The Legend Of Zelda: Wind Waker – Dolphin has let people play Gamecube and Wii games on PC for years (Picture: Nintendo)



After receiving warnings of legal action from Nintendo, Valve has deleted the Steam listing for the Dolphin emulator.



A couple of months ago, it was announced that Dolphin – a homebrew emulator that lets you play Nintendo GameCube and Wii games on PC – would be made available on Steam .



You’d think such an act wouldn’t be possible given Nintendo’s distaste for third-party emulation . However, since emulators are technically legal and Dolphin doesn’t actually supply any games (it’s just a tool to run games you already own), it seemed Nintendo wouldn’t have a leg to stand on to have it shut down.



Unfortunately, for anyone awaiting Dolphin’s arrival to Steam, Valve has removed its listing and development has been ‘indefinitely postponed’ following a cease and desist from Nintendo.



It’s hardly surprising that Nintendo would take steps to try and prevent this, especially since Dolphin would’ve likely been available on the Steam Deck , Valve’s Nintendo Switch alternative.



Nintendo’s letter to Valve states that the emulator ‘violates Nintendo’s intellectual property rights’ and ‘operates by incorporating these cryptographic keys without Nintendo’s authorisation and decrypting the ROMs at or immediately before runtime.’



The emulator contains something called the Wii Common Key, which is used to decrypt Wii games and, according to Nintendo, allows Dolphin to ‘unlawfully circumvent a technological measure that effectively controls access to a work protected under the Copyright Act.’



While not technically a copyright takedown (since the emulator hasn’t launched on Steam yet), this is essentially a warning shot to Valve that, if it does host Dolphin, it will violate the Digital Millennium Copyright Act (DMCA) and invite legal action from Nintendo.



‘There is no allegation that Valve is currently hosting anything that infringes Nintendo’s copyright or, more broadly, violates the DMCA,’ explains attorney Kellen Voyer of Voyer Law (via PC Gamer ).



‘Rather, Nintendo is sending clear notice to Valve that it considers Dolphin to violate the DMCA and should it be released on Steam, Nintendo will likely take further action.’



Super Mario Galaxy – the emulator itself is still available; it just may no longer come to Steam (Picture : Dolphin)



Nintendo has also issued a statement to Kotaku , saying, ‘This emulator illegally circumvents Nintendo’s protection measures and runs illegal copies of games. Using illegal emulators or illegal copies of games harms development and ultimately stifles innovation. Nintendo respects the intellectual property rights of other companies, and in turn expects others to do the same.’



For the time being, Dolphin itself hasn’t been forcefully shut down. It doesn’t even sound like the team behind it has been contacted by Nintendo as it was Valve that informed them of the removal of the Steam listing.



‘It is with much disappointment that we have to announce that the Dolphin on Steam release has been indefinitely postponed,’ reads a message on Dolphin’s website .



‘We were notified by Valve that Nintendo has issued a cease and desist citing the 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.’



There are now questions of what the Dolphin team can do to circumvent this and get the emulator on Steam as planned, or if Valve will even be willing to host it anymore.









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