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.
Personally, I’m not much of a PC gamer, so I don’t have a lot of personal experience with Denuvo; but this sounds pretty concerning.
My understanding is that by Denuvo LoJacking into every part of the game, it seriously hampers performance; and the Switch is underpowered enough as it is. I can only imagine how poorly games will run if the Switch has to devote resources to Denuvo as well.
Plus, from a preservation standpoint this is terrible too. Even if the studio drops Denuvo down the line, it will forever be included on the cartridge. This means that in the future, the only way to play this game will have to be an emulated copy, since you won’t be able to get the update to clear the (no longer supported) Denuvo from the game.
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 MarchSeptember 2022 (thank you for the correction) 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.
Lost your judgement for a sec.
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.
I can only imagine how poorly games will run if the Switch has to devote resources to Denuvo as well.
Pokemon Go added code obfuscation (I forgot the name of the company that provided it) some months after it was first released. Phones started running very hot, battery life dropped drastically, and people who played a lot had to replace their batteries (or phones) in a fraction of their normal lifetime. Also, as you imagined, performance dropped significantly.
Wouldn’t necessarily be impossible to “remove” Denuvo from a cartridge after a certain amount of time, not physically remove it, but bypass it with a patch. Makes sense to add in this capability too, since Denuvo licenses can be subscription based and at some point it just isn’t worth the ongoing costs.
Definitely expect a huge performance hit though. Games with Denuvo run like absolute shit lol.
And like every other DRM, it’s just going to be something that the people who bought the game and play it unaltered will be forced to deal with in one way or another… while those who modify the game, emulate or pirate it, won’t. I love DRMs. Nothing like feeling like a sucker for actually buying the game and not cracking it.
Like Resident Evil Village before they fixed it.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=UXZGCwAJpbM
It shouldn’t be a problem if it’s properly implemented, but games are so broken these days and take months to fix if lucky that it’s insulting to paying customers. Properly implemented DRM is not a guarantee when games have been unoptimized even without it.
Even perfectly implemented DRM steals cycles that can’t possibly benefit any gamer ever in any way.
At the very least even if it runs beautifully it ends up being an annoyance on Steam Deck and offline play interrupting your game session as though you are the pirate as opposed to an actual customer who paid. While the pirates laugh at the experience you should be getting.
What I will always find funny is that pirated and cracked games run better than the actual ones with Denovo.
Well, shit, sorry Switch gamers, you’re going to have to put up with this steaming pile of shit us PC gamers had to do as well.
Yep, except you can take the FPS hit on PC.
As a Switch owner, fuck this. This is reason enough for me to stop buying games on the Switch and go full piracy/emulation mode. I don’t have any Denuvo games on my PC and I am not having any on my Switch.
Best way to fight against things like this is with your wallet. Stop buying and supporting games with Denuvo or any other similar DRM.
I buy physical because I don’t trust Nintendo’s online services, but I’m not even going to get physical if it comes with DRM. I’m buying it expressly to dump it and run in an emulator eventually.
Not to mention that the Switch is already showing its age, so any added burden is going to come with noticeably performance loss.
Welp, I guess we’re going to be getting a DRM-breaking emulator accompanied by some weird new rant by Empress.
Was she the one who released an nfo where she went off on a random insane rant against trans people?
yes
it would be preferable to have someone other than her cracking denuvo lol
How is this going to affect battery life? Some of us don’t have the switch connected to power 24/7. Sounds like a bad idea for an underpowered handheld device.
I hope most developers stay away from Denuvo on Switch. Devs already have to squeeze the thing for every fps they can get out of it, it really doesn’t need anything else bogging it down.
https://www.theverge.com/2022/8/24/23319847/nintendo-switch-denuvo-drm-anti-cheat-software-emulated-games-pc this news isn’t even new. i figured they’d have at least applied it to a game by now.
Is this some hardware they’re activating or software that’s going to hurt already struggling performance?
It will hurt performance, yeah. DRM is evil.
