Link: https://handheldhideout.neocities.org/articles/azahar-drops-anbernic-support-unofficial-fork

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 :)

Maybe Anbernic couldve made a donation first

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

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 emulators fork 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.

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?

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.

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.