Nintendo Sets Its Sights On Switch Emulator Yuzu In New Lawsuit

If companies handled their backlogs better I feel like emulation wouldn’t be such a hot topic but software updates and server shutdowns literally decimate years of history in a single flip of a switch. We’ve all become digital hoarders.

I'm staying neutral on this. I got no knowledge of laws, copyrights, or anything. And i'm certainly not gonna act like I do know everything cuz I don't swing that way.

But I do respect companies in their right to defend of what they own. I mean we'd do the same too. But either way, I'm shuttin' my yap now.

I mean, it’s one thing if you emulate a dead console, but this is active theft, I don’t really understand any argument in favor of Yuzu.

@ChromaticDracula
again its one of the reasons why im really not a fan of how NSO only lets you play the games via a subscription with no option to buy the games.

while i do hope that gaming does manage to become more "future proof" due to things like backwards compatibility and account systems to make games easier to access officially in the future so people wont need to do the same thing with switch games in the future as it is i feel like once subscriptions and online checks are required for games then there are very few "safety nets" for when the service eventually goes down.

That said when it comes to people emulating games for consoles which are still being sold (and the whole situation with tears of the kingdom) it only serves to muddy the whole situation.

@JakedaArbok Bingo. There’s argument for emulating discontinued consoles and giving continued access to games forgotten to time like Robowarrior. However, actively emulating a console you can still readily buy as well as software for said console…. Ridiculous.

@JakedaArbok Emulators aren't stealing anything, it's people who upload and download Switch ROMs that are aiding in piracy, that's not on emulator developers, that's on individuals. The people who leaked Tears of the Kingdom footage and spoilers could have easily done so on a modded Switch instead of Yuzu. Plus while they can't do much to enforce it, Yuzu takes steps in making sure the emulator is used legally, they have guides that help you legally dump your own console keys and games. Nobody on the Yuzu Discord helps anyone looking to pirate games.

Yuzu is a useful tool for people who want a better experience than what the Switch itself can offer. 4K 60fps is much better than 1080p/720p 30fps

@Dm9982 Nothing about that is illegal though, Yuzu isn't using anything Nintendo owns. They make you provide your own console keys and games that you dumped from your own console to use the emulator. They don't distribute keys, ROMs, etc. While people shouldn't, people take the easy road and find keys and ROMs on the internet, but that's not Yuzu's fault, you can easily mod a Switch and download those items from the Internet and transfer them to a modded Switch and play it that way. Eliminating Yuzu won't eliminate piracy.

What damages? Nintendo is making billions. Most people playing emulators weren't going to buy your games anyway. And the one person I know irl who played on yuzu did buy the game they emulated. My friend bought tears of the kingdom and their kids were hogging the switch so bad the only way they could play the game was by emulation. Hopefully yuzu wins this because emulating isn't stealing.

I'm torn on this. I emulate games all the time, but only those games and systems that I can no longer obtain games or the console at a retail store. Like, I think NES through WiiU and 3DS are fair game, but it you can buy the game, you should buy it and support the original publisher and creators. Current gen games and consoles really shouldn't be on the table when it comes to emulation.

It's true that Yuzu hasn't done anything illegal, but they definitely made it easy for Nintendo to lose countless sales due to piracy and using their software.

Every internet lawyer is writing their manifestos right now.. lmao

This has actively, and exponentially, increased my interest in Yuzu. Thanks, Nintendo!

Eat em up Nintendo.🔥

All big organizations are evil, and Nintendo is no different.

@JNolan93
I can understand it if that’s the goal, but if you are making a means for people to commit piracy on a current console, unintentionally or not, you’re going to get some pushback. I don’t know what the lawsuit entails, but if it’s just shutting the emulator down, I don’t think it kills the general public to wait 5 or so years before we get 60FPS TOTK.

Nintendo wants lots of things.
I want to support official things but facts are facts.
Nintendo is not a company known for offering official emulation comparable to the fans. Like, not even close.
And they will never offer more than a small percent of the games.

Also, spreading the old fallacy that one million downloads equals one million lost sales.
Not all of those one million were ever going to pay. Some might've rented or borrowed a friend's copy, which is still piracy as far as Nintendo's sales figures are concerned.

@Shiesty I've bought tons of retro games and I still use emulators. There's just several convenient features they offer over the original hardware.

I understand that some folks rip Switch games they've legally purchased for emulation, to upscale or whatever. But let's face it: The other ninety percent of folks emulating Switch games are thieving.

@ChromaticDracula let’s be real emulation would happen regardless. There are always people that want to play games without spending a dime if there is a way to get it for free. Vast majority of them are not doing this for the “game preservation” meme.

The “they were not gonna buy the game anyway!” meme I see parrot here isn’t a valid argument. Well no duh they are not buying when Yuzu is a platform offers a free alternative. Yuzu doesn’t directly encourage piracy, but they sure as hell don’t take an active part to mitigate it as much as possible. Take away that free outlet and I doubt all million+ of them won’t buy the game. Good chunk will cave and just drop the $60 let’s be real.

They are not all living in some poverty environment. Go to any /v/ thread a week before a big Nintendo game drops and you usually see a gloat thread and sharing links for piracy.

We are not talking about retro games 10-20+ years old here, but new Nintendo games pirated before street date broke. Tears having a million downloads before the game officially released from Nintendo perspective isn’t something to just laugh off.

If the game is purchasable on current platforms and is playable (minimal-no bugs), one should support the official release. Support the developers who made the game, don't steal. If the game is no longer accessible on current platforms, you do you.

In this case I have to side with Nintendo on this one. Yes, they are pretty draconian when it comes to pirating games, but Zelda TOTK just came out, and while 1 million sales isn't going to hurt the company it sets a bad precedent.

Nintendo is well within their rights here. If you don’t own the game, it is illegal to emulate it. New or old. I don’t understand the hoops some people will go through to justify stealing games. Doesn’t matter if it is a 40 year old game. If you don’t own a copy, you can’t legally download it.

It's blatant theft. Hopefully Nintendo wins big!

They stole Nintendos work and sold it for money and deserve to be punished simple as that

@Axecon
To me that is why i will welcome things like remasters, ports and retro collections because i am heavily in favour of making games more widely available, making it easier for people to officially play these games.

while its something which can often get dismissed as "there will always be people who pirate or emulate it anyway" or other things to that effect i still feel like there is a lot of merit of having these games easily available to purchase officially (its why im not a fan of the subscription method since the games are dependant on a service and an online check in order to function)

Its also why im hoping that physical and digital backwards compatibility becomes a heavy focus so peoples libraries will still be viable for as long as possible.

People are bringing up old games, but this is for Switch games, which are widely available. I don't blame Nintendo for going after them for this.

@axelhander Its not "evil" to shut down blatant theft. This isn't a dead console, its the Switch.

Oh I can feel my blocked list ready to get bigger. Most people who download stuff weren't going to buy it anyways. There are exceptions, and those people just don't care anyways. Some people don't care, and you can't change their mind. Or maybe they're broke, and want to play a game. Play a game sad broke person, life is short.

@JNolan93 if they didn’t have a legal leg to stand on Nintendo wouldn’t be pursuing this in court. They obviously do, otherwise it wouldn’t have made it court proceedings and would have just been brushed away.

