I don’t like the EU one bit… there’s certainly a fledgling community here that would like to get out of it, but here specifically what are you referring to?
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Hands-On With the New App Store Delta Game Emulator
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Even though Apple are allowing this, imo, just because if they don't then people will use alternate app stores, alternate app stores which will eventually offer modern consoles too, I am still thankful that it's allowed now. It's the one single thing I would jailbreak/sideload for. And probably the only thing I would use an alternate App Store for.
Maybe it's still indexing or Apple prevent apps from going instantly viral for whatever reason.
Alt stores should be an option, not mandatory, in EU you are forced to use its alt store to get the app. Shame on dev.
Depends on zip format. Delta won’t support 7z which is what I have my Roms in, so I have to unzip them
Is it? To me it's just proof that there are people interested in playing old retro games that aren't otherwise available.
Yes, there will always be those who pirate, but experience time and again shows that if you offer a legal alternative that is available, convenient and at least somewhat affordable then people will use it.
A tic-tac-toe game is better than what's in the entire Apple Arcarde library.
In the US anyway (and this is where the copyright stuff is strictest), it will be very difficult unless people are openly offering access to ROMs or sharing ROMs in the open in their Discord -- particularly if that sharing is happening in Discord only accessible to users who pay for access.
The US case law around emulation itself is extremely settled. Like settled for the better part of 25 years settled. There are DMCA exemptions around extracting the ROM data from games you own for your own personal means (which most people don't do but ROM dumping from the systems Delta supports is extremely easy and simple at this point). Entities like Nintendo and Sony and Sega actively sell or have previously sold devices that contain open source emulators at their core and in some cases, have packaged ROM files that were clearly sourced from the community and not their own archives.
Because Delta doesn't facilitate helping people find ROMs, there is nothing Nintendo can do. The reason Yuzu was shutdown (and it was a voluntary shutdown, granted it was also part of a settlement that also required the devs to pay Nintendo $2.4 million, but it wasn't a court ordered shutdown, which is important) was because of some aspects of how they acquired their cryptographic keys (and similarly to the the 1999 Sony lawsuits against Connectix and Bleem, this portion probably would have ultimately won in court, but could have bankrupted the individuals involved) and even more importantly, because of how brazenly and I would argue, recklessly, Yuzu devs/community members shared Switch game dumps on their Discord (and access to that Discord was provided by the Patreon that the devs were making $30,000 a month on), which is something most other emulator developers strictly avoid at all costs.
Now, if someone is dumb enough to brag about their iCloud or Dropbox or Google Drive full of ROMs and pass links to their libraries all over the internet -- yeah, Nintendo will probably DMCA them and get the content kicked off of those respective cloud services (and the user will prob be banned too). And obviously, running ROM sites or aiding in the distribution of piracy tools is a very bad idea. But merely using ROMs obtained elsewhere? People who know the first rule of piracy club are going to be fine.
Apple's u-turn in such close proximity to the changes they were forced to adopt by the EU makes me think that Apple was worried that the existence of emulators in the EU, for which there seems to be a demand, but not in every other market, would make them look bad.
In other words, I don't think we would have gotten emulators if it wasn't for the EU. But I might of course be wrong.
Again, the case law for the emulators itself is completely settled and not even remotely in dispute. And it was two cases Sony filed in 1999 that established this precedent. It’s the distribution of ROMs or mod chips that can aid in piracy that can be seen as infringing. The emulators themselves are fine and provided the developers don’t do dumb things like trade unreleased game dumps and other ROMs in their Discords or sell mod chips that are designed primarily to aid in piracy, there is nothing that can be done here.
For anyone trying to get into there you go to following r/ and from here you are on your own. Grab everything you want or need, take your time, prepare some place to store it and organize. But don’t talk much where you got it, Ok? Nintendo lawyers are not sleeping and will use every opportunity possible to fight for their old stuff
No need to do so much magic. Just use AirDrop and save in any folder in Files app. I called my folder “emulation” so I won’t forget.
AirDrop is the reason I don’t want to get back to any WinPC. They still don’t have anything even slightly comparable to this thing
Where do you think people get their ROMs from?
Nintendo is watching this development for sure now that people will play their games without paying Nintendo on the iPhone.
Can you explain what this has to do with the emulator or any other free app released in the EU AppStore? I mean it's the developers decision to release the app in the EU AppStore just like it was released in the US, or am I missing something?
It's not a positive moment. Apple is now facilitating illegal activities, allowing people to play pirated games.
Apple actually made a conscious decision to allow this, so I wonder what the lawyers of Nintendo will have to say about this.
This has always been an issue with alternative stores and the argument of “well you don’t have to use it. You can just use the App Store”
But when more and more apps get release exclusive to different stores, users can be forced into running multiple stores to use those apps
I guess they will be out of money earlier than most people try the actual emulator.
Nintendo is not willing to change and does not deliver to their customers.
People asked for Switch Pro? They release regular switch with poor OLED panel.
People want NFS Unbound and GTA V on their console? “Sorry only 4 gb ram”. It is magic that Hogwarts Legacy happened on it.
If Nintendo continues to follow this path they will meet Sega sooner or later