Switch Emulator Yuzu To Pay $2.4 Million To Nintendo & Cease Development

Well who didn't see that coming?

In before, there will be some peoples here will defend the using of illegal emulator with preserving the games as their excuses.

Wouldn’t have expected any other end at this point. You poke the bear and the bear pokes back. Hard.

That token anti piracy statement is hilarious though. This could have only ended in piracy. Pretty sure they knew that.

That being said now that they own it Nintendo may look at 3DS emulators on future systems for NSO. Might be cheaper than working on it in house.

Alright guys listen.
I understand that we want to preserve games because Nintendo doesn't do a good job at it but we can not be getting mad a Nintendo for shutting down ILLEGAL emulators.
They have EVERY right to take down their own work, call it greedy or whatever you want but it's business.
If Nintendo doesn't want their games preserved then oh well, their loss.

Do the crime, pay the time. Nintendo and the law are correct in their action & application of it.

There is no free lunch people. Games are made by people, people who have families to feed, rent to pay, etc.

And if you think "piracy isn't hurting anybody", or "they will still sell games". Just look at the amount of layoffs in the gaming industry, only this year. Nintendo hasn't done so yet (luckily), but even that could happen.

@Gaming-Penguin 100% correct! No one ever pirates PC games. That's a well known fact.

The creator of Yuzu also helped create 3DS emulator Citra, and now that's being taken down too, which is quite unfortunate.

I can understand people's arguments against emulating the Switch, but the 3DS is no longer being made and it's storefront recently got shut down. So this is a major blow to preservation on that front.

Gutted. Citra’s useful for preservation with the eShop shutting.

Home run Nintendo!
Seriously, Nintendo is a truly innovative company.
EA at the other hand….

I mean, Yuzu is open source so people will archive the source code so it won't truly be dead.

Same with Citra.

@Deadlyblack Sure, but everybody who is going to fork it is going to be targeted by Nintendo. And they can even request GitHub (etc) to take those forks down as well.

Joint filing? With Yuzu paying Nintendo without a fight? AND Nintendo receiving the rights to their website??

I can’t be up in arms about this, I gotta believe a backroom deal must’ve been made. The headline makes it look like Nintendo is taking a strong stance against pirating, when really they just found insane talent for 3DS and Switch backward compatibility. Nintendo would be stupid to not use Yuzu as a vital resource for not only BC, but also patching future vulnerabilities on the Switch and Switch 2

@sanderev Don't fork it through Github? There's other places online.

I never side with big corporations. I really don’t care about their profits. With that said I can’t wait for Shmuzu Shmemulator

@Deadlyblack With a DMCA in hand they will all take those forks down. Unless you fork it somewhere offline, and even then Nintendo will go after you.

Wow, I actually didn't expect them to fold without a fight.

I mean...emulating a console that only plays video games? I get that they are legal, but if you aren't allowed to play games on them...what exactly is the point? Especially for one of a system still on sale??

$2.4M is a substantial amount of money. Reckon that's compensation for potential lost sales of Zelda? I don't think this is strictly going after emulators, more folk profiteering and I reckon Yuzu knew what they were doing. Seems like they made a decent penny out of it!

@Krydle
PC games still can be pirated.
I saw a lot of pirated PC games in burned disc here in my country Indonesia.

Yuzu I 100% understand shutting down as it’s a current system, so emulation of any kind encourages piracy, whether intentionally or not, but Citra is disappointing due to its preservation potential

Can totally understand why they can't continue but their statement to say "where against privacy?" . They knew what they were doing and provided the tools to do it. Don't be handballing the blame go your users you schmucks

Game preservation isn’t a good argument when the Switch is still on sale and has games readily available.

@abes3
They also were encouraging emulating TOTK a month before it released.

I understand people saying that the Switch has games still available, and I don't support piracy of current games, but the system is seven years old now. Eventually, the Switch storefront will go down, too, and the games will become harder to find and/or purchase.

Sad news, but Nintendo won't ever snuff out emulation completely. And that's a good thing.

@Captain_on_Deck ironically, devices like the Steam Deck pretty much killed the chance of official PC ports of Nintendo games.

Apparently Tropic Haze was paywalling both builds of yuzu and bug fixes to the leaked, pirated copy of Tears of the Kingdom cited in the lawsuit by way of their Patreon. So no matter how you spin it, they kinda incurred the wrath of Nintendo beyond just offering emulation for the Switch on PC. No legal precedent has been set against emulation due to this out-of-court settlement, and both yuzu and Citra, as open-source programs, won't fully disappear. Really doesn't seem like there's a ton to complain about, aside from the mild inconvenience caused by those who actively use emulators to begin with, but of course people are treating this like the end of the world. It's more nuanced than that, even though I wouldn't at all say I'm on Nintendo's side here.

Oehh Nintendo now owns it? Didn't see that coming.
Hope they use it lol.
Maybe hire some of these guys to build good emulation on these switch subscription.

@ItsOKToBeOK That is an awesome point. I hope they use it really. I mean so often I see comments of people asking why doesn't Nintendo partner with these guys since they seem passionate about preserving games. I really really hope they don't just trash all of that and actually put it to good use.

@GalaxicGlobe but emulators aren't illegal. this is corporations throwing their financial weight around and forcing people to settle because they don't have enough money for a court case.
Sony lost a court case against bleem (a ps1 emulator) in the 90s for this reason. Bleem was also paid, so the paetron doesn't make a difference for yuza.

Good news. Pirating has always been a rather abstract "stealing from the rich/Walmart won't go bankrupt even if a lot of people steal stuff"-concept, but witnessing the death of the DS through piracy has given me a whole new perspective. All of a sudden everyone around me stopped buying games and had huge collections of the newst games on SD cards. No wonder why DS-Development stopped being financially feasible. Most of what is going on with Switch emulation has nothing to do with preservation. Just people who steal software and feel super smug playing new games sometimes days or weeks before the official release for free. I am pro opening up systems for emulation once official production of the system and its games ended though, but that has nothing to do with what was going on in the Yuzu community.

Nintendo's court record for winning is what like 90%? They don't F#ck around when it comes to protecting their IP and bottom line. Emulating a current gen console, gee I wonder what could possibly go wrong with that?

Want to play Switch games? Buy a Switch...

I don’t know too much about yuzu but did they have switch stuff on it? (I know it’s a silly thing to ask lol) Like stuff they you can buy on the Eshop just fine? If so I really can’t defend that honestly.

