even is, blah blah blah.
:yea:
the number of zoomers i've had to teach how to pirate is depressing tbh
I know the world is getting worse in a terrifying variety of ways, but the fact that people are subservient to streaming companies and don't know how to torrent makes me :desolate:
like people act as if a show is lost to time it if it isn't in one of their 4 subscriptions
The concept of owning a physical copy is getting smaller and smaller. With it the concept of having an actual digital copy is also going. Subscription-brain is entirely reliant on being provided access via services with absolutely zero initiative on how to physically manage their own personal physical property and files themselves.
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