The Steam Deck is out in the wild now, and its open nature makes it quite the prize for the emulation crowd. GameCube and Wii emulator Dolphin has been shown running on the handheld PC, and as you might expect, content involving piracy like that has been swiftly blocked by Nintendo on sites like YouTube.
ResetEra user dex3108 captured some screenshots of such a block in a thread, citing YouTuber The Phawx’s how-to video on Steam Deck Nintendo Switch emulation. The video, which is no longer available, received a block “on copyright grounds” from Nintendo. Curiously, The Phawx’s original Xbox and PlayStation 3 emulation videos remain up as of the time of this writing. To be clear, Nintendo is completely within its rights here, but the situation is still odd when compared to Xbox and PlayStation content.
Valve’s hands are washed of the situation too. When answering questions about Steam Deck exclusives — which aren’t and won’t be a thing — it reiterated that the device is just a PC at the end of the day. What Steam Deck owners do with the handheld is on them. That said, Valve has also doubled down on recommending that you go to a pro for any repairs you might need. It’s also already working on a Steam Deck 2, due to the demand for the most expensive tier of the first one.
