The Octonaut

They were observed finding one ROM on the Internet, ever. They do have their own emulator(s).

Nintendo is a bunch of humans. If my boss asks me to see if I can find the installer for an old version of our software, you can bet I’ll check anywhere before volunteering to go scrape old hard drives.

They are not “banning” emulators. They take action against two sorts of problems: leaking, and distribution of copyrighted material. Yuzu was taken down because they stupidly started charging for help with playing Tears of the Kingdom before its release. Other emulators have been threatened because they included binary console OS software (rather than actually fully emulating the console itself) or actually distributed game ROMs.

Dolphin has been around for about 20 years now. Why? Because they don’t distribute copyrighted material, recommend against doing so, and don’t require to include any binaries from the console.

Here’s all they had to both say and adhere to, to “survive” the supposedly blood-hungry Nintendo for longer than some of the people reading this have been alive:

Where can I download game ISOs/ROMs?¶

Short answer: You don’t. Buy games and dump them with a Wii.

Long answer: Downloading commercial games is illegal and thus strongly frowned upon by the Dolphin developers. To prevent legal issues, this includes gray areas like downloading games which you purchased earlier. You don’t necessarily need to own a gaming console by yourself because you can buy a game disc and dump them with a friend’s console. On the other hand, copying a friend’s game dump is considered illegal again.

https://dolphin-emu.org/

Also, lol @ the idea that it’s hypocrisy for them to use their own game files. You understand that’s what a ROM is, right? It isn’t magic. It’s just a binary file.

…

“Ripping” ROMs, or dumping them, takes almost no effort. If you have the cartridge reader its about as much work as taking photos off an SD card. Certainly nothing at all like cracking a game, which is pretty much software development.

Please consider informing yourself before forming strong opinions.

Just so we’re clear, are you under the impression that “ROMs acquired from the Internet” represent something other than Nintendo’s work?

Removed by mod

You are being tested on your comprehension of the text given, not asked for your opinion on piracy and copyright.

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What part of my post was complicated? I quite literally said 90% of his problem is ads…

I’m really sorry that you lack the curiosity or confidence to figure out installing qbittorrent and, uh, clicking a link, but I need you to understand that “hook your computer up to your TV and get a wireless keyboard and mouse combo” is going to be more complicated and finicky for most people. Particularly people with kids who don’t want a computer just sitting awkwardly in their living room.

Sounds like 90% of your problem is ads then. Or going to shitty sites. Get on a decent tracker - even the good old one - and have an adblocker installed

It’s 2024 man, tormenting a movie takes about 10 minutes and then you neither have to worry about ads nor connectivity for the rest of the movie

Is there a good community for sideloading apps to TVs? And/or something like custom roms on phones?

I have a Samsung that seems to be Samung’s closed garden of apps rather than Android proper. They let me down on some promised features, eg Google Voice Assistant (I know, I know, sacrificing security and privacy, but I already have a Google Home listening in elsewhere) that were released in UK but bizarrely they didn’t bother with Ireland despite nearly every requirement being identical. I mean Christ, if my parent’s ancient TV can play Crossy Road why can’t my relatively recent one?

I also have an idle Raspberry Pi that could act as Android box but the motivation isn’t there when my TV is mostly just my kids going between Disney Plus and the Nintendo Switch.