^{Image: Nintendo}

Nintendo has served Valve a takedown notice over a Wii and GameCube emulator on Steam.

Nintendo is forcing Valve to take down an emulator called Dolphin from Steam, according to a letter spotted by PCGamer. Dolphin is a widely popular games emulator for old GameCube and Wii games on the PC, but Nintendo has accused its developer of violating the company’s intellectual property rights.

Valve removed Dolphin from Steam after Nintendo said that it had an, “obligation to remove the offering of the Dolphin emulator from the Steam store,” to protect the, “hard work and creativity of video game engineers and developers.” Dolphin first popped up on Steam in March this year, after already being available as an open-source project online for many years.

The unfortunate consequence of its removal from Steam is that Steam Deck owners have now lost the ability to play classic GameCube and Wii titles on the go, besides relying on the Nintendo Switch Online subscription’s limited selection of retro titles. Nintendo is infamous for aggressively pursuing cease and desist orders when it comes to protecting its IP, so this move isn’t terribly surprising.

Dolphin’s developers only found out about Nintendo’s cease and desist order after the games company contacted Valve, and it is unclear whether they plan to challenge the claim or take their emulator elsewhere. The developers have only said that the emulator has been ‘indefinitely postponed’ via an official blog post:

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 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.

It’s going to be an uphill battle for Dolphin to return on Steam, unfortunately.

Nintendo serves Valve takedown notice to remove emulator from Steam