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Denuvo security is now on Switch, including new tech to block PC Switch emulation (www.videogameschronicle.com)

submitted 1 year ago* (last edited 1 year ago) by [email protected] to c/[email protected]

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The first of the tools Denuvo is offering to Switch developers is Nintendo Switch Emulator Protection, a “revolutionary technology to protect games launching on Nintendo Switch from piracy”.

According to Denuvo, the new tech can be applied to Switch games to block the ability to play them on PC emulators.

“Even if a game is protected against piracy on its PC version, the version released on Nintendo Switch can be emulated from day one and played on PC, therefore bypassing the strong protections offered on the PC version,” the company says. “This can happen with any of the numerous games available on Nintendo Switch.

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[–] [email protected] 83 points 1 year ago (3 children)

Personally, I'm not much of a PC gamer, so I don't have a lot of personal experience with Denuvo; but this sounds pretty concerning.

My understanding is that by Denuvo LoJacking into every part of the game, it seriously hampers performance; and the Switch is underpowered enough as it is. I can only imagine how poorly games will run if the Switch has to devote resources to Denuvo as well.

Plus, from a preservation standpoint this is terrible too. Even if the studio drops Denuvo down the line, it will forever be included on the cartridge. This means that in the future, the only way to play this game will have to be an emulated copy, since you won't be able to get the update to clear the (no longer supported) Denuvo from the game.

[–] [email protected] 19 points 1 year ago (1 children)

Exactly. But AFAIK every Denuvo game eventually gets cracked, so at least we will have the pirate copies. From a preservation standpoint, a dumped ROM is much better than a physical cartridge anyway, since it's more portable and easier to back up. It's the contents of the cartridge minus the physical limitations.

[–] [email protected] 32 points 1 year ago (2 children)

There's plenty of games which haven't been cracked. More often than not, a game is updated to remove denuvo or a drm-free .exe is released accidentally.

It's been hard to crack games and from what I've read, it now relies on one person and they have been a bit of a lunatic.

[–] [email protected] 8 points 1 year ago (1 children)

EMPRESS is their name and yeah, they are bonkers. They are also very picky and influenced by donations, so obscure games won't be cured from DENUVO ever. Judgement, a somehow popular Sega release, was cracked days ago, and it's a 2018 game. They picked a fight with a ripper\cracker Skidrow in .nfo announcing that.

[–] [email protected] 4 points 1 year ago* (last edited 1 year ago) (3 children)

For clarity sake, Judgment only released ~~this March~~ September 2022 (thank you for the correction) on PC. But for example, Dead Space Remake, which released in January, is still uncracked.

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[–] [email protected] 7 points 1 year ago (2 children)

EMPRESS may be a lunatic, but it's not like we have any better options. If anything, I wish EMPRESS would teach the next generation of d€nuvø crackers and that they would be chill and just crack for the sake of piracy/preservation.

[–] [email protected] 11 points 1 year ago

With what level of trust pirated releases need, it's kinda worrysome to depend on that person. And they doesn't seem like one to share their secrets.

[–] [email protected] 5 points 1 year ago (1 children)

I hope it's not a single person but a group mascarding as one deranged individual so it means that capable crackers are more widespread than one singular genius holding it down.

[–] [email protected] 4 points 1 year ago

Who really knows it's all very strange to me, the scene has generally always been very much out of mainstream politics except when it relates to tech/IP law, and generally pretty egalitarian, insofar as no one knows who is on the other end of any conversation.

[–] [email protected] 8 points 1 year ago* (last edited 1 year ago)

I can only imagine how poorly games will run if the Switch has to devote resources to Denuvo as well.

Pokemon Go added code obfuscation (I forgot the name of the company that provided it) some months after it was first released. Phones started running very hot, battery life dropped drastically, and people who played a lot had to replace their batteries (or phones) in a fraction of their normal lifetime. Also, as you imagined, performance dropped significantly.

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[–] [email protected] 74 points 1 year ago (1 children)

And like every other DRM, it's just going to be something that the people who bought the game and play it unaltered will be forced to deal with in one way or another... while those who modify the game, emulate or pirate it, won't. I love DRMs. Nothing like feeling like a sucker for actually buying the game and not cracking it.

[–] [email protected] 20 points 1 year ago (1 children)

Like Resident Evil Village before they fixed it.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=UXZGCwAJpbM

It shouldn't be a problem if it's properly implemented, but games are so broken these days and take months to fix if lucky that it's insulting to paying customers. Properly implemented DRM is not a guarantee when games have been unoptimized even without it.

[–] [email protected] 24 points 1 year ago (1 children)

Even perfectly implemented DRM steals cycles that can't possibly benefit any gamer ever in any way.

[–] [email protected] 13 points 1 year ago

At the very least even if it runs beautifully it ends up being an annoyance on Steam Deck and offline play interrupting your game session as though you are the pirate as opposed to an actual customer who paid. While the pirates laugh at the experience you should be getting.

[–] [email protected] 43 points 1 year ago

What I will always find funny is that pirated and cracked games run better than the actual ones with Denovo.

[–] [email protected] 36 points 1 year ago (3 children)

Surely a 1:1 emulator would just run DRM as expected and it would never know... Feels like it may stop day1 piracy via emulators but anything beyond I'm sure would be patched.

[–] [email protected] 13 points 1 year ago* (last edited 11 months ago)

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[–] [email protected] 7 points 1 year ago (3 children)

Honestly, I'm not sure. I don't have a lot of experience with PC gaming (or its related piracy), but there seems to be a lot of drama in the pirate community due to the difficulty in bypassing Denuvo.