@Anti-Matter I'd never defend it as preserving anything, but just for what it is: it's simply great to download and play 1000s of games. Have been doing it since the N64 era. There's great joy in being a pirate, arrr.

Thank goodness it's open source.

@Ocaz
https://www.theverge.com/2024/2/27/24084494/sony-playstation-layoffs-2024

https://www.ign.com/articles/ea-to-lay-off-around-670-to-advance-the-way-we-work

https://www.theverge.com/2023/11/7/23951138/ubisoft-montreal-layoffs-hybride-assassins-creed

and this is why i don't gamble.

@Raifteiri i hope one day some big lawyers take up a lawsuit against nintendo about emulators and win the case..

Here's the thing, since this always comes up whenever the topic is covered on this site - emulation is completely legal, this has been made clear in prior court cases. Can you use emulation to play pirated games? Yes, of course, but the emulation software itself breaks no laws by itself, this is why Nintendo has largely ignored lawsuits towards emulators despite all of their protests about them and has instead gone after people who hosted websites that allowed you to download ROMs, or the likes of Team Xecuter.

The issue with Yuzu is how it was monetised. If you wanted to run the latest version of the emulator you had to pay the devs via Patreon, and they were making A LOT of money (as much as $30K a month at peak), especially after Tears of the Kingdom leaked before release.

Unless other emulators attempt this same monetisation, I don't believe we'll see other attempts of litigation towards hobbyist emulation as a concept (is it even hobbyist when you're making 5 figures a month?).

@DiamondCore So they weren’t promoting it but some people used it for piracy purposes? I’m not the most knowledgeable in the topic of roms so apologies is it takes me a bit to get. It sounds like they are one of the innocent ones and even handled it pretty well from what I read.

@johnedwin for a company that advertise creativity and fun, they are ironically the opposite.

@Gaming-Penguin There'd be no need for a Nintendo console if their games went to other platforms, so I wouldn't hold your breath...

It’s one of those things that genuinely feels uncomfortable though - having an emulator of a current gen console still thriving.

Had we moved onto the next console gen and we saw EB Games / Gamestop move to what happened with previous gen games (a small niche section of a few second hand games) I would think more of an argument at least could be made for it.

I am definitely all for game preservation. While in theory having a functional emulator up and running early isn’t a bad idea in itself (and i certainly hope the fruits of it in some way can help down the track), it is kind if a problem now..

A shame about Citra though. The 3DS IS practically dead now so that is more of a loss IMO.

@IronMan30

ironically, devices like the Steam Deck pretty much killed the chance of official PC ports of Nintendo games.

AFAIK there have never been official PC ports of first-party Nintendo games except maybe for some old Mario titles decades ago. Nintendo simply has never been interested in porting their own games to other platforms, since keeping them exclusive has helped them sell a whole lot of their consoles. I don't think this would've changed anytime soon even if the Steam Deck and other portable PCs wouldn't have entered the market.

@JeongersGaming i get what you saying... but if you take a second look nintendo's history with the gaming community, i doubt it's money.

That was…shockingly fast. Figure this would’ve been a year long ordeal.

@Polvasti this is true, but Steam Deck and the like have further cemented their decision.

I.e., what little chance existed before (at least for ports, maybe they would have treated newer PC releases like they did mobile games) is pretty much dead.

Piracy talk aside

Yuzu devs f'ed up royally by going Patreon (= earning money from Yuzu), promoting compatibility with unreleased and released games, and promoting to join Patreon to get newest builds.

A shame, I like citra on my Android phone because I am too afraid to take out my 3ds out door to play a game (they are expensive here and getting parts is harder and harder)

Same with Vita3K, use that for exact same reason.

Wasnt interested in Yuzu, never tried it not even on my Steam Deck (got that for PC gaming in bed, on the couch and so on, when I don't want to sit behind my PC)

Such a shame.

Disclaimer: I collect games and am a gamer, so from the 93 3ds games I have, I had only the Pokémon ones for on the go.

As for Vita (full EU set plus imports), mostly some quick games like Lumines or Puyo Puyo Tetris.

I used the emulators only for on the go actually, because I find playing on a touchscreen "mwah" for most games, and didn't want a controller for my phone, because honestly 99% of the time I don't game on my phone at all.

Nintendo were not amyuzued

This is really sad, I was using Citra with my mates to play some Monster Hunter 4U recently, all of us having owned the 3DS game. It's so much nicer being able to play it with a proper controller and bigger screen, it's lame to see development getting cut.

I mean, they were straight up stealing game roms before they even released on market date. Crossed a line that shouldn't have been crossed. I'm fine with Nintendo taking the W on this one.

I'm sure some other company for switch 2, I know it's stupid and they literally JUST released this lawsuit but when has that stopped pirates? (Arrrgh... Nintendo you scurvy dog...)

@DiamondCore In the case of a switch emulator its not so much the emulator itself being illegal, its how the ROM itself was obtained. Nintendo chose a proprietary format for a reason, I.e meaning any re-production of something able to read such a game card is illegal, and if you hack a switch and take the ROM then this is also illegal.

Point is that's 99% the argument any nintendo lawyer could make.

Looks like Nintendo had a good case on them. You can argue if the illegal things Yuzu were doing should be illegal, but fact is according to US law at least, they are illegal.

There is no argument about preservation for the Switch at this point in time. The Switch is still a fully supported console by Nintendo after all.

The Yuzu devs were making money out of the emulator, knowing that now is the time for them to do so. Piracy demand for a console is at its highest when that console is active and its games are fresh after all. They are absolutely not innocent people working for preservation.

If they were doing this 10 years from now, I don't think Nintendo would care enough and preservation would have been unaffected.

"yuzu and its team have always been against piracy."

"piracy was never our intention"

Hahahahahaha.

@Captain_on_Deck "I see no reason nintendo or anyone should decide what I do with something I bought" Problem is when you purchase anything physical or digital from nintendo you're just buying the right to play the game, not the rights to anything related to its code its in their terms. Using the emulator isn't illegal but moving the data anywhere else is because in order to do so you'll have to circumvent certain systems.

@Rambler none of these affect anyone. You got the three worst “game” companies as hyperlinks to their own failure. Their predatory practices come back to haunt them. That’s a win. I own none of these three companies games or consoles.

@TurboSax except whether people like nintendo or not. In this case nintendo must be in the right legally otherwise they wouldn't have won so easily right?

