(Image: Xenoblade Chronicles 3)

During this generation, Nintendo has cracked down as tough as possible on battling piracy. Aggressively going after emulation sites, and delivering harsh punishment to pirating hardware, such as Team Xecutor seeing prison time for selling jailbreaking devices. Big N has also sued ROMUniverse over hosting Nintendo games on their site, free to download, in 2019, with the ruling in Nintendo's favor in 2021.

In latest news, things are going to get a little tougher for getting Nintendo Switch games to run on PC. 

The anti-tampering software Denuvo, developed by Irdeto (who specializes in state-of-the-art cybersecurity), will be launching their "Nintendo Switch Emulator Protection". This Digital Rights Management grants the ability to control access to copywritten material.

Denuvo by Irdeto launches the first Nintendo Switch Emulator Protection technology to safeguard games launched on Nintendo Switch.

Read more: https://t.co/MAZu45ICtM
#irdeto #denuvo #cybersecurity #anticheat #antitamper #piracy #ProtectYourGames #EmulatorProtection pic.twitter.com/MAx5iRnSs8

— Irdeto (@Irdeto) August 24, 2022

“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", stated Reinhard Blaukovitsch, Managing Director at Denuvo. "Our team is excited to provide a solution that helps the developers and publishers to help fight the issue of Nintendo Switch piracy.”

This decision is considered widely controversial, as Denuvo's DRM software has reportedly used extra RAM and data, gravely affecting the performance of games on Steam. Through its DRM, that means if the Denuvo service goes down, it will take the game with it.

Though Irdeto has stated that Switch games will not see any difference in performance, Nintendo fans are naturally concerned. Denuvo cripples titles on Steam to the point that devs have opted out of the service, due to fan backlash. 

Time will tell to determine which developers will incorporate the software in their games.