More over, what you said could be used in any situation and holds literally no value - Colt “well we just make the guns, we don’t tell people what to do with them.” Drug Cartels - “well we just make the drugs, we don’t tell people to use them” Pepsi -“well we just make the soda, we don’t tell people to drink it”

See how that’s not really a weighed point?

Yuzu provided a means to circumvent the Switch hardware or software in some fashion which allows the user to modify or copy data that Nintendo does not allow or want to be copied. End of story. This is all part of that EULA that no one ever reads.

I get emulation, truly I do. Used it a bunch in the past, even going so far as modding an old DS Lite to play old nes games and old SCUMM based pc games. But there’s no truly good and valid reason to emulate an actively selling console or its games. Just because someone wants to play ToTK in 4k/60fps does not justify the emulation. Making a back up of your game is arguable, I’ll grant that, but it still doesn’t call for the emulator itself. The emulator does nothing more than allow you to play the game in a means not originally intended. That’s the DEFINITION of emulation. Otherwise it would be called copied/cloned hardware.

I’d be on your/Yuzu side if this wasn’t an active console with active sales and an active eshop. But the fact of the matter is, regardless of intent, this can and does harm sales.

@Shiesty I've bought 3 copies of Tears of the Kingdom (one as a gift, one I needed to play version 1.0 cuz Nintendo patched out easy building with the elevator railing). And I really want to play it at 120fps or higher. I wish Nintendo would release games on PC instead of attacking people like the Yuzu developers.
But I also think this is a tough issue. I can see Nintendo's point of view too.

I also don't think Yuzu getting patreon supporters is something that should contribute to them getting sued and getting computers and websites confiscated.
This is a tough issue to deal with though.

I do not emulate PS5 games because it would take a very powerful PC. Nintendo can avoid piracy by not having a console that is less powerful than your average smartphone. Steam has the best way of combatting piracy: more convenience, better access and better value for money.

Now I know where to go if Switch 2 doesn't have backward compatibility. Or if they think they can put Switch games on NSO when the successor comes out.

Did they never hear of Sony vs Bleem? Bleem was active during the consoles lifespan and Sony lost. Although Bleem lost too obviously when fighting the greedy corporate overlords and being unable to afford the costs of ongoing legal attacks.

It's a open source project anyway so good luck slaying that hydra.

In my opinion, Nintendo has no obligation to rerelease their older games, or release their newer games on higher end hardware. They do have the right to go after any company they want. I don’t really understand how you can defend this even if you enjoy using emulators.

Aren't they late to the party? Switch is six years old lol. NSO uses emulation too, so whatever, I hope they lose.

Well that just made me realize I haven't updated Yuzu in a while. Guess I'd better download all the installation files for the current version as well. Thanks for the heads up!

Switch emulation has allowed me to play mods of games I already own without having to risk hacking my Switch. In fact, I recently played a custom track pack mod for Mario Kart 8 Deluxe.

That is something I think emulation is great for, being able to elevate your enjoyment and appreciation of games you've played before by giving you the means to play them in new ways.

There is no "shutting down" freely distributed software once it went online, but let's not pretend that all the hedonistic junkies racing to play digital Switch games way before respective release dates didn't help shake the red cloth.

@IsThis5or6 nobody in the industry even expects to "slay the hydra", but sporadic lawsuits are common courtesy on a gaming hardware owner's part to maintain the sufficient air of concern and responsibility in the third party publishers' eyes. Which is why most such lawsuits are either completely random or, on the contrary, follow a particular bullseye painted by eager devs/users.

@imadeanaccount I remember when people could emulate stuff and/or sail the high seas without feigning entitlement to do so. Or perhaps it's the conscience dissonance itself that fuels such attempts at self-validation?😅

I have no problem emulating retro games (nes, snes, 3ds, etc) but yeah, playing this gen games on emulator is just piracy.

Edit: I just know that yuzu get about $30.000 permonth on patreon for their software, yeaah of course nintendo will sue them, the moment money is involved, nintendo will sue.

The main reason why Switch emulation is so popular is because it performs and looks way better than the original. I don't think this ever happened before during the active lifetime of a console.

I personally haven't tried Yuzu but I did hack my Switch just to overclock it.

@Kekshook accountability needs to lie somewhere.

Let’s look at an example….

I make special brownies for my wife and I to enjoy. My intent is only for us to eat them. However, in the middle of the night, my kid smells the brownies, snatches one and puts it in her lunch bag. The next day she takes it to school and shares it with her friend, causing them both to get high and sick. Who’s to blame for this? Where do YOU personally place the responsibility?

If Yuzu team pirate and upload ROMs plus profit from it on Patreon then they are the worst emulator dev team I've ever seen.

@Kekshook nope, I’m talking about the creation and means.

I’ll use another example, Pharmaceutical companies. They make all kinds of medicines to cure us of various ailments, and most work REALLY well. We’ll say a new drug is created that cures lymphoma. Does its job 100%. 7 years later it’s discovered that the same drug also causes liver failure.

I use this example because it’s got a very clear accountability: the pharmaceutical company. So much so that they routinely set aside MILLIONS of dollars to avoid the lawsuits and just pay people off in settlements.

In both cases I’ve provided Yuzu is the distributor/creator, just like myself or the pharmaceutical company.

Also, should be noted im saying Yuzu and meaning the Dev team/creators.

@Kekshook Nobody is selling gba games anymore so of course it's okay emulating them, playing zelda totk 1 weeks before its released on yuzu however, yes nintendo says it's a problem.

@Kekshook I’m not talking about making copies or such, I’m saying that Yuzu is a means to emulation. The creators are accountable for that. This has nothing to do with modded switches or roms. I’m not talking about those whatsoever.

I apologize my examples went over your head. Are you perchance a parent? Would you be totally ok with someone coming and taking your child’s dna to make exact clones? Cause that’s what the dev team did by making an emulator to switch. They cloned it, and gave it out to others.

In this case you’re the parent (Nintendo), your child is the switch, and the clones are Yuzu.

That a bit clearer?

If you truly need a lesson in accountability look up Napster and Limewire. Both were just “tools” that people ended up using in an illegal fashion. Both companies got lawsuits, both companies lost, and their owners held accountable. This is seriously no different than that.

@Kekshook again I’m not talking about games, I’m talking about the ability to play them. Yuzu is an emulator correct? It plays switch games correct?

You’re the one hung up on roms, games and modded switches. I’m not talking about ANY of that. Pure emulation/emulator. Nothing more.

An emulator is a means to play games in a fashion not originally intended.

In my examples the Brownies were an EMULATOR, the Drugs were an EMULATOR, and the clones were an EMULATOR.

@Kekshook That not how intended that to come across, but trust that you’re not arguing on a morally high hill here.

Emulation has always been a grey area at BEST. I’ve been around since emulation was birthed. You may not see any fault in Yuzu, or their dev team, and they may have never intended for it to be used in an illegal fashion.

Neither did Limewire or Napster…..

Also I support emulation when it truly has a justifiable meaning, truly preserving old consoles and titles. Emulating switch has no other meaning than piracy, or playing games in a modded fashion / at higher resolution. Both of the latter reasons are purely luxury and for want, not need. The piracy reason is fully illegal, so no point in arguing for that.