I've never used Yuzu or Skyline just because playing on switch is easier. Though I really want to get a few of the puzzle game on swith running on a smaller device eventually. It's like that quote by Gabe Newell about piracy meaning there is a problem with the service being delivered. Like NBA game pass which is just not an actual option for most NBA fans, so I download the games, but us steam and switch because they're easy and work.

@Rayquaza2510 Citra is the real casualty here.

Their biggest issue was releasing an emulator while the system was still on the market. They can't really be surprised that people were using it to emulate the latest switch games as a result.

Then people are getting mad at Nintendo because they claim they are only using dumped versions of games they own to use it. People are naive to think the vast majority of people using it aren't using it to avoid buying the games. If this was years down the line then it would probably less of an issue. I'm just surprised it took this long.

It's a shame. I really think Yuzu had a decent case.

Nintendo did not, and COULD not, claim that Yuzu actually committed any acts of piracy with their software. Nor can they claim that Yuzu included prod.keys or dumped games or anything else with their software. There is nothing in Yuzu, in itself, that is inherently illegal or copyright infringing. At best the legal status of the emulator is "grey area", but not illegal. The best argument Nintendo have is that Yuzu encouraged or indirectly facilitated piracy. But "encouraging" or "indirectly facilitating" piracy is not a viable lawsuit with a cause of action. There is no copyright infringing action there. The best connections they have is that 1) Yuzu linked to some software to dump your own prod.keys from hardware, which they claim amounts to facilitating piracy. THAT software itself is not illegal either, and merely linking to such a grey area software is not equivalent to piracy. 2) Patreon donations doubled while TotK was leaked pre-release. Again, this is not enough to meet the standards of piracy that a lawsuit requires. It is not illegal to run a Patreon and accept donations for your not-illegal emulator. It does not meet the requirements of proving copyright infringement, either.

All in all - Nintendo had nothing here. Their intent was to bully, threaten, extort, and ultimately, settle in their favor. And that's exactly what happened. But don't get it twisted that this proves Yuzu is de facto illegal or that Yuzu's creators were criminally or civilly in the wrong. They weren't, and there was no viable case. Regardless of any moral aspect or anyone's strong personal feelings about piracy, this is a settlement based on an outsized money and power dynamic, nothing more.

HAHA! That was fast, too. They folded so quickly, almost like they knew they had no case, or something. 🤷🏽‍♂️

I hope Nintendo turns around and uses the emulator For Switch games on future consoles. It's their's now. 🤣

It’s crazy how easy it was to shut them down. Pay, delete and mind your own life, lucky they don’t make jail time.

So everyone who used yuzu was a pirate, no one from here liked to take their paid games to play on pc/steam deck?

Sounds like a take this punishment or we're gonna do 10x worse if you wanna go to court

@Ham-n-jam There are many Monster Hunter games on PC. No real need to emulate the 3DS one.

You know they are still gonna make another one, it just won't be called Yuzu. This time they just had to make sure they don't get caught. Considering the Switch is hitting the end of its lifespan soon I could see more emulators of it coming soon but until Nintendo discontinue support of the Switch platform itself no Switch emulator is safe until Nintendo pull the plug on Switch altogether and that includes backwards compatibility as well.

LONG OVERDUE especially when they had a patreon with paywalls for exploits at 30k a month lol

People really need to stop drinking the “they were for Game preservation!” Kool aide.

After what happened to Bowser, this is the natural thing to do, especially in USA. Their mistake is that of earning a bit of money on Patreon, so that’s a lost fight from the go. It doesn’t matter that people like me never did, and never would pirate anything if only to set a good example to my children who are always receptive to anything I do. People will still asociate emulators with piracy even if many, many people don’t use emulators to steal games.

I’ll still use emulators to play my already-owned games for the switch and other Nintendo platforms, on my Steam Deck, simply because some of them play and look way better than on the Switch itself.

About the ridiculous “fight” of condemning or defending a billionaire corporation, I’m staying out of it like I always do.

@clianvXAi The reason for that was cause a lot of the games on Steam and PC had DRM (such as Denuvo and Capcom) attached to them which ruin performance so most players just go the pirate way.

@Gaming-Penguin lmao false. People that want free Vidya will still steal. The million+ Tears downloads week before it released wasn’t “well there was no PC…” people.

Since Yuzu was open source, I'm expecting a mysterious new Switch emulator called Uzuy to pop up "out of nowhere" in the coming months.

im sure this wont be the last we hear of these emulators, but im cool with that. I cant say i fully support emulators for consoles that are currently being sold, but it was still nice to know it was a resource. I dont get all the preaching im seeing here in the comments, but you guys do you i guess

@westman98 You know Ryujinx exist too...right?

@ItsOKToBeOK Exactly, I would be looking at hiring them if it was me, their expertise could be very useful. They have proved they know what they are doing. Would be good to have them on board. 😄

When Nintendo hardware is low build quality and struggles with performance, even with first party launch games, people will want to play them on a different machine. Nintendo should focus on improving the convenience of their online shop, offer better access to games and value for money. They also need to ensure old games run on new systems. The only way to get all the Zelda, Mario or Metroid games on one device is emulation. Nintendo can easily fix this with virtual console. Nintendo needs to take some responsibility for this piracy and sell people what they will otherwise download elsewhere.

@Arawn93 i regret it now, but i emulated totk before it came out. Ofc i had already preordered it and only played it this way at first because i was impaitent, but it makes me wonder how many people that played it like that had already bought their copy and just couldnt wait like me. After all, most people that emulate a game or console are dedicated fans that own the original. Ive def learned my lesson regarding the playing early thing since it kind of ruined my experience through technical difficulties and the like

I'm wondering if this will affect Ryujinx too. Funny that Nintendo will go after Yuzu & not Ryujinx...

@Anti-Matter hope you realize that in 10 years when the eShop gets shut down that unless projects like this exist, games will be completely impossible to play.

Yes, having an emulator for the current-gen console is asking to get sued, ESPECIALLY WITH A PATREON, but stuff like the PS3 emulator is incredibly important to not losing so much of gaming history. Taking out the 3DS emulator was petty too, as Nintendo gains no money from lost sales and consoles will fail.

As a parallel, many animated shows are getting taking of streaming services and have no physical release, making them legally lost to time. I've seen tweets from creators of these shows thanking ones who have shared the show because they would rather it be enjoyed than be lost to time. I'm sure there's many game creators who would feel the same.

