this post was submitted on 15 Feb 2025
94 points (98.0% liked)

RetroGaming

28608 readers
78 users here now

Vintage gaming community.

Rules:

  1. Be kind.
  2. No spam, AI slop, or soliciting for money.
  3. No racism or other bigotry allowed.
  4. Obviously nothing illegal.

If you see these please report them.

founded 2 years ago
MODERATORS
 

A popular Nintendo DS emulator for Android devices, DraStic, has recently been removed from the Google Play Store. Here’s what we know:

  • DraStic, developed by Exophase, was available on the Google Play Store for over a decade.
  • No public statement was released prior to its removal; however, the developer previously mentioned they were planning on making it open-source and removing the app from the store.
  • Previous legal actions by Nintendo include pressuring the developers of Ryujinx to pull their source code from GitHub, and filing a lawsuit against Tropic Haze for creating Yuzu in 2024, resulting in a $2.4 million settlement.

Despite speculation that Nintendo is behind the sudden removal of DraStic, Exophase indicated they were planning to remove the emulator from the Play Store.

Still, it's bizarre that there doesn't seem to have been much of a heads-up before the emulator was actually pulled from the store.


What do you think? Have you come across any more information from Exophase?

top 5 comments
sorted by: hot top controversial new old
[–] Goodtoknow@lemmy.ca 18 points 1 year ago (1 children)

I hope it gets open sourced, 10+ years ago there were no other performant DS emulators on Android, Drastic was amazing in that most 3D games ran amazingly even on low end phones. These Days MelonDS is where it's at, even able to run dsi-ware πŸ‰

[–] graymess@lemmy.world -1 points 1 year ago

The open source promise was many years ago, wasn't it? And the dev's been quiet about it ever since? I won't expect it to go FOSS ever.

[–] autonomoususer@lemmy.world 11 points 1 year ago

It fails to include a libre software license text file, like GPL. We do not control it, anti-libre software.

[–] hexagonwin@lemmy.sdf.org 3 points 1 year ago (1 children)

iirc it was released for free some time ago, not sure why. I hope it gets open sourced.

[–] otp@sh.itjust.works 2 points 1 year ago

It was in response to the Switch emulator controversy