So I’m going to assume you’re arguing for luxury sake, which isn’t a necessity, a need…. Nothing that is going to cause you loss to your gaming besides clearer visuals or an unofficial mod pack.

So again, I state, emulation of a current system is not a necessity. There is no truly good reason for it.

Very good, Nintendo! Go get those filthy pirates.

Also, people, these aren't just "emulators". This software can decode encrypted Nintendo Switch games, and those encryptions are protected under legislation. (DMCA, and similar in other countries)

@wiiware Nobody is selling GBA games? There ARE TONS of retro websites that sell GBA games. Also Nintendo 'sells' GBA games using NSO.

Actually I have recently started (re)collecting old GameBoy (Color/Advance) games. I even bought a modded GBA and GBC (new screens, backlight, new shell) to play these original games on.

Emulating the games is okay, but breaking copy protection isn't. So if you make an emulator that only runs games that aren't encrypted (homebrew) it's not an issue. If your emulator runs ANY encrypted game (that is every single game ever released on a cartridge or disc, and yes even official downloads), it's piracy.

@sanderev My favorite GBA game sells for over 100. 200+ if you want it unsealed.

Yeah no, Im not investing nearly 200+ USD just to play a single game from my childhood. A game on hardware that will eventually become obsolete. A game that Nintendo and the IP owner has shown no interest in trying to port into current hardware for preservation.

a reminder that every time they try this monopoly crap, they get told off for it.

https://web.archive.org/web/20140124173040/http://en.europeonline-magazine.eu/nintendo-can-only-block-illegal-video-games-eu-court-rules_314047.html
https://web.archive.org/web/20091206100841/http://www.maxconsole.net/?mode=news&newsid=38047

edit: seems that i was off, yuzu shot themselves in the foot by using a damn paywall and publicly using pirated games before they're release.

@Vexx234 I really don't get the "I am not paying X for Y, so I'll steal it" arguments. You are not entitled to the content. There are a lot of things that are very expensive even second hand. That doesn't give you the right to steal / pirate it.

The ghost of Bleem will be watching this precedent-setting case.

@Shadowmoon522 "The ECJ found that Nintendo could only take steps to protect itself against "unauthorized acts of reproduction, communication, public offer or distribution" of copyrighted material."

Which is exactly why they are suing here.

I love how people state Nintendo has no grounds to sue on these articles as if Nintendo doesn't have an army of lawyers that have reviewed it and said yes there's a good chance at least of us being successful in a court room.

Video game preservation is a crime.

@sanderev Steal it from whom? The game is long dead. The only people making money from it are second hand sellers. If I spend 200+, Nintendo isn't getting a cut of it, the ip owner isn't either. The only one who's getting paid, is the guy who suckered 200+ out of me.

So, I don't feel any guilt emulating it.

@Vexx234 Let's say for example; I have a first edition Rolex watch (I wish), I sell my first edition watch for around $500,000. You don't have $500,000 or don't want to pay that for my watch.

Rolex isn't selling this model anymore. So you claim you are allowed to steal it because Rolex isn't getting paid just me, the second hand seller.

Well.. that would make it very difficult. Because before long you are running to the exit in the Louvre holding the Mona Lisa.

Your logic is invalid, because if you use your logic on anything else, you'd be promptly arrested and jailed for a long time. Why would games (or other media) be any different?

@Kekshook really? You don't think Nintendo has top lawyers advising them. The rest is an educated guess based on my experiences. Companies don't just randomly sdstart lawsuits without been advised how strong a case they have beforehand.

Lots of armchair lawyers in here.

@ZealMajin Lots of pro-piracy freeloaders in here. How does the world work ? Consumerism

Not saying this is anyone on here... but there's clearly a culture of people expecting to be able to have anything they want without needing to pay for it.

And then we all wonder why the industry is suffering such large staff lay offs? Anyone defending the emulation of current hardware and new software is damaging the industry.

@ZealMajin yep it's like CourtTV - but over games.

As always the devil is in the details. Doesn't look like Nintendo is going after them for making an emulator, but rather for other things they did. Obviously though they do want them to stop the emulation development.

In the end, the court of law will decide if they did break the law or not.

To anyone defending piracy - NEWSFLASH: "Dumping" or "Ripping" games is COPYING. And that is the very purpose of copyright - to protect original works.

When you legitimately obtain a copy of a game it DOES NOT entitle you to duplicate it. You have a single copy of said game in the medium which you obtained it in.

Think of all the time and effort that goes into creating an original work. Be it film, music, videogame, anything. Created for the very purpose of selling copies of it. To earn money back, and hopefully make a profit on it. As well of course creating a piece of art which adds to the tapestry of life.

Copyright is the protection against illegitimate duplication. Only the creator / lisence holder of it has the prerogative to make copies of it available.

If you are interested in something then support it. Legitimate consumption is the only metric that counts. Even for older content. How do you think sequels or new versions / revivals of old content will come about ? - Only through measurable consumption of the existing content via legitimate platforms.

Lastly - You are not entitled to demand something be made available to you, that is the prerogative of the owner. They may do with it what they please. Something being unavailable to obtain legitimate access to DOES NOT grant you the right to obtain it by illegitimate means.

@sanderev Yeah I'd even say there's plenty of actual free or cheaper alternatives out there.

Instead of pirating games they don't agree with the pricing for why don't they support the ones they do? I suspect the reality behind it is that they really do actual value the games they choose to pirate, if they didn't think the games were worth it they wouldn't be playing it.

This isn't going anywhere. It's one thing to make copies, it's another to distribute said copies. The latter of which blatantly falls under piracy while the former falls under self preservation, which is legal in the US. Even emulators are excused by the US and even acts as a basis for Nintendo's own NSO Classics service.

This lawsuit is going in the trash.

I just don't get these pirates. In the end they are hurting themselves. If a game doesn't meet it's sales target, developers are fired, studio's are closed and / or sequels are canceled. Also they force developers to use annoying protections like Denuvo (PC) that only hurt people who actually want to pay for the games.

And sure that doesn't really matter with retro games, but even then there is a market that makes money from retro game sales. For example devices like the Analogue Pocket, which is actually a hardware emulator (FPGA) that is completely legal. Because it doesn't break Nintendo's (or others) copy protections.

Mmmm... the same Nintendo that "repurposed" a pirated rom of the Super Mario Bros Wii version and tried selling it to "millions" in 2017?... And same Nintendo that also used code from the emulator mGBA?... again to sell it to "millions"... Interesting stance there. Cool, cool, cool, cool, cool... cool

@Drcharlenstein you mean the same Nintendo who created and own everything to do with Super Mario and Game Boy ‽‽‽ SCANDALOUS !! 🤣

if Nintendo has provided better preservation of it games and dint charge absurd price for it games, no one would have used Yuzu to play the games at a more afordable price/resolution/performance.

@Giancarlothomaz I don't see how you can fault Nintendo's preservation of games when they finished Star Fox 2 decades after the fact, and had the source code of Fire Emblem 1 available literally 30 years after the fact to make a brand new english version of it.