That’s good, with Nintendo no longer having hundreds of millions a year stolen think about how many more games we could see going forward!

@DanijoEX-the-Pierrot Ryujinx is on patron too. They earn much less than Yuzu, but if they’re not closing themselves right now Nintendo will 100% fall over them as well.

If you can't own it, then it's not possible to pirate it. If I don't own the things I buy, then I'll quit buying them! Thanks for helping me see this clearly Nintendo!

@Moistnado exactly, Nintendo creates this context where you have to emulate to enjoy gaming. Such a ridiculous and "unlawful" corporation (to use their lawyerly word from this sickening lawsuit).

@HeadPirate What are you on about? This is a settlement that has ZERO binding precedent. There was no judgment in the case or "jurisprudence" whatsoever. There was zero statement here about illegality. It was a civil case anyway, not criminal. Jeez, people really should get themselves a bit more informed about legal process.

@DanijoEX-the-Pierrot They might still go after them...or they might hope that this action serves as a warning shot to others.

Either way it livens up the comment sections!

@HeadPirate I'm not an armchair lawyer, I'm literally a lawyer. But go off I guess...

@TurboSax Yuzu doesn’t care about your ass either. They were making 300k+ a year off you lol

Doesn't really change anything, most that want it have it and those that don't have been downloading it as we type...

@KryptoniteKrunch they knew wtf they were doing promoting their Patreon over the Tear fiasco a week before the game dropped lol

We wouldn't have this problem if Nintendo just put more older games on the switch but no they are too lazy.

@Arawn93

Yup. Don't know what they were thinking tying a Patreon to an emulator lol.

Maybe you shouldn't of asked for money for your emulator. Plain and simple.

@Ham-n-jam This.

Had never got around to trying Citra, but MH4U with a controller was legit the only reason I wanted to.

I've now learned from this that an unofficial emulator is pirating the console it emulates.

After all the noise people made proclaiming emulation to be legal...

It makes logical sense that an emulator is pirating the console.

Ask for people asking why Ryujinx wasn’t hit….its simple. Ryujinx wasn’t remotely as STUPID as Yuzu was. Those discord chat logs, that 30k+ a month patreon, advertising/giving guides on exploits that was grey area at best, and just being way more high profile in poking the bear that is Nintendo didn’t give Yuzu NO favors that they took the settlement as if it was their lifeline almost instantly for how fast this was lol

What impresses me most are people fuming with anger, because they want to find excuses to be able to pirate games with an emulator that shouldn't have been made during this generation. Nintendo was the only company that was not part of the 10,000 layoffs in the last 2 months, because it cares about paying its employees and protecting its games and its unique ideas that make it different.

Yuzu did it to themselves with the way they did things like having specifically TotK support fixes behind Patreon. They pretty much spelled their own doom and it was inevitable.

@naxuu Don't get involved with arguing with people online. One never wins by doing that, and only wastes time. It is never worth it.

@Arawn93 Ryujinx still takes money on Patreon and facilitates the dumping of encryption keys, however.

They're probably going to have to clean up their act and keep a low profile if they want to remain active.

@BriskSunrise Not interested in winning any arguments! But I'm at least somewhat interested in setting the record straight for a lot of misinformed people who think this is a binding court judgment that emulators are now illegal. We can all disagree about stuff, but let's get the facts right...

Wish Nintendo would have received more in damages, theft is theft. This amount won't stop anyone from continuing to do this, if it wasn't profitable people wouldn't do it. When a game makes money (independent of the quality of the game) it tells the company we want more or less of this. I want another metroid here is 60 bucks for Dread.

@Matt_Barber They don’t remotely make 30k a month for starters. If you’re gonna be a thief then don’t be the loudest one in the room.

@BriskSunrise

That's a bit reductionist.

You could, for example, try to argue (while citing case law or examples), why a future case would not be allowed to reference the "Findings of Fact" in the official Judgment that include non-contested statements of guilt that Yuzu was primarily a device for circumventing digital locks the next time someone who makes a similar device tries to agree that isn't the case. Generally that's how the law works; you can talk about maters of official record in your cases. You are encouraged to do so, in fact!

Screaming at people in caps and making general insulting statements while providing no counter argument other then "Nah-ah" isn't a really effective way to solicit discourse, regardless of if it's online or not. Using a strawman argument to equate jurisprudence, the general idea that rulings effect one another, with someone suggesting this is now a "binding president" (something they absolutely did not do) is also a pretty bad way to go about starting an exchange of ideas.

You also can't "lose" an argument. While I'm only human and sometimes my emotions or wit get the better of me, generally when people engage me here on the forums in actual conversation, we both come out of it with a more informed opinion and a better perspective. We both "win", because the goal isn't to prove someone is wrong, it's to work together at coming to a more complete understanding.

More fool them, they shouldn't have cashed in on it, I would care less if was ten years later from now and the switch is found more on landfills then it is on store shelves but if Nintendo closes down their stores again along with emulators in the upcoming years after the switch 1 or 2s lifespan it would be disappointing because I'm not paying thousands for a nostalgia trip in the future.

@mikegamer Yuzu might as well be a small “company” at 300k+ a year on Patreon. They are not a small indie hobby group doing it for the sake of “game preservation” for free so you can stop sucking up to emulation for profit as well

Here we go again.
The peoples who keep defending about using emulator to preserve the games as their excuses and the peoples who keep telling to other people's including me to not trust Nintendo or any big company because they are not our friends.

I keep supporting Nintendo and game companies who still making good games for me by purchasing their games legally and not using illegal emulator to play pirated games.

Some peoples asked me what about the games that cannot be purchased any more?
My answer : Just let them go.

And they have the nerve to say that they never wanted the emulator to be used for piracy, when it's pretty obvious it was made with that purpose, and they used to give away the games on their Patreon, good ridance.

@Arawn93 @Matt_Barber

Matt_Barber has the right perspective. You always have to remember that Nintendo have no emotional or personal stake in this. They want to stop as much "theft" as possible, prevent as many people from using infringing software as possible, and send the clearest message possible that they are not going to stand for this type of action. But they are a for-profit corporation! They want to do that for as little money as possible, and legal action isn't cheap.

Yuzu were basically jumping up and down, getting as much attention as possible, and getting as many people looking at them as they could trying to sell their product. This pushed it over the line where the exposer Nintendo could get from handedly, to use the official legal term, "suing the crap out of them", was worth the price.

