Nintendo, the company known for distributing pirated ROMs to consumers and issuing DMCA takedown notices against fan remakes and fangame projects, has filed a lawsuit against the popular Switch emulator Yuzu, seeking to shut down the program.
Emulation has experienced a surge in popularity recently, driven by several factors. One reason is the gradual deaths of previous generation consoles, with zero repair services available. Additionally, the discontinuation of online components for certain Nintendo handheld consoles has pushed users towards emulation.
The rising cost of video games and the realization that consumers do not truly own the games they purchase thanks to digitalization have also contributed to the increase in emulation and piracy. Many see emulation as the only reliable way to preserve games for future generations.
Emulation resides in a legal grey area, primarily because companies vehemently oppose the idea of users freely playing their games on PC or other devices. Often, emulators offer better performance stability, resolution, and graphics compared to native machines. Companies prefer their back catalog to gradually fade away or be resold at a later date, rather than being easily accessible through emulation.
This is why Nintendo filed a lawsuit against Tropic Haze LLC, the company behind the Yuzu emulator for the Nintendo Switch console, as reported by Bloomberg. In the filing, Nintendo asserts that Yuzu enables users to “unlawfully decrypt and play virtually any Switch game… without ever paying a dime for a Nintendo console or for that game.”
Nintendo has made extensive efforts to combat Switch piracy and emulation. The first revision models can be flashed with homebrew using the assistance of a paper clip and “RCM Loader.”
Additionally, Nintendo has employed DENUVO to encrypt games in a futile attempt to thwart emulation.
For newer Switch models, including the OLED variant, users can now run pirated games natively via the MIG-Switch flash card, which was leaked late last year,
In the lawsuit, Nintendo alleges that Yuzu unlawfully bypasses Nintendo’s software encryption and facilitates piracy. To support this claim, the filing highlights that one million copies of Tears of the Kingdom were downloaded before its release.
Emulation allegedly “harms” law-abiding Nintendo customers.
Furthermore, it asserts that Yuzu’s Patreon support doubled during that period, indicating increased revenue during the game’s launch. Nintendo is pursuing damages for Yuzu’s purported infringements and is pushing for the emulator to cease operations entirely.
This move comes in the wake of the company’s decisive action against individuals such as Gary Bowser, who was involved in creating “circumvention devices” for Nintendo 3DS and Switch consoles enabling the play of pirated ROMs, was sentenced to three years in prison. Although released after serving one year, he faces a lifetime obligation to pay Nintendo $14.5 million in damages.
They’ve also managed to take down ROM hosting websites in the past, such as EMU Paradise and ROMUniverse respectively, so the likely conclusion of this court affair will likely favor Nintendo and result in the termination of continued development and distribution of the Yuzu emulator outright.
The management of Yuzu has faced criticism for their practices, including paywalling early access builds behind Patreon and issuing their own DMCA notices to individuals who release these builds for free.
It raises questions as to why emulators like Yuzu choose to profit from a company that actively targets those who exploit their intellectual property. How many times must Nintendo arbitrarily shut down monetized projects before the message is received?
Obviously, once Yuzu is out of the picture Nintendo will likely move onto their next target, Ryujinx, the secondary Switch emulator, and of course Nintendo’s devoted fanboy zealots will be out in full force praising this course of action.