Availability =/= preservation . Nintendo's preservation of their games source code trumps any level of "preservation" gained from some random encrypted ROM hosted on some dubious site, or laying forgotten in a bunch of peoples folders crammed with hundreds of ROMs they didn't play for more than 1 minute to even check that it works.

@jco83 🤣 No worries, you will eventually get it. Nothing to do with copyright here.

@Drcharlenstein what will I eventually get? 🙂

@jco83 you might be too young for this but back then, in the mp3 player era, we're required to rip our own cd, turn it into mp3, then send it to our player

windows media player even have this function to rip a cd with literally a few button clicks

this process create a copy of the said cd content, yet its legal, as long its not redistributed and for personal use only

@FawfulsFury
Like it or not, no, they haven't.

This is a tricky case. I dont know how strong their case is against yuzu. Emulators itself arent illegal.

This case won’t hold up in court, there’s already a precedent for this with Sony vs Bleem, plus yuzu is not providing the prod key or the game files themselves, Nintendo is most likely to lose in court & even if they win it’ll be most likely overturned in the appeals & Supreme Court..

In general people really need to stop confusing emulation and piracy. Emulation software is perfectly legal, unless the emulator itself uses protected code. Dolphin fell into this trap recently when it was shown that they were using code from Nintendo in the emulator itself.

It can be a bit more complicated so for a much better, much more balanced look at the legal issues around emulation and how this might affect Yuzu (because people just screeching EMULATORS BAD gets very tedious) see Ars Technica: https://arstechnica.com/gaming/2024/02/how-strong-is-nintendos-legal-case-against-switch-emulator-yuzu/

@HalBailman Of what? This is just Sony VS Bleem all over again, however regardless of who wins or loses, Yuzu is an open source emulator that ANYONE can currently, or in the future, continue development of!

What alternate dimension do Nintendo lawyers live in? They've learned about Yuzu just now? ... At this rate, the MigSwitch team has like 5 more years to make some serious profits 'till they're shut down as well

Yuzu had gained a massive increase of downloads when TOTK happened, but it wasn't providing any sort of roms or isos for that matter.

@jco83 UK copyright law does actually allow you to make a copy 'for your own use' and I think it's the same in the US. When you start to distribute (or sell) it to others or no longer have the original that's it becomes a problem. Most common example of copying for your own use is probably format shifting - ripping CDs to use on an iPod/phone, or DVDs/Blu-ray to a home server. I've even burned digital music to a disc so I could use it in my (old) car the didn't have Bluetooth, but did have a CD player.

@Dr_Lugae Let's ignore emulation atm. I agree, availability =/= preservation. And preservation encompasses far more than just the game itself like source code, development documents, development builds etc. And Nintendo has proven to have the best track record of preserving that information, compared to contemporaries like Konami, Capcom, Square Enix and even western publishers like Atari. Now, is Nintendo obligated to release that information? No. Should they preserve it? Ooooh yes! Even if it is just to make future titles easier to release on modern systems.

I do get tired of arguments like "they should just release the entire insert console here backlog on NSO then they wouldn't have this problem." As if that is remotely reasonable expectation. Between music licenses, engine licenses, hardware compatibility or even just simple things like publishing agreements; video games are one of the hardest mediums to make available on modern eco-systems. It isn't as simple as music or film to find the rights holders (even in those mediums good luck with some of that) and put it on a streaming service or burn it to a blu-ray/DVD. Even emulators require meticulous testing to make sure things are working correctly and even then there can be problems (just look at some PSOne remasters, they got problems like the infamous Final Fantasy IX jump rope minigame). From a technical, and legal standpoint making games available on modern consoles and storefronts suck!!! for any interested party.

Do I agree with what Nintendo is doing here? Hard to say as I don't have all the information. But, I do think people overly simplify the "preservation issue" at bit too much where it becomes a disingenuous debate of nonsense.

@ChromaticDracula I could agree if the topic was about a non-current platform. I can understand emulation for systems that are not selling anymore exactly because what you said, but it makes no sense on current platforms.

@Dr_Lugae I emulate the game because it's my favorite game, however due to the niche of it, it would cost me nearly 500 usd just to repurchase the entire collection. The game in question has been dead since 2004, and the company who owns it has shown no interest since then in reviving the series. The Ip just sits there collecting dust.

If the game were ported to current modern hardware, I would gladly repurchase it as it would be cheaper than going out my way to rebuy the old hardware + the games themselves.

There are some games that are just not possible to play unless you are willing to spend an arm and leg.

There are just some companies who are willing to let their old games be forgotten, than actively work on a way to preserve them.

I wish I had the billions of dollars to purchase the rights to some old franchises. I would gladly invest in bringing them to modern hardware to be preserved.

Anyways, im not pretending what I do is right. However, the money spent just to play the old games is just not worth it.

@Vexx234 There is one thing here I think we need to set straight. Preservation is not availability, availability is only an aspect of preservation.

Let's look at Star Wars for a moment. You can go watch Star Wars: Episode IV - A New Hope right now!!! The film is available, there is a catch though, it is not the original cut of Star Wars. Now, if we put the original cut up on Disney+ that would be awesome, but there are about two other cuts of the movie that are not available. Those too would need to be made available even if the differences can be seen as minor. And there are other aspects of the original movie that we need to look at outside of just the film.

i.e. the props, interviews with news papers, TV spots, magazines, toys, comics, behind the scenes information (such as presented through documentaries) etc. as these were all parts of the film outside of just the film itself. And is watching the film on the Disney+ the "intended way" for it to be watched? Star Wars as a Hollywood blockbuster was meant to be watched in theaters. So, is it preserved if the only way to experience it is through a streaming app? Because studies have been done and depending on the setting and environment of how you consume the media, the media is interpreted differently by the viewer. And some directors have been very clear like James Cameron that home video is not how he made his films to be watched.

What about directorial intent? George Lucas is a perfect case study here as every release of Star Wars had some change to it. Like the opening crawl, effects works etc. Lucas was very clear that he was never 100% happy with how Star Wars was released in the 70s as he kept tweaking it for years!! And he is not the only director who did this so many movies have had alterations and changes that you would never know happened unless you look at them side-by-side. This is why film preservation is a complicated conversation on its own.

Now if we go to video games there are a bunch of comparisons we can make to Star Wars alone. Persona 3 is a perfect example here. Persona 3 has four versions of the game, the original PS2 version, the FES edition, Portable and Reloaded. Atlus is only currently selling Portable and Reloaded on modern consoles. FES is only available to purchase on PS3. And the PS2 original is just stuck in physical only PS2 jail.

Now, in the aspect of game preservation from your definition of it. Persona 3 is "preserved" because Reloaded and Portable are available. BUT, Persona 3 is not preserved by your own definition as well. Because Persona 3 and Persona 3 FES are not on modern systems. But, by directorial intent Portable and Reloaded are the "definitive" ways of experiencing Persona 3 despite being radically different from the original game from a mechanics, visual standpoint and even story differences. Persona 3 is getting to a point where it is impossible to preserve the traditional way as the original game and how it was intended to be experienced is being lost despite Persona 3 being one of the most released games in gaming. And, in an era of patches, DLC, and "definitive editions" this is an extremely complicated issue that is almost exclusive to this medium.

