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That's a massive improvement in some games for those who play handheld. Probably should've been there from the start, but it's good that Nintendo finally implemented it.
Not sure why it wasn't there from the start. It's something that emulators have been able to get down pat from day 1.
They probably wanted to see how much money they could feasibly make with switch 2 editions of switch 1 games before pulling the trigger on this.
It might have taken them a while to figure out issues with power use and suspend.
They've attached some big disclaimers that not all games will play nice with this, which is why it's a setting that has to be toggled on.
Emulators (when not DMCAed):
Really the only reason Nintendo could go after the ones that they did is because the creators were profiting from it. They don't have any legal standing to go after FOSS.
Bleem! won lawsuits against Sony despite being a paid emulator, so Nintendo doesn't really have legal standing just based on whether or not the creators make money.
Those were lawsuits over different things.
Bleem was being sued for using screenshots in comparative advertising and the courts ruled that it was fair use.
The switch emulators were sued for using proprietary encryption keys in a product they sold. Those weren't a thing with the PS1 and aren't a product of reverse engineering.
Sony sued over the screenshots, but also over unfair competition. Nintendo's legal theory isn't the same as Sony's, but regardless I don't think it's based on whether or not the emulator makes money.
Nintendo's case literally based on whether or not the emulator generates profit. That's why they haven't been able to go after Dolphin.
Right, because that's everything stopped them in the past. If you can't afford a multi-year long legal battle against some of the best lawyers in the world, it doesn't really matter if you're right or not, because you can't even play the game.
Dolphin has been around for literally 20 years and Nintendo have never pursued them because they follow the law. More importantly, they are non-profit.
Taking payments to allow people to play leaked first-party titles was a very, very stupid thing to do.
They prevented Dolphin from getting on steam (for free) a few years ago, so I certainly wouldn't say "never."
They didn't 'prevent' anything. Ask Dolphin themselves.
https://dolphin-emu.org/blog/2023/07/20/what-happened-to-dolphin-on-steam/
TL;DR: Valve asked Nintendo of America's layeers if they want it on the store and they said no. No pursuit. No DMCA. No threats. A legal opinion. Valve gave a copy of the response to Dolphin and said if they wanted it on the store they needed an agreement with Nintendo. i.e. instead of benign ignorance from Nintendo, to get a literal "emulate our games" approval from Nintendo. Dolphin wisely decided not to.
In Nintendo's response they mentioned Dolphin includng the Wii encryption key which if you are old like me you will remember being a meme almost 20 years ago (https://gizmodo.com/wii-officially-hacked-338713). Nintendo takes issue with how this was achieved (physically modifying the chips with a tweezers) but again, have never IIRC attempted any legal action to prevent it. So, "no we don't approve" was always going to be the answer. Dolphin appear to have either expected Valve to risk its own position, or to slip under the radar, to distribute its software. In the end, the status quo was maintained: Valve do not publish or distribute (or prevent you installing yourself through Non-Steam-Games) Dolphin, Dolphin did not seek approval from Nintendo, Nintendo does not pursue Dolphin. Except Dolphin got a nice bit of tech news coverage 15 years after its launch and some nerd cred for kinda-not-really taking on Nintendo.
They didn't prevent anything, they just said no and then the thing didn't happen because they said no and for literally no other reason. But it wasn't Nintendo's fault!
Valve were the ones that explicitly told Dolphin that Dolphin would need to supply them (Valve) with evidence of an agreement. Nintendo would not have even been aware of it had Valve not independently reached out to them. Dolphin (wisely, again) did not contact Nintendo. "Prevent" has an actual meaning and it's not "have a negative opinion towards".
I don't know why I'm arguing with you, go argue with the Dolphin devs themselves that they are wrong about their own application.
Good thing they made it an option since it disables touch screen and might create weird compatibilty issues.
Not clear in the article but the part about joy-con 2 not being recognized as joy-con is only for attached joy-con (so they can still be used as independent joy-con in tabletop). That doesn't seem like a huge problem, unless I am missing a very specific use case. Not sure what attached joy-con can do that a classic controller can't.
I think it's more of a heads up, since you can't use attached JoyCon in TV mode (for obvious reasons), so they will show up as Pro controller.
Yeah probably. I get why it would be simpler to do it like that but I was wondering if there were actual drawbacks to this, since it was listed along the disabled touch screen.
I like the ability to add notes to your friends.
Finally adding the ability to an add people to an existing GameChat is much needed and appreciated. It was such a pain to have to restart a new GameChat session just because someone else wanted in when you’d already created it.
Curious if this gives games with a Switch 2 upgrade the same benefit. I mostly want higher fps in games like Tears of the Kingdom, so if this patch gives it to me, I won't need to purchase those upgrades.
I think this is more like allowing for Switch 1 Docked mode experience in Handheld mode as opposed to applying the native upgrades from the Switch 2.
As far as I know Tears of the Kingdom is capped at 30 fps and 900p on Switch 1 in docked mode. This update gets you this Switch 1 docked mode experience on handheld, so it should not get you 60 fps or any of the other improvements of the switch 2 upgrade pack.
So just higher res, that's kind of a lame trade off for less battery life. I've had no issue with lower res S1 titles looking weird on the S2. I guess my pc brain equated bumping cpu speed (which is what the dock does) with increase in fps.
Got to try this later today. See how Xenoblade Chronicles 2 looks on it
I just tried Torna and it looks great. Even just the removal (o reduction) of the sharpness filter makes the image so much better.
Such an amazing update
Xenoblade Chronicles X looks better in the boosted the Switch 1 Edition than the Switch 2 Edition with the AI filter.
Nintendo is always late to the game. They didn't even update the software on the OG switch so you could use Bluetooth till like 6 years after it was released.
Such a terrible company now.
this post was submitted on 17 Mar 2026
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