Nintendo strikes another blow against emulation and bans Dolphin on Steam

Nintendo is known to not get along well with simulators that don’t work on their own, not even ones that don’t have any profit as their goal, but pure conservation. The Japanese company reaffirmed this after preventing the distribution of one of the most popular emulators for its consoles on Steam.

We refer to Dolphin Emulator, Nintendo GameCube and Wii emulator that allow you to play a whole list of games that have appeared on both systems, thanks to their high compatibility and many years of development.

The project dates back to 2003, when it started in a closed way, but in 2008 it became open source. Since then, more than 200 people have contributed to the project and were surprised when in March 2023 they announced that the Dolphin emulator would be coming to Steam; In reality, He already had an official page.

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Nintendo has banned Dolphin from Steam

However, at the time of writing the note, if you want to go to Dolphin Emulator page on Steam, the link will redirect you to the official page, as is often the case with links to non-existent or removed Steam pages. And that’s because it just happened with the official Dolphin Emulator page.

The person responsible for this was Nintendo, who contacted Valve to ask them to take down the emulator’s Steam page, something they were able to do thanks to the DMCA.

In case you missed it: Nintendo also banned emulators for its Xbox consoles.

The official announcement from those behind the project reads: “It is with great disappointment that we announce that the release of Dolphin on Steam has been indefinitely postponed.” “Valve has notified us that Nintendo has filed a copyright claim against the Dolphin Steam page, and we have removed Dolphin from Steam until the issue is resolved.”

Frankly, knowing Nintendo’s track record on copyright, the Japanese company has the upper hand in this case. However, those responsible for Dolphin Emulator are somewhat optimistic and say they are exploring alternatives they have and hope to provide an answer in the future.

“We appreciate your patience in the meantime,” they said.

It is important to clarify that this does not mean that Nintendo has finished the entire project, but only its Steam page and the subsequent permission to distribute it through this platform. However, Dolphin Emulator can still be downloaded via the official project page.

What do you think about the new action taken by Nintendo to protect its trademarks? Tell us in the comments.

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