Notice how this is starting to give you a headache. IF we look at game preservation only from availability standpoint how flawed this perspective is? Because we can argue that most games even re-released ones are not the original versions, and are not being played how they were intended to be played (arcade games are a MASSIVE preservationist headache). This is more than just owning the rights to the games, as even the best "re-releases" are not what you think they are.

This is not a simple issue of just make it available therefore it is preserved.

Nintendo's just upset that people play games that aren't capped at 720p 30 fps

@Wexter Preserve was perhaps not the right word to use. I just meant I want some of the old games I enjoyed growing up to be ported to modern hardware instead of being stuck on aging hardware.

Thanks though, I don't play Persona or even watch Star Wars. So it was a fun read to know about them both. I'm sorry I can't give a better reply. It's hard to type as Im waiting for a new pair of glasses to arrive. So don't take my simple reply as dismissing anything you've said.

@dmcc0 For me it is more a matter of respect for the content creator. The fact that this gen has seen the opinion "just play Switch games on PC for free" and Steam Deck viewed as an alternative platform to play Switch games on

@Vexx234 It's all good! This is just a very complicated subject so word usage is important! Glad you enjoyed my word vomit.

And yeah I wish more games I loved got re-releases like the N64 Bomberman games. I miss them dearly...

They aren't exactly the same, of course, but when home video recorders came out, there were big legal fights claiming that the manufacturers of these technologies were responsible for any copyright violations committed by their owners (e.g., recording and distributing/selling TV shows and movies). It went all the way to the US supreme court, which held that the VCR company was NOT violating copyright. Key to that ruling was that there were legal uses of the copying technology. Specifically, fair use generally permits creating an archival/backup copy of something you own or have a license to use for your own purposes.

Analogizing here, Yuzu is like the VCR. It enables infringements of copyright, but I would argue it itself is not committing any copyright infringements. You have the right to a copy of a game you own, for your own use, to protect against degradation/loss (however, you should not be distributing the copy and if you transfer the original to someone else you can't keep the copy).

Nintendo feels they have an argument around that. I'll admit I don't know really what they mean by ""accessed Switch games from a hacked unit and made copies of games." Maybe that's enough different and an infringement by itself.

Not sure how Yuzu was made but I'm sure they were not stupid and actually reverse engineered the Switch which would make the emulator legal

@jco83 Fair enough, but your original comment stated ALL copying is illegal - just pointing out that it's not. The original creator of the work isn't losing out if you are just format shifting something you've already paid for - including dumping a ROM from a Switch game you've bought so you can play on PC.

Granted the apparent 1m TOK ROMs mentioned in the article were clearly not people format shifting, but as has also been mentioned in the comments, there's no way of telling if they were played on an emulator or a hacked Switch. As also pointed out in the comments - and every time the subject of emulation comes up to be honest - A ROM downloaded does not equal a sale lost. There are likely a huge amount of folk that had no intention of ever buying it but downloaded it anyway to give it a try - some of those may well have bought a legit copy when it came out as well.

@Wexter There are tons of old games on old systems that will never be re-released due to variety of factors sadly.

When it comes to buying old games in their original form however, the prices can be so high, you are left asking, is it worth it?

It was about 20 years ago or so, back when an American retailer called Gamestop still sold old games. I went there looking for one specific game game I played as a kid. Back when Gamecube was still the next gen console.

I managed to snag it for 20$, however when I went back about 6 or 7 years later during the Wii era, I was shocked to find that old game I lost during a move went up in value. Whats even more so, is that it wasn't sold anywhere in my entire state.

There were no copies left. What I had was a niche game from Capcom called "Gotcha Force", and it's value was that of AAA next gen title.

Fast forward today, the American version of that game is on Ebay selling from as low as 270$ to as high as nearly 800$.

I had no idea that entire time, a game I got on whim would became so rare today. I would like to play it, but for the price of nostalgia, I could get the Switch 2 haha. It sucks I lost my original copy. But life happens.

That second half has nothing to due with the first, just with all this talk about piracy and how you should buy the original game, reminded me of that niche game Capcom released so many years ago.

Nintendo usually doesn't go after emulator maker, in this case my guess is the Yuzu team probably infringe on a copyright patent feature that violate Nintendo's term or they profit off a process that takes away sales from Nintendo's own sales of games. Whatever the case, it would be interesting to see how Nintendo fare since this is their first fight against emulation, their past cases usually involve just peripherals, rom sites, fan games, mod chips and hackers, Youtubers, and fan events only.

@dmcc0 Fair comment. It is surprising to me that making a copy of a legit copy is deemed legal. Is that regardless of format ? so it applies to digital too ? It strikes me as very strange that that is allowed. Copying is copying after all. It's not as if when you buy a game physically you are also getting a digital copy. It isn't actually possible to "format shift" is it, only to make an additional copy. Dumping or Ripping a game from a physical medium doesn't remove it from the physical medium. In this day of big digital format sales and streaming I can't see that being left unchallenged going forward.

My original comment was coming from a perspective of logic, and common sense. And as I later said - a matter of Respect. But it's also a matter of principle in my view. The way the world works is via value exchange. Something for something. It isn't a one-way street. Else it just doesn't work.

I appreciate your reply

Considering I’ve heard of people playing Switch games on PC for years now I’m surprised it took them this long.

Don’t get me wrong - I’m for emulators and roms, when the system is discontinued. Wii, WiiU, 3DS, DS, GBA etc. Totally fine imo and should in fact be made legal in favor of game preservation.

If a studio ain’t making money on the product anymore it should be available to the public. At least until the video-game industry figures out a way to preserve our game libraries.

@Dm9982 You aren’t really familiar with emulation legal history are you? If they don’t have a legal leg to stand on… they most certainly would still bring cases to court.

Bleem! Was one of the first emulators to be taken to court. They won all their cases… and subsequently went out of business due to the costs of defending themselves in court.

Emulation has been proven time and again as legal. But that doesn’t stop billion dollar companies from bringing small companies to court. They shut emulators down financially by abusing the court system. Big companies lose their cases, but win in real life by just having a large enough bank account to win the war of attrition in spending on legal matters.

It is no surprise, Nintendo is not far off from releasing a new console that is supposedly based on the same architecture as the Switch. They stand to gain by shutting down software that will most likely be able to play Switch 2 games at or near launch of the console. This is the time to strike, even with no legal grounds. This will secure their launch position.

Nintendo is a unique company in that they make money on their hardware sales. If people can just buy their new games and play them on hardware they already own.. and hardware that will play the games better than Nintendo’s offering… Nintendo stands to lose out on those profitable hardware sales.

Going the corrupt route of suing legal emulator developers makes it so they don’t have to compete with legal PC hardware. They can corruptly control a hardware market and software market simultaneously..

Brought to you by the same industry that for years illegally put “warranty void if sticker removed” stickers on consoles. They don’t care with what legal leg they have to stand on.. they only care what they can get away with.

Big companies are not your friend. If I want to buy a game and dump it and play it on my PC or Mac, thats my right. I have and will continue to do this. I have a beautiful physical game collection that isnt held back when the console it debuted on is dated or cant play at the native resolution of my TV at launch.

@JohnnyMind The Switch firmware, product keys and title database is not included with Yuzu.

