Even if that is true (and I guess for that you'd have to classify downloading abandonware as piracy): Valve founder Gabe Newell famously said that piracy is a "service issue".
So if you give emulator users the option of playing or buying legitimate copies without jumping through hoops, then piracy rates will drop.
Nintendo aren't taking down SNES emulators. They're not taking down GameCube emulators, they're taking down Switch emulators.
The emulation community, -- again, mostly pirates -- have zero chill. The lesson that they desperately need to learn here is this: Do not bite the hand that feeds you.
Emulating latest generation systems and games that are currently for sale for that system is biting the hand that feeds you.
I don't? My comment was on the primary use of emulation.
And Nintendo Switch is not the predominant console that is emulated. In fact Switch emulation runs only on relatively modern systems, not on Android and not on the myriad of cheap emulation hardware that is sold on AliExpress.
I am emulating Zelda Breath of the Wild to play it at higher resolution. I already own the cart and the console.
You aren’t licensed to play that game on a PC or in an emulator. It doesn’t matter if you paid for the game and paid for the Nintendo Switch to play it on. If you used a hacked Switch to dump the console or you downloaded the rom, that’s piracy. It is not legal to circumvent the DMCA for fair use reasons.[1]
It is very cut and dried in the legal world, and it would take a very significant case and a few appeals which uphold a decision that changes how the DMCA is interpreted in the courts.
If you’re not in the US and not a US citizen, then I have no idea what laws apply to you or how they are interpreted.
1: https://copyrightresource.uw.edu/copyright-law/dmca/#excepti...
I live in the EU, where consumers are authorized by Directive 2009/24/EC to reproduce and translate computer programs on other systems in order to achieve interoperability.
But even in the US there is the Sony v. Connectix precedent that creation of interoperable products is compliant with the DMCA and the anti-circumvention provisions do not apply to them.
Everyone who is not an IP owner knows that.
Also it doesn’t matter if something is “abandoned.” It’s still got an owner, and pirating that thing is still against the law.
The law is what matters when discussing legal matters. Nothing else has any meaning at all. Law and precedent are the only things lawyers care about.
If Nintendo wanted to go from a company that is tolerated to a company that is beloved, they would stop this, but they don’t. They are happy to be hated if it stops piracy of their games, clearly.