Dolphin Emulator Steam Release “Indefinitely Postponed”

Original article [Sat 27th May, 2023 04:05 BST]:

Back in March, the team behind the GameCube and Wii emulator Dolphin announced a release on Valve’s Steam service.

In an update on the Dolphin website today, it has been revealed Nintendo has issued a DMCA against Dolphin’s Steam page. The release, which was scheduled for “Q2 2023”, has now been “indefinitely postponed”.

Here is the full statement from the development team, mentioning how it is “currently investigating” its options:

“It is with much disappointment that we have to announce that the Dolphin on Steam release has been indefinitely postponed. We were notified by Valve that Nintendo has issued a DMCA against Dolphin’s Steam page, and have removed Dolphin from Steam until the matter is settled. We are currently investigating our options and will have a more in-depth response in the near future. We appreciate your patience in the meantime.”

In Dolphin’s Steam description, it was noted how the “app does not come with games” and would require players to “own an original copy of any game”. The emulator’s release on Steam also promised support for 4K displays, modern controllers, netplay, was fully open-source, and was a “free” download.

Other emulators already exist on Steam, like RetroArch – so there might still be a chance for Dolphin to be released on Valve’s service in some way or form in the near future.

Update [Sat 27th May, 2023 13:45 BST]:

Dataminer and Nintendo Life user LuigiBlood has highlighted part of the DMCA – revealing there is a Wii Common Key in the source code of Dolphin Emulator.

LuigiBlood: “Quoting the DMCA: “the Dolphin emulator operates by incorporating these cryptographic keys without Nintendo’s authorization and decrypting the ROMs at or immediately before runtime.” …this is objectively true. I just checked, the Wii Common Key is in the emulator source code.”

Game developer MVG has also shared his own summary of the situation based on this information, and even found evidence (dating back to 2020) of an individual known as ‘Littlemac123’ warning others about the “copyrighted code from the Wii system” in Dolphin Emulator and the problems it could cause if it was released on Steam.

MVG: You can still download Dolphin via other means… but I am a little concerned I will be honest with you guys, Nintendo is now sniffing blood because they’ve found these keys and obviously they’ve spent a lot of time going through the Dolphin source code pretty much line by line, finding troublesome areas, particularly where there are illegal things or keys in this fashion that really just shouldn’t be there…”

“…’Littlemac123′ all the way back in 2020, you had your finger on the pulse here… unfortunately Dolphin is not going to a part of Steam and hopefully that will change…on this particular one, I’m not going to say Nintendo is at fault…but Dolphin did mess this up and they really need to address it and hopefully they will.”

If there are further developments, we will let you know.