Yuzu without any copyrighted files is useless.

@jco83 The way it legally works is you can create a backup copy of media you own. So it doesn’t work on streaming media since that is seen as a rental service. You are required to destroy or transfer copies of the media to the new owner if you sell or give away the media.

You must make the copy yourself. So if you own a game, you can’t just hop on the internet and download a backup copy.

These laws were created to protect consumers from things like data corruption, bit rot, and accidental damage to physical media.

If Switch 2 is a underpowered console, how long do you think it will take before Switch 2 games runs on today's PC's?

Nintendo consoles always had the highest priority for emulation. First Nintendo 64 emulator came in January 1999, during prime time of N64 and supported real N64 controller and mempacks with Adaptoid cable.

As for Xbox? Xbox 2001 still isn't properly emulated after 23 years. Xbox 360 from year 2005 isn't proper emulated either after nearly 20 years.

Unlike other consoles, Xbox consoles is backwards compatible all the way, so emulators gets low priority.

@Toastmaster yes, and thanks to US copyright law, I have copies of my Switch firmware, and the product keys that are part of the software. So Yuzu is useful for me.

(a) Making of Additional Copy or Adaptation by Owner of Copy.—Notwithstanding the provisions of section 106, it is not an infringement for the owner of a copy of a computer program to make or authorize the making of another copy or adaptation of that computer program provided:
(1) that such a new copy or adaptation is created as an essential step in the utilization of the computer program in conjunction with a machine and that it is used in no other manner, or
(2) that such new copy or adaptation is for archival purposes only and that all archival copies are destroyed in the event that continued possession of the computer program should cease to be rightful.

The first world pirates in the comments make me laugh, too miserable to buy their own games on current hardware. Go Nintendo, shut them up!

@jco83 I don't think it matters for the format, but it was clearly aimed at physical formats and hasn't really been updated for the digital age. Nothing stopping you copying digital formats unless the source uses DRM as a means try and stop you copying it. GOG.com sells games on PC for example and is DRM free so you can back the games up to an external Hard Drive or whatever. I guess it doesn't apply to streaming services though as you don't have the 'file' locally so there's no way to make a copy as a backup.
Yes, format shifting is copying (rather than just moving) to a different format (ripping a DVD to a hard drive for example, or even copying to a DVD-R) so would be considered a copy, but it allowed as long as you have the original.

Even medicines lost their patents over time, this is getting ridiculous. I get what Nintendo's trying to do and I fully support taking care of your IP's but as so many before me have said, if only they would handle their back catalog better, this wouldn't be as big of an issue.

I haven't played a Nintendo game since Metroid Dread but if this lawsuit goes through and Yuzu is shut down then I will never involve myself with Nintendo again, and I don't even pirate or emulate games.

The simplest way for Nintendo to defeat 99% of piracy would be to port their games to PC.

Nintendo is behaving exactly the way we expect them to, this is nothing new.
That being said, if they think they can scrub any emulator from the internet entirely, they've got another thing coming.

@James021
And if a company can't or won't make a game available for me to buy legally, I've no qualms in emulating it.

I highly doubt they have a case here, however agree with a previous comment that they will go heavy on the litigation and Yuzu Team will be unable to pay the required legal fees to defend themselves.

@sanderev
That's a poor analogy.
Let's take Double Dragon Adcance, an actual video game, as an example.
I've played it emulated over the years as I consider it the absolute apex of the series. If you had a minty boxed copy at the 150.00-250.00 it seems to go for, you've not lost a sale, because emulation or not, I simply won't pay that for a single video game.
However, guess what I did when it got a proper Switch release.....?

@SpringDivorce you might not have any qualms with it, but is still illegal. You don’t get to chose the availability of a game, from a legal standpoint

@DestructoDisk I never claimed they were my friend. And more over, emulation is only legal as of this moment. Familiar with Roe v Wade or Prohibition? Stuff that’s been legal for years can change to illegal in an instant and Vice versa. And it likely will if people keep messing with emulation of active systems.

I’m fully aware of Bleem, I was writing Java script and html code when Bleem was first created. I’ve been around since the internet was created, born in 1982, so I’ve seen pretty much all of the emulation scene. I also respect and support your right to back up your games and play them on pc or any other device - ONCE the intended console has shut down production and discontinued service. While the system is currently active however there is no just reason to have emulators or copies of games: there exist 2 and only 2 reasons to emulate a current system - piracy and modding games/upgrading visuals. Both of the latter are a luxury. So your argument is invalid about preservation when the games and systems are still buyable.

Like I said previously, I’m on the side of emulation for preservation and revisiting gamings older days. But that’s not the case for any current system. Every one else arguing here has no moral leg to stand on, as morally and ethically speaking emulation is a grey area at best and I’m not going to pretend it’s not.

Furthermore, the argument in favor of this is literally no different than the gun argument. I’m a responsible gun owner, I like shooting guns at targets, I’m not a hunter nor do I feel I need my guns for self defense. I just like them. I’m not a criminal or felon and the only things on my record are a few speeding tickets from when I was teen. But there’s a good chance that some day I’ll loose my guns because some idiot shoots up another school.

In relation, I’m a responsible emulator user, I only use emulators to preserve and play games from the past that are no longer accessible, playable or purchasable, or I play games I already own. But there’s people out there that use them in illegal fashion and download game roms. One day it’ll be highly likely that emulation will become fully illegal if people keep poking the bear.

There’s one caveat to those two paragraphs though. Only one of them has an amendment backing it up.

But anyways, I’m done discussing this. It literally leads nowhere as people can’t quite grasp morals and ethics anymore, and feel that just because a company makes millions of dollars it’s completely fine to steal from them. Stealing is stealing regardless, theft is theft, and there’s no morally or ethically good reason for a Switch emulator to exist at this current time.

Edit - Also check Copyright.gov. Might be surprised at what you learn about the legalities of back up copies.

@Kekshook Most people playing suzu is for piracy, sure there's some that use it for backup their own games, but most people use it just for piracy.

@sanderev I have no problems emulating retro games, for me at least it has to be games from 2 generations before, since most of the games aren't sold anymore. Emulating this gen games isn't right since the games still being actively sold in (eshop) store imo.

I have no problem using emulator as a preservation for games, but I think using it for the current gen is just piracy, at least wait until 2 generation passed.

I am pretty curious to see how this situation plays out. It might be a good long while before a verdict is made based on how the court system works. This could absolutely change the future of emulation depending on how this goes down.

@Dm9982 You think development of these emulators should not begin until a console is dead?

@Dpullam Sony fought this battle years ago and lost.

@Toastmaster Maybe Xbox consoles get low priority for emulation because most people just don't care.

@Crono1973 There’s no need for them to exist to the public until a console is dead is my thought. If all someone cares about is backing up their games/software then you don’t need an emulator capable of playing said games to do such a thing.

Emulators for current consoles exist for 3 reasons - piracy, development and modding/visual upgrades.

Piracy is stupid to argue so we won’t include that. Development is a decent argument, however there exist a fully ethical and legal path to do such things, and more over it’s free. I know cause I’ve got a Nintendo developer account. Lastly visual upgrades/modding doesn’t qualify for a necessity or justifiable arguement. It’s just an entitled “I want it so it should be” argument.

