Irdeto unveiled Denuvo emulator protection for Nintendo Switch, a new piece of anti-emulation technology designed to make pirating Switch games on PC more difficult.
Irdeto, the company behind the controversial digital rights management (DRM) program, said in a press release that it created Nintendo Switch Emulator Protection to ensure that developers could increase their revenue during a game’s launch window. It pointed out that most Nintendo Switch games become emulatable on PC on day one, and it hopes that the new anti-emulation tech will help address that issue and ensure developers don’t lose pivotal launch sales to piracy.
“We at Denuvo understand that piracy negatively affects the gaming industry and are working with the industry parties to ensure they have the latest protection technologies available for them,” said Denuvo managing director Reinhard Blaukovitsch. “Our team is excited to provide a solution that helps the developers and publishers to help fight the issue of Nintendo Switch piracy.”
Denuvo said that the Nintendo Switch Emulation Protection tech integrates seamlessly into a game build’s toolchain without affecting gameplay and inserts checks into the code to block gameplay on emulators. Gamers, however, have expressed utter dissatisfaction with Denuvo for years — even if they acquire games legally. They complained that Denuvo has caused issues in PC games, from long loading times to slow performance.
They deem the program a double-edged sword — Denuvo protects games from being tampered with for emulation, but it throttles the game’s speed in the process. Some game companies are generous enough to patch Denuvo out of their games long after their release on PC, and others don’t even use it at all.
In this case, it’s clear that rampant Nintendo Switch piracy is a big concern for Nintendo and Irdeto, and they’re looking for a comprehensive solution to stop it. It remains to be seen if this will negatively impact the performance of Nintendo Switch games, though.
Acer’s Predator Atlas 8 finally has a US release date and price, several months after the company first showed off the handheld in May. The highlight is the Intel Arc G3 Extreme chip inside, which has been adopted by only a couple of other consoles besides the Atlas 8. This version will go on sale exclusively at Best Buy on November 1 for $1,299.99.
Acer originally said the Atlas 8 would arrive in North America in October, but left pricing open at the time. The launch came amid the ongoing DRAM crunch, which has made memory more expensive across the PC industry and complicated pricing for hardware makers.
Gaming laptops and I have a complicated relationship. One of my first gaming rigs was an Acer Predator that was already outdated when I bought it. I was a broke college kid, and that was the best I could afford. So trying out high-end gaming laptops is always fun. But ASUS' ROG Zephyrus G14 is a lot more than a laptop that can run AAA games. It is portable, so you're not lugging around a 2.5kg machine everywhere you go. It is built well, none of that plastic chassis, and can even function as a normal laptop outside of just gaming.
Google Play is borrowing one of the Nintendo Switch’s most useful little tricks. A new Sidekick tool called Playbacks captures a short clip after something interesting has already happened, sparing players from running a screen recorder throughout an entire game.
Playbacks is part of Google Play Store v53.8 and keeps saved clips on the phone. Google first announced it earlier this month, but the new Play Store update marks its arrival for players. Anyone who has watched a perfect win vanish because the record button came too late already understands the appeal.