Suing Ryujinx, at this time, ISN'T worth the price. And as long as it remains not worth the price, it doesn't matter what they are actually DOING.

@mikegamer Like you say, social justice warrior, writing on his Iphone.

@Anti-Matter it really is ridiculous isn't it

@sanderev I couldn't agree more.

@Regular_Guy Nintendo promote creativity and fun. But obviously they're serious about being a succesful company and that means being tough on people who try to cheat them.

I don't think the developers of TOTK worked that hard for so many years to expect a million freeloaders to pirate it 2 weeks before release. While the Yuzu devs take in huge amounts of money selling access to a build of the emulator that could play TOTK, a build that could only exist from themselves pirating the game pre-release to adjust the emulator to play it.

I mean in these topics why don't people actually think about the creatives, the game designers, artists and programmers who poured their efforts into making the game? Only for shifty opportunists like the Yuzu developers to exploit the leak to fill their own pockets.

I mean I don't think they could have drawn a bigger target on their back with that Patreon. It's like the fools who make fan projects that blatantly will be taken down. Easy way to grift some clout from silly internet folk who like to pretend they're fighting the system.

I think the limit is once either the system or physical games for the system become EXTREMELY hard to find (cough cough, GAMECUBE) then emulation is ok. For example, the TTYD remake should not be avaliabe on a Switch emulator, but the original on a Gamecube emulator? Hell yeah, that game is impossible to come by (don't mind the fact I own a copy of the original I'm trying to make a point here)!

@Gaming-Penguin Good idea, perhaps they should port them to STEAM Deck, XBox, and PS5?

@Dr_Lugae I wish more people had your point of view.

Only a fool would think that this is the end. Forks of Yuzu will return, highly likely from China or Russia, no chance of legal action there. Ryujinx is Brazil-based, they will likely never be able to bring legal action there either.

@Anti-Matter So when you buy a Honda Civic, do you only drive it on the roads that Honda specify? Do you promise to keep the car stock, and not modify it in any way? You pay your money (which I 100% agree with), you play how you want.

Just building a Nintendo Ds emulator (citra) would have being more respectable & honoured then a current gaming device/toy that is still on the market.

Well, I'm just sitting down and eating my popcorn, watching the funny arguments here.

Even if you but physically your only buying a license, try reading the user agreement before you play the first time I guarantee using emulation because you like it better. That would be like buying a concert ticket and thinking it’s OK to bootleg the show because the band didn’t give you a version to play in your car or your house.

The amount of mental gymnastics people will use to say cooperation, Bad pirate good. Its mind blowing and not surprising at the same time.

Hey @NintendoLife ! Could be a really good opportunity for a really interesting poll here !!

How about some suggestions for the options !?

Possibilities:

•"Piracy is fare game"

•"Emulation is legal and I have the right to play my games any way I like"

•"I support emulation but do not support piracy"

•"I disagree with emulating current gen systems"

•"I disagree with all unofficial emulation"

•"I support Nintendo"

😃👍

@Anti-Matter I think I’ll join you. 🍿

@GalaxicGlobe Nintendo has all of it's games perfectly preserved. They have all of the code. They even have code of many third party games released on older consoles. For example Nintendo provided Square Enix the code of the first three Mana games that Square Enix had lost so they could release Collection of Mana on Switch.

@Anti-Matter "The peoples who keep defending about using emulator to preserve the games as their excuses"

This is known as Begging the Claim, a logical fallacy. Please prove that these people defending emulation are only using it as an excuse before stating it as a fact.

I think that emulation, while it can enable pirates by giving them an easy medium to play pirated software, is useful for the average consumer by giving them more options for how to experience it. I think that the developers of games are entitled to receive fair compensation for their work, but that doesn't mean paying customers should be locked into using their product in one way, especially if the way they use it doesn't cost the developers any sales.

I can understand it for the Switch, but the 3DS emulator being taken down is a tad unnecessary.

@Anti-Matter Tell me ONE way to guarantee software preservation without piracy. Just one.

Neither emulation nor game preservation interest me, so this whole situation has been pretty amusing to follow in the short time it's been developing. I'm sorry but I'm grinning like an idiot reading all the upset comments on Twitter. Total schadenfreude junkie over here.

@naxuu

im curious, can you think of another product that has been sued out of existence because it can be used illegally? im legitimately curious, especially if there's anything like that outside of the piracy space. ✌️ thanks!

@John_Deacon

I'm not necessarily on their side on this, but nintendo just released a 3ds game on switch. ✌️

Switch is their current gen, makes sense to fight against emulators at this point. Hope someone keep a backup of the code for the future, though. Once Switch 3 or something is the current gen, the existence of a Switch emulator to play old games would be great.

I am becoming more and more fascinated with this notion:

If (insert company here) doesn’t do what I want. Or provide what I want. Then it is ok for me to break the law.

For instance:

If Nintendo doesn’t provide access to every single game on a console in existence, then it makes it ok for me to obtain and play them illegally.

I am being a bit salty but I am honestly asking. Please explain that to me logically?

I can understand Yuzu being shut down, since it basically emulates a system that is still currently on the market, but I'm disappointed that Citra is also being shut down, because I know I'm not the only one who has to resort to emulation to play their 3DS games because their face buttons stopped working properly!

Naughty Boy - Runnin' (Lose It All) playing*

@-wc-

Radar detectors and wiretap devices are the most common to come up. Radar detectors are illegal in 2 states, most of Canada, and some of the EU despite having legitimate uses outside of facilitating speeding, and that fact that owning one doesn't mean you are doing anything nefarious with it. The Federal Wiretap Act prevents the sale of wiretap devices, despite the fact that installing one on your own phone and disclosing it's existence would not violate any laws and could be very useful for security purposes.

Several Spyware programs have been "sued out of exitance" in many jurisdictions worldwide despite them having legitimate uses if installed on your own computer based on basically the same logic here ... they are "primarily" used to facilitate illegal activity. They are illegal in all forms in several countries, and the US is singling a move towards this.

This actually is a pretty consistent way laws work, when you think about it. Depending on where you work, it's difficult to impossible for a researcher to get a controlled substance because they COULD use it as a recreational drug, despite the legitimate value of their research. You can't buy or sell dead bodies in most places because that COULD (and has) lead to organized crime, despite them being a completely necessary component of medical education, so they need to be donated.

