Further investigation into the downfall of yuzu and Citra revealed the dev-teams were engaged in some corporate feudalism of their own. Apparently, they had been secretly recording user metrics, which were turned over to Nintendo as part of the deal. yuzu had been locking certain Tears of the Kingdom compatibility fixes behind a Patreon membership tier, not including them with the standard releases. At the same time, they were verbally abusive of the Cemu dev-team for paywalling their own project in the same manner. Nintendo are most likely not going to "come for Dolphin", as I put it in the previous entry, or any other emulator developer, because no one else is engaged in the same duplicity that yuzu and Citra were.
However, the bulk of what I talked about yesterday is still valid. Citra and yuzu being trolls doesn't absolve Nintendo of any of its sins; I'm thinking about James Burt and New Super Mario Bros. Wii. I'm thinking about the illegal seizure of Megaupload. I'm thinking about the temps working at Nintendo of America being sexually harrassed by the department managers. About Google Ad integration on Nintendo Switch. About Project Slippi getting shut down for no apparent reason. About Nintendo gaining their foothold in videogaming by entrapping developers into draconian 5-year contracts back in the '80s. Nintendo is, has been, and always will be a terrible company, and a couple of emulator dev-teams stealing user data isn't going to change that. It all still applies, except for the bit where I talk about yuzu and Citra being innocent of crime. Especially the bit where Nintendo have an unfathomable amount of games in their back catalogue, refuse to re-release 97% of them, and demand that no one attempt to access them by any other means.
Essentially, don't let the actions of two emulator dev-teams cloud the fact that Nintendo, Microsoft, Sony, Valve, and Electronic Arts are all actively attempting to kill videogame preservation. Obviously, this argument easily extends to music, video, and printed matter, as well; but those are discussions for another time.
--8 March 2024--