Comment by tristor | Hacker News Reader

Comment by tristor | Hacker News Reader

Parent Full thread

As someone who bought a Steam Deck almost entirely for the purpose of handheld emulation who also owns two Switches, I can tell you that most of the emulation scene on the Deck is very much /not/ Switch games. It's mostly people emulating games from the NES, SNES, N64, Dreamcast, PSX, and similar older systems. Most of these games would do well if they had proper re-releases with updated graphics quality, but the releases we have seen (on PC anyway) have mostly been the original game with an inferior emulator wrapped around it, being resold without any improvements. Square/FF games have been especially guilty of this sin on PC, and pretty much muddied the waters.

Meanwhile, Nintendo has been smarter on Switch, shipping first-party emulators for NES and SNES (but without the games people actually want in the catalog), and has convinced Square to re-release Seiken Densetsu 3 with an official English translation on the Switch w/ the full Mana Trilogy, which I bought and paid for, even though I could emulate all three games because they had improved graphics and an official translation.

I think the concern you have here is wildly overblown, and for the most part there are a tiny tiny tiny amount of people who are pirating Switch games by running them in emulators. Most Switch piracy is happening /on the Switch/ by people running games off the SD Card instead of buying carts/downloading officially, using patched OS / loaders. Nintendo basically killed this for Switches made after the first run in the first generation, and it's even a non-issue.

Any recommendations for graphical menus for the emulations? I've got a raspberry pi set up for it pretty nicely, but I've been wondering if I could set up the Steam Deck for it instead for my arcade cabinet.

This is the answer: https://www.emudeck.com/

> As someone who bought a Steam Deck almost entirely for the purpose of handheld emulation

And you seriously can't see the problem? The Steam Deck is direct competitor to the Switch, that also just happens to be the best Nintendo console ever made. Valve profits from it, but can deny any wrong doing. I think you just don't want to admit that intellectual property is a thing - something we hold in high regard in western economies.

Then perhaps Nintendo should release their own best Nintendo console ever made.

> intellectual property is a thing - something we hold in high regard in western economies

Citation needed. Both me and lots of us here on HN certainly don't hold intellectual property in high regard, because as framework it's done a lot to damage progress.

> I think you just don't want to admit that intellectual property is a thing - something we hold in high regard in western economies.

Intellectual Property law in the US is a complete mess and any rational analysis would acknowledge that.

That said, I don't play Switch games on my Steam Deck, I don't even have any Switch roms. I own a Switch, why would I play those games on a Steam Deck when I can just play them on the Switch?

Yes, the Steam Deck is the best Nintendo console ever made, for emulating Chrono Trigger (my favorite game, and arguably the greatest RPG of all time, released in 1995 for the SNES), that for some reason Nintendo has never re-released on the Switch or provided in their first-party emulators on Switch, despite it being the most requested game for the platform.

So... I reiterate my original statements. You are blowing up a non-issue out of proportion.

It's a Square Enix game so Nintendo has no control on whether or not to re-release it. There is an admittedly rough PC port of Chrono Trigger on Steam playable on Steam Deck.

The PC port doesn't have proper controls on Steam Deck, I already own it on Steam.

That said, Chrono Trigger originally released in 1995, when Nintendo entered into pretty serious agreements with publishers. No, they cannot unilaterally republish it, but they have significant power here and have worked with Square on re-releasing other games. Chrono Trigger is one that they've never republished (possibly due to agreements with Sony since it was republished on PSX).

Do you think the Steam Deck ships with a Switch emulator installed? It doesn't, nor does Steam even have one for download. You can load one on because it's literally just a handheld computer but you can also load on pirated PC games...

It's not the primary purpose of the device. I've yet to even bother loading up an emulator and have just been playing PC games.

It's basically as ludicrous as suggesting Microsoft is also supporting Switch piracy because Yuzu also runs on Windows.

Reply on news.ycombinator.com