The courts and law-makers jobs is to balance the risk and benefit to society, and that's often based on a judgement call as to how most people are going to use something most of the time.

Why anyone screws with Nintendo is beyond me.

@-wc- there are several 3DS games on or coming to switch. Pokémon mystery dungeon. Another code recollection. Luigi’s mansion 2. Some of the Rune factory games I think? Ghost trick. The world ends with you. Pokémon diamond and pearl. I guess some of those are DS games. But there’s a handful at least I believe.

Looking at the text of the lawsuit, there were a handful of major things that tripped Yuzu up.

(1) Patreon. Patreon is a honey trap. They effectively monetized their emulator by locking beta builds with the newest fixes and highest compatibility behind subscription tiers to their Patreon. I imagine this, more than anything else, incurred Nintendo's wrath and opened the door to this suit, as it allowed them to successfully argue that Yuzu was raking in thousands of dollars per month off of Nintendo's IPs.

(2) Zelda: Tears of the Kingdom. They broke street date on it, effectively allowing people to pirate a game that hadn't even been released yet. (Metroid Dread, Super Mario Bros. Wonder, and Super Mario 3D World + Bowser's Fury also broke street date and were emulated by Yuzu on Day 0, yet the suit specifically mentioned Zelda.) This ripped apart the "preservation" angle that was successful in past emulator court cases.

(3) Their Discord, and the bragging thereon about scoring .xcis of pre-release games.

(4) Bunnei, the lead developer, outright admitted according to the court filing that according to Yuzu's own data telemetry, most people just downloaded pre-baked builds of games with the encryption keys baked in. In other words, by the devs' own admission, most of the people using Yuzu were pirates who didn't bother dumping their own games' encryption keys. That put a blowtorch to the premise of people legitimately buying their own games but just playing them on higher-spec machines for better frame rates and resolution and more modularity.

Hopefully, anyone who inherits Bunnei's work will be more circumspect and less overtly money hungry. Go underground. Don't use Kickstarter or Patreon or anything like that. Don't try to build forks of the emulator for platforms like the XBOX or Steam (here's looking at you, Dolphin). And keep a tight lid on social media — that means no one poking the IP holder in the eye every chance they get about how the unofficial product is just so much better and that everyone who uses the official hardware is a corporate bootlicker, etc. That never ends well.

Understand about Yuzu, as the Switch is still on the market, but I'm sad about Citra. The 3DS is no longer supported by Nintendo, so if I want to play a new game for it I have just discovered, I have no other choice but to emulate it. A shame.

@Emacster

Thanks for that 👍 I wasnt trying to imply that there's only one, rather that a major switch release recently was a 3ds port (Pocket Card Jockey) so their motivation to prevent 3ds emulation is clear. ✌️

Is anyone mentioning the fact that $2.4 million is life changing? They will be paying that for the rest of their lives. I hope Ryujinx emulator peeps go into hiding for a while. Yuzu team pretty much asked for Nintendo to do this though. They shot themselves in their own foot and got too cocky.

@the_beaver Citra just got caught in the crossfire. It's not mentioned at all in the lawsuit and obviously was neither here nor there when it came to the piracy of TotK. Most likely, they had to sign a blanket agreement not to work on any Nintendo emulators.

It is, however, an open source project with other branches under active development by completely unrelated teams, so one of those might keep the project alive.

We might have to wait for the dust to settle first though, because I don't think anyone's going to be inclined to stick their head up right now.

English speakers will not understand this decision.
However, since English is not my first language, I have seen a situation where localization is not possible due to emulation and custom firmware for more than 20 years.
No matter how popular emulation or custom firmware is, English version games come out. However, Chinese and Korean games don't come out.

Emulation serves a purpose and I believe even Nintendo has been caught releasing a dumped ROM in the past.

I use emulation. I own games sans a system to play them on. I own games that Nintendo blocked me from accessing by shutting down their servers. I feel no same having a backup of my purchases and using them.

I also purchase new ROMs via Steam. Disney Afternoon Collection, Castlevania and Contra Collections, Sega and Atari collections all had the ROMs built in or just sitting there. I play homebrew and purchase home brewed aftermarket games.

I like being able to play them on my SNES Classic, PC or Raspberry Pi. I enjoy that a dedicated community has breathed new life into these games through achievements and leaderboards.

The truth is that if Nintendo offered their ROMs of classic games at a reasonable price, I would buy them just as I buy other companies. But I instead play other things because they would rather resell remakes instead of making new.

@Emacster Most of the games you mentioned are DS games. Only Rune Factory 4 and Luigi's Mansion 2 are 3DS games.

Yuzu lost only because they got money.

Ryiniux which is 100% free can't be stopped in court.

Nintendo always going against game history preservation. Newsflash!! Make your games more accessible; that will lower piracy significantly. People who genuinely pirate games weren’t even thinking of buying them. So, where’s the “loss”?

@BTB20 yeah I realized that shortly after posting that comment. Thanks 👍

That's why I don't want people to emulate this gen hardware, it just make company sue and make older emulator getting caught up too 😕

@Emacster Why is it that hard to understand why people want to play SNES or Gamecube games on their PC/Steam Deck?

You're an emulator!! Your sister is an emulator!! Your whole family are emulators!!!

@BinaryMessiah In this case, the $2.4 million will not be borne by the individual developers as the judgement was against a limited liability company, that will be liquidated as part of the settlement.

This happened crazy fast it’s like the lawyer they hired explained to them what discovery is and they immediately folded, Nintendo having access to the telemetry data and even more chat logs would have dug Yuzu into a massive hole.

You’re still going to be able to use yuzu, citra, whatever emulation software you want for the foreseeable future. Still going to be able to play any game any time you want for free. They were profiting off of Nintendo’s property. Nintendo is reclaiming that profit. Nintendo’s #1 goal, like any other company, is to make money and make their shareholders happy.

Some people really need to learn that just because the method is legal(emulation) it doesn't make using it for piracy legal.
Otherwise piracy wouldn't even be a thing, all methods used to pirate are legal it just the act that isn't.

Good job, now there's only approximately 1.048.208 emulators left!

i love the taste of boot in the morning

They kinda took one for the pirate community here. If this hadn't been settled out of court the outcome may have been worse for emulators that require bypassing encryption on the whole.

@HeadPirate I thought you sounded rational until that guy turned out to be a lawyer. so I'm just not reading your essays anymore.

