What does Denuvo's arrival on Nintendo Switch mean for players going forward?

In perhaps a surprise move for most gamers, Denuvo is now available on the Nintendo Switch. Its arrival on the hybrid console was announced a year ago. But now, cybersecurity company Irdeto has opened the Nintendo Developers Portal to other studios to avail the infamous anti-piracy tech in their games. This is alarming for players, especially due to the software's issues on PC.

This has concerned fans for not just how it will affect the Nintendo Switch in future, but their own gameplay experiences as well.

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Is Denuvo really necessary on Nintendo Switch?

Those who have been Nintendo fans for long would be intimately familiar with the Japanese game maker's anti-piracy and emulation stance. As per official statement, it seems to have been brought onboard to battle the latter. Here's what it says:

"By blocking unauthorized emulations on PC, studios are able to increase their revenue during the game launch window, which is the most important period for monetization. The Nintendo Switch Emulator Protection will ensure that anyone wishing to play the game has to buy a legitimate copy."

It is true that the Nintendo Switch is a very popular platform for emulation on PC. Since Nintendo games cannot be played elsewhere, this is the go-to method for many PC players. Given how universally acclaimed and sought after the company's first-party games are, it is unsurprising that many want to check out their titles - including those from regions without any official Nintendo presence.

As such, many major games, like The Legend of Zelda Tears of the Kingdom, have been available to play using Nintendo Switch emulators since day one. Using Denuvo is supposed to be a measure to prevent the loss of day one sales for major games. But is that really the case? Even considering pirated "copies", the 2023 open-world action-adventure sold 10 million copies during launch period.

Denuvo works by checking the authenticity of a game copy via the internet. This means that illegal copies will get blocked from activation. However, PC modders and crackers have been hard at work trying to reverse-engineer and disable Denuvo, like a tug-of-war battle. This proves that pirates are not the target audience and never intend to purchase the software.

In that case, they cannot be considered lost sales, which is why this is a losing battle for Denuvo, as it is bound to eventually get cracked. What is more concerning is how this will impact games. Irdeto claims that the Denuvo technology integration is seamless, and there is no impact on performance of games. Yet, we have seen mixed results on PC.

While some games see minimal performance loss, it is quite substantial in others. In other words, many games utilizing Denuvo run worse than their non-Denuvo (or "cracked") versions. Since the Nintendo Switch is a low-powered portable, this may hurt game performance further. However, it seems likely to be a counter-measure for the future instead.

With each passing day, we head closer and closer to an official Nintendo Switch 2 announcement. So it may not be surprising to see Denuvo in Switch games arrive in full effect there. After all, the current model is at the end of its lifespan, so it does not make much sense to introduce it this late in the model lifecycle. But will developers be happy with this decision? Those who choose to incorporate Denuvo have to pay licensing fees.

So, it is unfeasible for studios to keep their games under watchful eyes forever. The likeliest thing to happen is that some major studios, particularly AAA publishers, will incorporate Denuvo for their Switch games for the launch period, only to be removed down the line. In fact, this is already a trend on PC, with developer Capcom disabling it from Resident Evil Village earlier this year.

The consumers are clearly not happy though. While the majority of the casual audience may not care about this news, core fans certainly will. The Nintendo Switch has become a great complimentary system for PC gamers, and given that this particular demographic loathes Denuvo's inclusion in games, it will likely affect their purchasing decisions for the upcoming Nintendo Switch successor.

It remains to be seen whether Denuvo will have technical performance problems for Switch games. At the end of the day, however, there is no avoiding piracy as it is a gray area and the only path to video game preservation.