The two developers behind Azahar have announced that they’re dropping official support for Anbernic retro handhelds, following the company’s decision to promote its upcoming 3DS-esque dual screen RG DDS using AzaharPlus, an unofficial fork of the 3DS emulator.
I spoke at length with Azahar’s two lead developers, OpenSauce and PabloMK7, some time ago for a separate interview, and looking back through their answers, I realized a few were particularly relevant to what’s happening now. I’ve included some of those comments in this article, alongside a look at what prompted the decision, the differences between Azahar and AzaharPlus, and what it might mean for Anbernic owners.
Again, this is a much, much shorter ‘article’ than my usual work, so it is on my NeoCities page/experiment this time, rather than my usual site :)
All these fancy new DS hardware models and I’ve gotten lazy about my wireless multiplayer project I’m supposed to go research and work on lol.
I reaaaaaaaaaaaaally want to buy this console for family and friends so we can play multiplayer just like the DS/3DS era but MelonDS (and Azahaar AFAIK) only implemented the protocol over the regular network stack which makes it almost impossible to play over WiFi and just barely doable over Ethernet because the DS needs <20 microseconds of “packet” latency.
The users will suffer the most. I hope they can solve their issues.
Maybe Anbernic couldve made a donation first
I’m having very hypocritical and somewhat childish vibes from emu devs
that host premium versions for extra fees(was wrong on that, appears like Azahar+ is a fork not related with og Azahar devs).I understand you want your project to be something you can get your time paid of. But emulation is just a such thin line, and getting paid only increases a likelihood of getting sued.(if Azahar+ is not related with Azahar this critique is invalid)Also like what hardware support are we talking about? 3DS was well emulated platform by the time citra died. You don’t need many platform specific driver fixes for it as far as I’ve seen with my device. And to add salt to the wound: most GPU related bugs will likely be resolved with panvk and turnip anyways. Controller support is also not an issue. So generally it seems like they making this case to just deter Anbernic user base publicly.
Don’t get me wrong, I do understand that Anbernic should not have used
pirated premium versions of emulatorsfork that is providing piracy feature and maliciously uses og Azahar name similarity. I’m not arguing that that’s wrong. It is wrong, and they shouldn’t have done this.What I do argue against is anticonsumer self-centered behavior and recoil of Azahar devs actions. Anbernic offers cheap hardware - as a buyer from not a rich area, I’m buying cheap hardware. I did also remove all of the pre installed bs it comes with. And now I will get punished simply for brandname my device has. It is kinda ridiculous.
I don’t think it’s hypocritical to ask for money to develop an emulator. There is nothing wrong with this to me. Regardless who said it or says it, that’s not the point. But distributing hardware with an Open source project that can emulate, and put Roms and sell this for money is nor just morally wrong, but also illegal. Usually emulator developers want to distance themselves from this, because its illegal and also their project and work would be associated with the illegal activity. There is nothing hypocritical about that.
And that’s a general stance I have, not just about Anbernic or Azahar+ or anyone else, its a general statement by me.
I simply disagree. Developing emu for such a platform that has such a litigious host comes with experience and expectation that you have no chance of messing this up. Having the paid version would be exactly that f-up, because lawyers now gets to prove your profits and their damages. And yeah it would be kind of hypocrisy in my eyes to make such a statement in such case. However since my last message I did mentioned that this point is invalid, because it wasn’t really that situation. Azahar+ seems to be a fork of Azahar, that uses Azahar in its name for userbase stealing.
The issue shouldn’t really be on Anbernic here, but on Azahar+. Instead of addressing real issue of name similarity, they simply went blaming Anbernic, and actually being anticonsumer there. Their actions wouldn’t hurt Anbernic sales, but would hurt their consumers (hypothetically, in reality that dmg is minimal because there aren’t as many platform specific unsolvable issues as devs trying to make you think).
Again I’m against Anbernic doing this bs too. I’m not saying their are right to preinstall bs, and use it in promos. It’s just weird that Azahar went full on against Anbernic but did nothing with Azahar+. And from the Anbernic eyes: promo guy probably went on the releases page, tried Azahar - got annoyed that he cannot setup anything, got Azahar+ and got everything working there thinking it’s the same thing. Anbernic simply used what was easy to use. Azahar backlash just feels like childish outrage to me now.
I think the only wrong doing is Anbernic here, otherwise I don’t see anything wrong (maybe I overlooked something).
Oh wow. Bit of remark. I just figured out that Azahar+ is not even related to og Azahar other than being fork of it. This changes a lot tbh. But it even highlights Azahar devs in even worse light. Because instead of going scorched earth on Azahar+ devs for using their name, they decided to target Anbernic userbase.
They did nothing to the userbase, anbernic did by promoting unoriginal content
Why should they support a project for free when that project doesnt support them?
100% anbernic being twats here
Azahar+ is fork under gpl. Azahar devs have authority over their name, but instead of dealing with Azahar+ they went against Anbernic because they used software that they deemed easier to use. The Azahar devs actions directly are anticonsumer because they are not directed in any way against Anbernic as a company. Their actions though might hurt consumers that use Anbernic devices. As much as I don’t like Anbernic doing bs with preinstalling and promoting software. If Azahar really wanted to distance themselves from piracy looks of Azahar+ they should have demanded proper name change first. Then this situation would never occured in the first place. The point that at first I even got looped into all of this thinking Azahar+ is a premium option of Azahar is a perfect example of why name change would really matter here.
AzaharPlus is much more comfortable for a 3ds user. With a modded console you can use FBI to extract your games to cia format and play them as is on AzaharPlus; instead of being forced to decrypt it on an external tool which adds one unnecessary step to Azahar
you can use FBI to extract your games to cia format
wtaf
If I had to guess, decryption is intentionally kept separated to limit Nintendo’s lawyers from going nuclear on them, even if it is less user friendly.
Hardware is still there and probably worth supporting. Users are not going anywhere, and it wasn’t their fault that Anbernic (or rather, their PR person) decided to promote their new product with something that works easier for the end user.
Also I’m just wondering how it would end if AzaharPlus would be called differently, without “Azahar” in its title. Would they still blame Anbernic? Would they blame that fork authors instead for basically the same thing they did themselves with Citra?
