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“Source”:https://www.nintendolife.com/news/2023/05/dolphin-emulator-steam-release-indefinitely-postponed

Honestly a real “big oof” on the part of Dolphin’s devs. Every other emulator I’ve seen require the user to get necessary code like the BIOS on their own in order to avoid angering the original console manufacturer (like RetroArch, if you want to play PS1 games on it you need to find the PS1 BIOS yourself), fact they knowingly left it in opens them up to real legal troubles (even worse is this was brought to the devs attention as far back as 2020). They also flew too close to the sun attempting a Steam release, it gave Nintendo’s lawyers a perfect excuse to dig deeper and find this out. No way Gabe and co. are going to side with Dolphin either, they aren’t going to ruin any potential business relationships.

That's bs
The system is no longer sold and hasn't been for 10+ years

Can they change the parts of code?

>Dolphin emulator attempting a Steam release

Ok whose idea was it to do that to begin with!?

It’s like they’re asking to get shutdown

I mean ffs

My guess is that it'd would of been an easier set up to run it on a PC or perhaps even letting it be played on a Steam Deck. All that said, they should of taken the time to examine everything before proceeding with a release on Steam to know what exactly would of landed them in legal hot water.

It's still Nintendo's fault. They're the ones doing the bullying and cowering behind the laws.

Sure, but that doesn’t excuse Dolphin’s stupidity in this situation. Anyone who’s been around the Internet for awhile knows how to find workarounds to Nintendo’s wrath, especially Dolphin (which started work all the way back in 2003). So to see them attempt to release a version on Steam is basically them painting a target on themselves for getting shutdown.

One thing that should be noted is Nintendo didn't actually send any requests first, it was Valve who approached Nintendo and asked them about Dolphin first. Some PC gaming elitists may act like Gabe and co. are the "most pro-consumer company on the planet" but dude fact remains they're still a business like any other, and they aren't going to ruin whatever business relationship they have with Nintendo over an emulator they legally can't defend.

I'll also remind people that Microsoft and Sony aren't exactly as "pro non official emulators" as you'd think either, Sony took Bleem! to court in the early 00s and when they lost they threatened businesses by going "if you dare stock that emulator software we're not giving you any more PlayStation products" (and they still made Bleem! go out of business by making sure their legal payments would bankrupt the company anyway), and Microsoft is also not allowing public access to non official emulators of older XBOX consoles on the Series X and S.

Was Dolphin gonna charge people to install their software using Steam, assuming if they somehow managed to put it on the Steam store?

I apologize in advance if I may be putting words in your mouth, but I vaguely recall you raising this interesting point on some other thread where you said something along the lines of: a common defense of pirating Nintendo products is that "Nintendo doesn't seem interested in selling those games anymore anyways, so we're just gonna dump it on the internet. And besides, we're not making money off of this!"

That last point I think is important, because if Dolphin was trying to sell it for a price, then emulator devs can no longer claim that they aren't doing this to profit off of Nintendo's old IPs at their expense…

If so, that’s even worse!

What the flying fuck are the Dolphin devs thinking!?!?

Apparently it's because Dolphin distributes the Wii's encryption keys which is why other emulators don't include the BIOS and keys necessitating you download it separately.

“This article also further clarifies that yes Valve pretty much are the main party responsible for Nintendo being made aware of certain details regarding the emulator’s extremely dubious legality”:https://www.theverge.com/2023/6/1/23745772/valve-nintendo-dolphin-emulator-steam-emails

(Sorry if the hyperlink isn’t working properly, I think it’s due to some mobile weirdness)

And Valve further admitted one major reason they contacted Nintendo was to mostly save their own hides from getting in trouble, so yeah sorry “PC master race” but this is probably the reminder you guys need that Gabe and co. are no more “your friends” than Miyamoto and the rest of Nintendo are to Nintendo fanboys.

Interestingly one of the people behind Dolphin made a post on Mastodon which seems to imply they feel a bit betrayed by Valve actually speaking to Nintendo, which is telling me “oh damn, are you telling me you SERIOUSLY thought Gaben himself was just going to give you guys some free pass?”

This is all so strange since retroarch is still on steam and there's a dolphin core for it on that, I assume that will be taken down too? What of all of the other cores for Nintendo consoles on there? I feel like it's only a matter of time before they try to take down RetroArch from Steam too.