| CladInShadows said: That was a great article. Regarding Cifaldi's comment, I definitely agree with him more than you do. But we really need to separate emulation and piracy. Emulation is emulation, and piracy is piracy. Do some (most?) emulator users pirate games? You bet your ass they do. But for as long as I can play a legal game on an emulator at the same time someone can play a pirated game on the actual hardware (with much greater ease and much lower cost), we have to stop thinking that emulation and piracy are the same thing. I'd be curious to know what percentage of total pirated console games (maybe even broken down by console?) is played on an emulator vs how much is played on the original hardware. |
Since Nintendo is going after 3ds mod sites instead of 3ds emulators it looks like hardware piracy is a much bigger problem.
http://www.ubergizmo.com/2017/03/nintendo-lawsuit-3ds-mod-chip/
Emulation is not piracy, yet it's pretty close to a mod chip. That's innocent too 'cause homebrew, yet how many people actually use a mod chip for homebrew. However to be fair, unlike mod chips, emulators do distance themselves from piracy for example:
Where can I download games to use with Citra?
Short answer: You don’t. Buy games and dump them with a Nintendo 3DS.
Long answer: Downloading commercial games is illegal and thus strongly frowned upon by the Citra developers. To prevent legal issues, this includes gray areas like downloading games which you purchased earlier. You don’t necessarily need to own a 3DS yourself, as you can buy game cartridges and dump them with a friend’s console. On the other hand, copying a friend’s game dump is considered illegal. Please note that any mention or discussion of piracy on our forums or Discord channels will result in being banned from our community.
For guidance on how to dump games for use with Citra, please refer to:
Ofcourse you probably need a mod chip or hack the console to do that in the first place.
You wouldn't use a mod chip if you buy the games anyway, with an emulator you might be tempted to try out different games you don't own, as well as having to hack the console to stay legal on the copying part. And why mod the console if you can play it on better hardware.
As long as you need beefy hardware, piracy on the actual console will be far bigger. Perhaps a good reason for consoles to not fall too far behind.
Anyway emulation is not piracy, yet it's dependent on it or rather hacked consoles before emulators can be build. They can encourage piracy since it's the easiest way to use an emulator.
Essay Pro