The law even stipulates that you’re allowed to make back up copies of your games for archival purposes - this does not mean play directly from the back up. This means restoring the back up on to the intended medium and playing from the intended system. We dealt with this all the time back in Floppy Disc days.

Now once a console is dead and there’s difficulty / impossibility to purchase the original system, then there becomes a justifiable reason for an emulator to exist. Until then there’s not, truly there is not. And any argument for it falls under one of those three things - illegal…. Unethical…. Or entitlement.

@Dm9982 Emulators take time to make, they don't need to wait for a console to be dead before starting development on an emulator.

If a few people decide to play buggy games on early builds, that's their business and I really don't care but in order for the emulator to get better those early builds must exist. The sooner the better I say.

@Crono1973 I get that, I do. Dealing Bethesda titles for years, yeah I’d rather have a non buggy mess, lol.

Unfortunately what will likely end up happening in the future is the companies banding together, and tossing a ton of legal and financial might at the situation to force the hand, likely shutting emulators down completely unless they’re official emulators: which Nintendo, Sony, Xbox, etc creating official emulators is best case scenario pipe dream.

It’s impossible to stop the dumping and sharing of roms. it’s just too easy to do… like spreading a virus or sprinkling glitter. However if the companies overturn emulators as being illegal it mostly bricks the reason for roms. Emulators are the bottleneck target of this crusade. The only other way to play roms would be a modified system, which they can’t stop that either. They can stop the sales of, but they can’t stop knowledge from spreading or people from opening their switches. Nintendo still wins because Switches are still bought.

I guarantee this is the path that is trying to be carved…. Not sure if it’ll succeed. Be interesting to watch. Like I said in an earlier post tho, be ware poking the bear….

@Dm9982 They would like to kill resale, emulators and flat out ownership of games so they can repackage and resell them to you over and over again.

Hopefully they never win that fight.

Who cares if emulating hardware and copying firmware is illegal? If the law is an ass, I'm not going to respect the law.

For a current selling system yeah it's a bit awkward but I mean. Emulators are like having a PC you can use them for education. For piracy yeah I agree that is disgusting and support current games of interest for sure. Get games to be around not dead due to piracy.

Whether games, music, tv shows/movies. If enough offer a good service then yeah, if they offer an eh service then well go for other methods. By that I mean Blu-rays for tv shows if streaming you aren't into, if games then well digital or physical then digital ROMs, music well many places to view those on sites or video sources while movies/TV can be it depends if officially offered or sometimes re-uploaded and not or may be it varies, if not then well...... Yeah I can understand why if the quality of the content/decisions made for the content (not just platforms but just the product itself) or methods suck but it is what it is unfortunately.

When it comes to ROMs well that's on other people taking whatever is archived someone else put up there and being lazy. For archiving I see reason if it was officially purchased of course.

Even hosting updates if you can't get a cart to archive the different revisions they re-production from the factories with the update on it. Or just the digital version that is the most up to date.

1.0s only offer so much after all or access like firmware, some games or DLCs need the updates.

Anyone that knows the Bleem/Connectics cases know. To other videos on the topics. But emulators having competition is something and emulators for Indies games were and have always been a thing too. Without emulators we wouldn't get mods/hacks sure but we also wouldn't get Indie games making their own games based on hit games.

Sure Indie didn't need to but a lot more is gained knowing about a game inside and out then just as a player, for code/animations/how text was presented/how it uses the hardware, a lot can be learned.

Inputs for buttons/controller and console gimmicks, apps.

So for education or homebrew it makes sense, for current systems being sold yeah that's a bit much. To understand the Switch sure, for other emulators on a hacked system hmm, this is why I question just having open source systems to just offer hardware for people to mess around with but thing is that a lot of work to do and people will still hack them they don't care about a more scaled for things version of the hardware even if it was offered. That or because you can get some hardware close enough to it anyways if they wanted to replicate it not the exact parts but still. Obviously not the code of course.

Like having a PS2 for Linux or PS3 with Other OS is one thing but openly getting to use a console like a PC would be cool it's not ideal but still. But like I said people will just misuse them or just hack what the other is then the custom for that unrelated to the games ones anyway so it would never happen. Besides not being profitable either to segment them.

What people end up using them for to not give their money, not care about the system at all and are lazy yeah that's on them.

With piracy we have less sales, which means yeah companies can be difficult as it is a service problem on what they want to control 'their' way but also we get less games, if people want less games then they are heading that direction. But for popular games that isn't a problem as much I guess unless it really flops. For niche games yeah those are doomed to fail.

To me prototypes or rare demos (for say wikis) it makes sense to access them for documentation purposes and no one wants to spend millions or thousands on them on the second hand market just to document them on a wiki. Some can contribute that much and people have videos and archives for those purposes to showcase what has been done and were lucky to come across copies while others did have to pay/collaborated to pay, what lead up to some games is history right there being held back.

For retail games yeah those sales matter. From R4 to nowadays it does bite.

Shut down Yuzu and a Yuzu2 appears. Simple as that.

Emulation for a current and fully-available console is unreasonable and is clearly just for piracy. I can understand emulation for older unavailable devices, but this is just ridiculous, with equally ridiculous reasoning from its defenders.

Ryujinx is at least as good as Yuzu, if not better at Switch emulation.

Did Nintendo give Ryujinx a free pass because a Japanese cracked the Switch DRM?

@DestructoDisk Yeah.
UBI Soft boss recently said that you don't own purchased digital games from any digital shop. I always knew this, but he confirmed it for everyone.
I have full backup of my long list of Switch purchases too.
If i bought it, i wanna own it for real and not lose ownership when server goes down.
It's legal in my country to own backup of everything as long as you keep it to yourself.

Welcome to the digital world where you own nothing you purchase. Purchasing is nothing more than short or long term rental in reality.
There have been 60$ games that were unplayable already after 1 year, because DRM server went offline.
Do you remember Gamespy where over 1000 retail console games went offline?

Games like "Hyrule Warriors Age of Calamity" were broken since release and never fixed. I regret buying it as it's unplayable because of poor FPS.
Nintendo forced me to install it on my PC handheld instead, so i could get 60 FPS on the game instead of 15 FPS.

A lot of broken Switch games is fixed by PC gamers, but not fixed officially.
PC Gamers fixed a million of things on most systems since 1990's when the developers refused to.

Something is wrong when a random PC dude sitting at home are able to fix broken Console and PC games, but the developers isn't.
GTA 5 had the longest loading times ever for a game, and guess who fixed the bug for 2K/Rockstar. A random nobody on PC.

@Chinesus that's a great read, thanks for posting it!
Nintendo can really act like a creepy authoritarian when they feel like their position as wealthiest corporation in Japan might be slightly under threat from open source emulation developers.

@Frailbay30 Oh I very much agree! I remember owning a bunch of awesome retro games that got damaged in a flood. Since then, I've been far looser with how I play these games and tend to get re-releases through Steam (or Switch if a collection isn't on Steam). It is just easier that way. And far less costly then re-investing $1000+ dollars into my hobby for games I was probably not going to play anyways.

