Why do people not understand that piracy is COMPLETELY AND TOTALLY irrelevant to the LEGALITY of emulation?
There is no “Oh, but Nintendo was losing money…”
My electric company loses money when I generate solar power. That doesn’t give them the legal right to come to my house and rip out my panels.
The established legal FACT is that emulation is LEGAL.
“But the pirates…”
No, shut up. Emulation is LEGAL. Making and distributing an emulator is LEGAL. And the best way to LOSE that legal right is to misunderstand that you have it and make the public think that there’s some legal gray area here. There isn’t.
You know what’s illegal? PIRACY. And Nintendo has every legal right to go after PIRATES. They DON’T have the legal right to stop development of system emulators. Stop with this nonsense justification, because there isn’t one. Nintendo is not legally right on ANY aspect of this.
Repeat after me:
CREATING AND DISTRIBUTING EMULATORS IS COMPLETELY LEGAL BY ESTABLISHED LAW AND LEGAL PRECEDENT AND NINTENDO ILLEGALLY EXTORTED SOMEONE INTO STOPPING A PROJECT.
I agree with you, but Nintendo’s arguments are that the emulators pirated their code in order to develop the emulator and for it to function.
If they have proof of that, more power to them, but at this point the only evidence I’ve seen in the case of Ryujinx is Nintendo making wild accusations. Maybe they have a case, maybe they don’t. In either case, “But the game piracy…” is not and has never been a valid defense of Nintendo’s actions.