The first of the tools Denuvo is offering to Switch developers is Nintendo Switch Emulator Protection, a “revolutionary technology to protect games launching on Nintendo Switch from piracy”.
According to Denuvo, the new tech can be applied to Switch games to block the ability to play them on PC emulators.
“Even if a game is protected against piracy on its PC version, the version released on Nintendo Switch can be emulated from day one and played on PC, therefore bypassing the strong protections offered on the PC version,” the company says. “This can happen with any of the numerous games available on Nintendo Switch.
Exactly. But AFAIK every Denuvo game eventually gets cracked, so at least we will have the pirate copies. From a preservation standpoint, a dumped ROM is much better than a physical cartridge anyway, since it’s more portable and easier to back up. It’s the contents of the cartridge minus the physical limitations.
There’s plenty of games which haven’t been cracked. More often than not, a game is updated to remove denuvo or a drm-free .exe is released accidentally.
It’s been hard to crack games and from what I’ve read, it now relies on one person and they have been a bit of a lunatic.
EMPRESS is their name and yeah, they are bonkers. They are also very picky and influenced by donations, so obscure games won’t be cured from DENUVO ever. Judgement, a somehow popular Sega release, was cracked days ago, and it’s a 2018 game. They picked a fight with a ripper\cracker Skidrow in .nfo announcing that.
For clarity sake, Judgment only released this March on PC. But for example, Dead Space Remake, which released in January, is still uncracked.
Judgement came out on PC in September '22.
You’re right! I was thinking of the sequel.
EMPRESS may be a lunatic, but it’s not like we have any better options. If anything, I wish EMPRESS would teach the next generation of d€nuvø crackers and that they would be chill and just crack for the sake of piracy/preservation.
With what level of trust pirated releases need, it’s kinda worrysome to depend on that person. And they doesn’t seem like one to share their secrets.
I hope it’s not a single person but a group mascarding as one deranged individual so it means that capable crackers are more widespread than one singular genius holding it down.
Who really knows it’s all very strange to me, the scene has generally always been very much out of mainstream politics except when it relates to tech/IP law, and generally pretty egalitarian, insofar as no one knows who is on the other end of any conversation.