In this particular case, a good Switch emulator may be enough to bypass it; but my guess is it'll be more complicated and resource taxing on the Switch than a simple hardware check.

[–] [email protected] 26 points 1 year ago (1 children)

IMO the worst part about Denuvo is that it just ruins any game they add it to by being a massive resource hog.

[–] [email protected] 8 points 1 year ago

Yeah, and switch sometimes stutter too already without Denuvo. Games are already being pushed to their limit on the switch just trying to hit 30 fps whole not even targeting 1080p in the more heavy games.

[–] [email protected] 7 points 1 year ago (1 children)

We've been down this road before. It just takes a few determined hackers to find a workaround. I can't wait to see what their solution would be.

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[–] [email protected] 31 points 1 year ago (4 children)

Even if a game is protected against piracy on its PC version, the version released on Nintendo Switch can be emulated from day one and played on PC, therefore bypassing the strong protections offered on the PC version,”

Are there that many multi-platform games that have denuvo and a switch version too?

I'd think most games "big enough" for denuvo wouldn't have a switch port anyway.

[–] [email protected] 23 points 1 year ago

That was my thought. Most games that are on both PC and Switch are not big enough to want to pay Denuvo for their services. Any game that is big enough to care probably also can't afford to take the Denuvo performance hit (that they claim doesn't exist) on the under-powered Switch.

[–] [email protected] 4 points 1 year ago

There were a few years back. The Tony Hawk remasters cone to mind

[–] [email protected] 4 points 1 year ago

There are a surprising amount of pc games on switch. I’m not sure if all these titles have denuvo on PC but as an example.

Dragon Quest 11 Doom Eternal Divinity original sin 2 Disco Elysium Most resident Evil games There are a lot of other games that have a switch port, but I’m too tired to think about it further.

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[–] [email protected] 30 points 1 year ago

Fuck Nintendo, Fuck Denuvo, Fuck everyone

[–] [email protected] 30 points 1 year ago (1 children)

Well, shit, sorry Switch gamers, you're going to have to put up with this steaming pile of shit us PC gamers had to do as well.

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[–] [email protected] 30 points 1 year ago (2 children)

Welp, I guess we're going to be getting a DRM-breaking emulator accompanied by some weird new rant by Empress.

[–] [email protected] 18 points 1 year ago (1 children)

Was she the one who released an nfo where she went off on a random insane rant against trans people?

[–] [email protected] 8 points 1 year ago

yes

[–] [email protected] 15 points 1 year ago (1 children)

it would be preferable to have someone other than her cracking denuvo lol

[–] [email protected] 9 points 1 year ago* (last edited 1 year ago) (1 children)

No one else is batshit insane enough to wanna warp their minds working with this garbage. She is already warped, so it doesn't affect her. Much.

[–] [email protected] 9 points 1 year ago

personally I think that theres loads of people with the skillset to do it, but they all have nice jobs in cybersecurity instead of cracking video games.

[–] [email protected] 30 points 1 year ago

As a Switch owner, fuck this. This is reason enough for me to stop buying games on the Switch and go full piracy/emulation mode. I don't have any Denuvo games on my PC and I am not having any on my Switch.

[–] [email protected] 26 points 1 year ago (1 children)

Best way to fight against things like this is with your wallet. Stop buying and supporting games with Denuvo or any other similar DRM.

[–] [email protected] 16 points 1 year ago

I buy physical because I don't trust Nintendo's online services, but I'm not even going to get physical if it comes with DRM. I'm buying it expressly to dump it and run in an emulator eventually.

Not to mention that the Switch is already showing its age, so any added burden is going to come with noticeably performance loss.

[–] [email protected] 18 points 1 year ago (1 children)

How is this going to affect battery life? Some of us don’t have the switch connected to power 24/7. Sounds like a bad idea for an underpowered handheld device.

[–] [email protected] 3 points 1 year ago

It'll probably rely on offline checks

Will be equivalent to steamdrm, uplay, etc

[–] [email protected] 13 points 1 year ago (1 children)

It's going to be cracked within a week

[–] [email protected] 7 points 1 year ago

That's not how it works for most games unless Empress goes at I. U

[–] [email protected] 12 points 1 year ago* (last edited 1 year ago)

I hope most developers stay away from Denuvo on Switch. Devs already have to squeeze the thing for every fps they can get out of it, it really doesn't need anything else bogging it down.

[–] [email protected] 10 points 1 year ago* (last edited 1 year ago)

https://www.theverge.com/2022/8/24/23319847/nintendo-switch-denuvo-drm-anti-cheat-software-emulated-games-pc this news isn't even new. i figured they'd have at least applied it to a game by now.

[–] [email protected] 9 points 1 year ago

And yet my friends wonder why I play ancient games and indie games. Less shit I have to out go with

[–] [email protected] 8 points 1 year ago (1 children)

Well they're a little late at least. All the good games worth getting on the Switch are already out, and it'll be about a year until Switch 2 will probably be out.

[–] [email protected] 10 points 1 year ago (2 children)

Could be doing this in preparation for the Switch 2.

[–] [email protected] 6 points 1 year ago

Switch 2 should then be a much less of a hit than Switch. Already Steam Deck has proven to be a far better handheld gaming console.

[–] [email protected] 3 points 1 year ago

Given this is Nintendo, I highly doubt this code would be portable to the new console.

[–] [email protected] 8 points 1 year ago (2 children)

Is this some hardware they're activating or software that's going to hurt already struggling performance?

[–] [email protected] 7 points 1 year ago

It will hurt performance, yeah. DRM is evil.

[–] [email protected] 7 points 1 year ago

Software probably, it already hurts performance on PC versions.

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