@TheSaneInsanity

It's okay man, I'm actually a mega ultra lawyer with a double plus degree in forum essays, so you can keep reading with confidence!

Now, if the emulator was something that Nintendo doesn’t make anymore (the 3ds isn’t being manufactured, but it’s still fairly recent.) I understand why the public would be upset.

But the switch is still on the market. Right now. And whilst there will be those that use it that have bought copies from legitimate sources, you know full well there will be some using it without having paid Nintendo a dime. And that is not defendable.

Like sure, GameCube emulators, fine. But current software emulators? That’s a no no. Wait until the system is no longer supported before going down the emulation route.

Nintendo still won’t like it, and you would still be running a risk, but you are considerably less likely to get the force of the law on you than a modern, in development system

@Emacster

Could you imagine the world we might live in if the people who took every possible opportunity to passionately argue about how if a company makes it hard for you to obtain a video game you feel entitled to play, they forfeit any and all legal protection and there should be no consequences in obtaining that game though any means necessary started to put the same energy into arguing that if corporations make obtaining food or medical care cost prohibitive for a large group of people, the people who can't afford it have the right to obtain it by any means necessary?

I think game preservation is often used to mask straight up piracy. Because wanting to preserve an obscure NES game that’s out of print and hard to play is very different from wanting a brand new Switch game for free. The two are separate in my eyes but a lot of pirates like to hide behind the guise of “preservation”

@Yozora146_ Wow you lack so much nuanced in this situation. Do you not understand how the legal system works when it comes to the little guy vs a big company? This was a lose-lose situation because Yuzu devs were going to be stun locked into bankruptcy if they chose to fight Nintendo's legal team.

I highly doubt it was about the Patreon. Otherwise Nintendo themselves would've stated that instead of blaming them over people downloading Tears of The Kingdom when people don't only use emulators to play games they don't own since software and hardware console modding is a thing

@HeadPirate The way you disrespect people isn't my vibe, I picked up very big "this man is gullible laugh" vibes from your last comment. I am not gullible, and you should put more care into respecting others, even if they disagree with you, but not letting them run your life.

@LUIGITORNADO I'm out of touch with what gaming is because I want to play some SNES games? You're not making any sense.

But the internet lawyers said Nintendo didn’t have a case?

The only truly surprising part of all this is how quickly it all went down, from lawsuit announcement to case settlement.

@Lightsiyd hide yo kids hide yo wives! They be emulatin errybody out here!

@TheSaneInsanity

I thought you were making a joke actually, so I was joking along with you. I thought I was laughing with you, and genuinely apologize if you thought I was laughing at you.

Me and the other guy have provided the same evidence as to being a lawyer. I personally would encourage you to believe nether of us, given that evidence is zero. I would also say it doesn't matter. Avoid the genetic falsity, because lawyers can lie on internet forums. Instead you might ask questions, either to us personally, or to others who are proven experts to determine which of our augments are more reasonable.

Well, also, I'm not a lawyer and never claimed to be one except in what I thought was clearly jest. Please judge my comments based solely on their logical strength.

How did I use jurisprudence incorrectly? The word indicates the overall theory of law, and any judgement becomes part of that theory.

It's not "precedent", as the strawman argument made against me implied, but it is part of an official judgement, signed by a judge, that has become part of the system of law. In the future, someone could form an argument and include the admission of guilt that is part of this settlement to strengthen that argument.

What about that do you think I have wrong? I'm asking not because I'm invested in your believing me ... I am some dude on the internet and you are RIGHT to doubt me, but because I wouldn't want to be spreading incorrect information to the people who, overtime, have come to put some faith in my comments.

Hopefully they go after Microsoft next and finally get Rare Replay pulled from the market. After all that thing has like dozens of “Nintendo’s games” on it. And Nintendo worked really hard designing from scratch all the chips and other hardware of the systems those games were released on. What right does anyone else have designing a program that mimics all those chips to get those games running on a system Nintendo didn’t make.

EULAs are as good as laws and we should all have to abide by whatever they say even if they aim to stifle human creativity and freedom to an unprecedented degree. We should all be calling our legislators to beg them for more great laws like DMCA (USA) that protect corporations’s rights at all our expense.

Anyways Nintendo is not our friend and I will argue is actually a malevolent force in the history of video games. They make some great games and fun hardware but their business practices all the way back to the 80s… I’ll just say the industry is better off with Sony and MS as market leaders. And they’re not our friends either.

On the one hand, certain people are using yuzu to pirate. This almost certainly loses Nintendo money.

On the other hand, I'd really like to be able to play my games at higher resolutions or frame rates, especially given I've got hardware far more capable than the switch. Ideally they go the Microsoft or Sony way eventually and start porting to PC themselves. I've long since stopped buying third party switch games with the arrival of the steam deck because it's so much more flexible in how I play games.

I'm calling it what it really is, Nintendo threatening to bankrupt individuals if they don't comply with their desires.

@eSocrates
Haha, considering the types this site attracts I wasn't sure if you were serious or not until the third paragraph.

@sanderev Are you implying that the layoffs are due to piracy and not because of corporate greed/the need to be ever growing economically?

Until Nintendo decides to make hardware that isn't literally over a DECADE underpowered and stops keeping games at full price for 10 billion years, or charging us a fee for a service so we play games they stopped printing 30 years ago or whatever, I don't care how much money they lose or if people steal from them. It should be illegal to build a fanbase over decades and then keep the IPs hostage on continiously weaker hardware since the gamecube.

Not even going to play the whole "some people actually play their backups" card because I don't feel the need to use that as a defense. Steal, steal, steal.

Someone broke the law and got punished.....Extremely likely they knew they were breaking the law too....

@shaneoh Honestly I am deadly serious about the first paragraph in that a huge amount of the “legit” game industry (including Nintendo) uses this “evil” emulator technology that Nintendo is trying to destroy.

If they were forced to actually go to court and argue their case then we could all learn what actual law says and “legit” companies would have to abide the same way these “evil” reverse engineers do.

So if we lose “bad scary internet” emulators we must also lose “good happy corporate” emulators that underpin 90% of classic game rereleases.

So apparently, it's much easier to lawyer up and go after emulator devs than to investigate & prosecute whomever, who's responsible for game roms leak ahead of actual release dates ... it's like shutting down a patrol station which sold gas to a driver of a stolen car ... what an era to be alive

@eSocrates No corporation is anyone's friend. But in a world where Sony and MS are closing studios left and right and firing people they are not fit market leaders. They are undeniably responsible for the unhealthy state of the industry where Sony studios like Insominiac can sell 10million copies of a game or Naughty Dog can sweep awards AND still face lay offs.

