I apologize for making a thread for one question and taking up people's time if they answer, but I really want to start speedrunning BoTW but I can't afford a 300 console plus accessories and a 60 dollar game. is a pirated copy running on CEMU considered a homebrew run? I am guessing it is and is therefore banned but im hoping really hard that it doesn't count and I can still speedrun it.

You can still speedrun it. Whether or not you can submit your runs to a leaderboard is the question. So go ask the BotW forum.

If you go to submit a run in BotW, you will see that emulators are banned.

@Komrade

I understand that but the question I'm asking is Emulating considered homebrew?

No, while many homebrew games are played through emulation, emulation itself is not considered homebrew. Homebrew is defined as "games produced by hobbyists for proprietary hardware platforms that are not typically user-programmable" (from Wikipedia)

@TRLittleToaster

thank you for the answer! I don't know if the BoTW reviewers will agree but you give me hope! besides Komrade is right, I can still speedrun it and practice I just won't be able to upload my runs until I can get a console

If you want a cheaper option that is allowed for the leaderboard, you could get a used Wii U and a copy of BOTW for Wii U. This is about half the price of a new Switch and new BOTW Switch copy.

Yeah let's not do something illegal please

@Pear

ah, thank you for the advice! I did not know that the wii u was cheaper, I thought because they weren't made anymore that they would be quite expensive.

There’s a site called Pricecharting that tracks sales of video game stuff on eBay.

https://www.pricecharting.com/game/wii-u/wii-u-console-basic-white-8gb#completed-auctions-cib