As for preservation standpoint, I think as an overall industry and audience we should collectively be doing better. Which is just educating ourselves on how we can best preserve how these games were intended to be played and be more willing to reach out to preservationist groups and see what we can do to help. Even if it is just sending in old strategy guides, magazines, etc to help them not just preserve the games, but also the context around them.

@James021
Couldn't care less tbh.

Wonder what took them so long? The Switch, regardless of Switch 2 delay rumors, is most definitely in its twilight years. Yet, this emulator (and another infamous one) have been around almost since the Switch was running around in diapers. By the time this move through courts, I’d be shocked if the Switch successor isn’t on shelves. My guess is this is to deter future emulators but that will never happen. Emulation is here to stay, hell even the video game companies use emulation. Also, there’s a good chance that emerging AI technologies makes it almost too easy to produce. They may kill Yuzu but they aren’t winning this war anytime soon.

You cant "shutdown an open source emulator"! It is impossible!
What is possible is to bankrupt its authors and remove possible money incentives. That is what they are targeting

@axelhander What a dumb thing to say.

Hacking your Switch is not against the law. Copying your own games is not against the law.

Yuzu relies on people having their own games and keys to their own system to play the game. They don't have a case. You ain't getting my Steam Deck with Yuzu either. So it will be available to anyone on Internet Archive.

@DanijoEX-the-Pierrot but, you didn't.

@JakedaArbok I want to play my own games on the Steam Deck instead. There you go there's a reason. So it's valid and should be made available to anyone.

@Dm9982 nope. It's perfectly reasonable, logical and legal.

@ThatZeldaNerd You'd have to have a modicum of intellect for that retort to matter.

@axelhander bro really just was like " Actually, you cant say that, ☝️🤓"

Nothing will stop the emulator, only the people that made it.

Nintendo: a video game emulator is a piece of software that allows users to unlawfully play pirated video games that were published only for a specific console on a general-purpose computing device.

Also Nintendo: Sells emulated games meant for other consoles that are not Switch….

Nintendo entered a new moronic peak… The courts will have a field day with this one 😂

@Jokerwolf This will seem intrusive to say, but you should really consider changing your profile picture for your soul's sake if nothing else.

@NunyaBusiness Which of my many souls?

The more I read and watch on YouTube about this the more angry I get, and the more I hate
Nintendo. They win this, they establish legal precedent to shut down all emulators. Nintendo is absolutely evil, Jesus christ.
I think I need to abandon my Nintendo account, hack my own Switch that I OWN, and play my favorite games outside of Nintendo's orbit. I DO NOT want to play 1 new Gameboy game every few months when Nintendo decides to drop it from their newly established absolute ownership of thousands of old games. F Nintendo!

UPDATE: Yuzu is getting shutdown. The Nintendo ninjas had claim victory.

https://www.polygon.com/24090351/nintendo-2-4-million-yuzu-switch-emulator-settlement-lawsuit

@120frames-please Nintendo is not going to shutdown all emulators as they themselves also used some of them. You talk without knowing the reason why. Yuzu is getting shutdown cause they did something illegal. That's why only they got shutdown and not Ryujinx or Dolphin. You sound like a trouble kid who think all cops are bad, just cause your friend got arrested by the police doesn't mean you will too. They won't come for you if you did nothing wrong. Even if you did do something wrong but they had no evidence of it they still won't come after you. Yuzu got shutdown cause they did something wrong and there's evidence proving that what they did was wrong.

@Serpenterror thanks!

@Dm9982 Oh there is plenty of reasons for emulators to exist during the life of a console. First of all it's legal regardless of how old the console is, so there is one reason for them to exist, because they are allowed to. Sometimes people just want to do something because they can. That's a pretty lite reason I admit.

But let's continue. Next reason would be to start working on the Emulator before it's console inspiration has more advanced methods to lock itself down. More time to discover how it works and perfect the emulation.

Developers of emulators will create better emulators while the system is still fresh, because they themselves are excited and currently enjoying the console. There are more eyes on it during it's lifecycle and more people willing to help out in various ways.

The biggest reason though, is that many people just prefer playing the games on their own hardware. This often leads to more performance and higher resolutions. This enables fun extras like modification.

The biggest reason for me personally is data ownership. I can create my own save files, which I can back up and then return to in 20 years when nostalgia beckons me. I can see all my past accomplishments in the game. It's like having photographs or videos of your past, except you can engage with them. If I just play the game at launch on the console, rather than dumping the game and playing it on my MacBook... everything I do gets erased to the sands of time. It is a huge bummer. That is the main reason I completely stopped playing on my physical Switch and just dump everything I buy. I am 39 and I know from experience. I wish I still had the save files from my NES days and Genesis days. 11 years ago I spent 6 months in The Philippines. I had a lot of great memories there. When I got home at night after exploring and spending time with friends I was exhausted and needed something mellow to relax with. I would pop in the Famicom JRPG "Destiny of an Emperor 2" and grind baddies for an hour or so. When I came back to America I backed up my save file. Just recently I was thinking back on those times, and decided to start playing again from my save that was 3/4 through the game.

I am starting my kids off right. They dump their games too. One day they will be able to pull their old toys out of the attic.

@DestructoDisk I get the reason for them to “exist” during a consoles lifetime for working on them, but they don’t need to be made public. If you’d created something to sell and someone copied it and suddenly your sales started to take a nose dive you’d be pretty upset too.

Backing up saves can be done without the use of an emulator, granted on switch you have to pay for online service for it whereas on Xbox, Ps and Pc it’s free. Backing up the full game isn’t going to be necessary within the consoles lifespan, if your game craps out during that time Nintendo will replace it.

The only real caveat anyone using an emulator to play switch games currently right now is “it runs better on emu therefore I should play it there”. And that argument is like “I have a Ferrari so I should be able to drive it 200mph just because it can”. It’s a child’s argument at best.

I truly am all for emu, and preserving data, but a full on emu doesn’t really need to be public during a consoles lifespan.

And you do realize that the legality of dumping your data does don’t include playing it back on unintended hardware correct? The law was created for the express use of backing up data to replace it back on to disc should the original disc get destroyed.

Edit - Emu debate is a lot like the American gun debates that pop up. Every time something bad happens, the ban gets brought up. And while I’m a responsible owner, I also agree with Jim Jefferies, we only have one valid arguement - “I like my guns, I wanna keep em”. Self defense isn’t a valid reason because statistically speaking your more likely to use the gun on yourself than a home invader, and your reaction time plus adrenaline are likely to counter any would be thwarting of the home invasion. And the amendment was created just in case our government got crappy and we could defend ourselves, however the technological gap between us and the military is vast, and the only way we’d win against the military is if they decided not to fight.

I bring this up as a point out to people doing dumb things ruining it for the rest of us. Emu is no different. If people do dumb things with it, like yuzu did, then it’s only going to increase the resolve companies have to prevent it from happening. Soon we’ll see DRM in all games, and the back ups won’t matter a lick unless you can connect to the server with a valid account ownership of the game. If we want to speed that process up then by all means, we just need to keep doing stupid things…..

But I digress, again I’m all for preservation and emu. I’m just pointing out the technicalities. I’ve been backing up my data since 1987 when Leisure Suit Larry originally released on floppy disc….