Nintendo sent a warning letter to Valve about copyright infringement - voila! Gaming Channel

Nintendo's war on emulators and pirate games is not over. Last March, it was announced that the Dolphin emulator, designed to run games on the GameCube and Wii consoles, will be available for users of the Set platform for PC in the coming months.

This announcement did not escape Nintendo's attention, and last weekend it sent a warning letter demanding that Valve (the platform's owner) remove the purchase page and stop the emulator's distribution on the grounds of copyright infringement.

Dolphin's website said: "It is with great regret that we announce that the distribution of Dolphin Sets has been suspended. Valve informed us of Nintendo's demand, and we removed the purchase page until the matter was settled. We are investigating the options that are given to us."

Dolphin is a free emulator to download and according to the developers it does not infringe copyright and works on a different technology than Nintendo. Similar cases have occurred in the past when Sony sued emulator developers like Bleem or Connectix. The court ruled at the time that they did not infringe copyright because the BIOS and firmware were not identical to those of PlayStation consoles. This set a precedent where emulation more or less became legal in the U.S., a precedent Nintendo would try to change.

If Dolphin's developers decide to appeal, Nintendo will have about two weeks to decide whether to file a lawsuit. It's not yet clear whether Nintendo will take the matter to court, but if it does, it will likely have very big implications for the future of emulators.

The discussion around the subject is very charged online. Especially with Nintendo players. It has often been argued that piracy is the only way to preserve games that do not receive official support from the big companies. There's a huge catalog of games that's no longer legally available, and sometimes emulation or piracy is the only way to experience nostalgia again. And it's a cry that is also heard from Sony, Xbox, and PC players.

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Tags

• Nintendo
• Sets
• valve