Microsoft and Sony have bought huge swathes of the industry and then lay them off and close em down. Sony closed down their most iconic Japan Studio, the equivalent of Nintendo shutting down EPD and firing Miyamoto, Tezuka, Aonuma, Koizumi.

Nintendos business model is proven to be the sustainable one. They are not a malevolent force for expecting you to pay for their games they made. Understand that Nintendo's developers made these games, they didnt pick them off a tree. If you try to wrongly take a slice of their pie like Yuzu did its understandable you'll get slapped down for it, that's what happened here.

Maybe try to understand the hard work you're undermining by pirating and you'll see why a company like Nintendo would be protective.

@LEGEND_MARIOID this is a civil case. Not criminal. No one was accused of a crime. Some people created a product that has not been determined to be illegal in a court of law. A publicly traded company whose leaders felt like that product is a threat to the value of their company (on the stock market) sued the makers of that product.

The makers of that product had the right to go to court and argue that what they did was within their rights whether it damaged Nintendo or not. But that is expensive could take years tied up in court and risks costing even more in a judgement if they lose the case.

So they settled before going to trial for millions of dollars in damages all without ever being accused by the State (it’s worth remembering that the government brings criminal chargers. Not companies. Seriously corporations are not the government. Their EULA are not law and their legality hasn’t been examined by the courts) of committing a crime.

@Ravenmaster i didn't, but i was unare yuzu's devs went full moron by publicly pirating games and using a damn paywall.
well, since it was open source another yuzu &/or citra is bound to show up

also doesn't stop anyone who still has yuzu & citra installed from using them(albiet without internet stuff) and there are other switch and 3ds emus...

I'll make it simple for everyone here.

Piracy is bad, but going after emulator and demanding money from someone just because some people use mentioned emulator to play pirated games isn't either classy nor just.

I'd suggest you americans (I'm from EU so not all applies) start lawsuits against weapon manufacturers, because their product was a tool for killing people. No, better, go for knife manufacturers because someone used a knife to stab someone. Crap, there's even a better way - sue your parents, because they gave your life and you'll inevitably lose it one day.

Dang, humanity is really dumb and always find a reason to steal from each other, to name and shame each other and make lives miserable.

@eSocrates kudos mate for being sane here.

@GalaxicGlobe
Emulators aren't illegal though.

@John_Deacon VW no longer make the Beetle, does that mean I'm allowed to go out and steal one if I want one?

@NinjaNicky
Yes

@eSocrates @LEGEND_MARIOID

While this is completely correct and an excellent summary of what happened, it's important to note that unlike most settlements, which include an explicit statement that absolves the party settling the case of any and all wrongdoing, this judgement does the opposite. It states that both parties agree Yuzu is primarily designed to circumvent cryptographic keys, meaning it violates the DMCA.

From the Judgement "Developing or distributing software, including Yuzu, that in its ordinary course functions only when cryptographic keys are integrated without authorization, violates the Digital Millennium Copyright Act’s prohibition on trafficking in devices that circumvent effective technological measures, because the software is primarily designed for the purpose of circumventing technological measures."

So while this is a civil judgement, as part of the civil judgement they are admitting to not just violating the DMCA, but violating the part of the DMCA that is a criminal offence. So it seems likely the story isn't going to end here.

Am I missing something?

@eSocrates
Yeah it's not exactly the original hardware that they're running their virtual console on. Also look at virtual machines, they're emulating operating systems and is a whole business model for certain companies. "Good" or "bad," emulators aren't going anywhere.

@HeadPirate Probably not. I’ll admit to not knowing the particulars of this case. I haven’t bothered with switch or 3ds emulation. I didn’t even really read most of the comments on here. I didn’t plan on spending way too much time on this conversation. But I stand by pointing out the absurdity of Nintendo’s stance on emulators. And I do hope that at least some people here will take what I said about companies not being the arbiter of what is and isn’t legal to heart.

Even the DMCA you referenced is an actual law, passed by the United States Congress and signed by the President. It’s not just some clause in a TOS or EULA. Not that that means it’s good law. There’s been some argument even before it was passed that it’s a heinous encroachment on our first Amendment rights. The fact that it passed unanimously in the Senate certainly makes me suspicious of its intentions.

It’s too bad because a case like this is what’s needed to test the constitutionality of the law but that would require a heck of a gofundme on the part the anti DMCA crowd to go up against Nintendo lawyers.

That sure was fast even by such cases' standards, but no less predictable for that. As are the consequences of both affected emulators simply going low profile in relative stasis (unless someone bothers with a fork to develop and torrent). Ironically, this development even led me to get my Deck's Yuzu setup from the "maybe someday" shelf while all the related stuff is still a couple clicks and minimum of hoop jumps away... and the irony never stopped there! Out of the grand two games I've ever had an urge to emulate so far, Girls und Panzer's HK-exclusive English version turned up on a dedicated regional website (whose codes are reportedly the only way to redeem stuff on HK eShop at all) that does seem to work with western Visas, which left me to download and launch the long delisted Hill Climbing Mania - and the latter promptly retaliated with a fistful of deja vu. The game was never really delisted after all - the dev just re-released it under a different title (Up Cliff Drive) that I've bought and beaten ages ago!😅 So yeah, this whole development has left me actually equipped to emulate Switch games... and out of uses for this emulation whatsoever. Couldn't make it up if I tried.

@Omarzy fanbases aren't something to "build", they're a cancerous behavioral mob byproduct of audience resonance that warrants all the distress that could ideally keep their numbers decimated and their hapless human hosts moving on... but I suppose it's pointless to explain to someone with their own unmistakable symptoms like deranged hyperboles about game hardware and prices. ¯(ツ)/¯ As for the black flags, I've dealt with emulation and flash cards for almost twenty years now and somehow never needed a sliver of entitlement delusions about that. But if you prefer to proudly tout the pirate horn as "sticking it to the corporate man" rather than the telltale banner of your first world addictions it is, be my guest.

@rvcolem1 this doesn’t make any sense, how they could get more when yuzu didn’t provide the copies of those games?

@eSocrates

I totally respect your opinion of any given law. I'm a creator. I own or have contributed to IPs that people have tired to steal from me in several forms, which includes digital media and games. But even I have issues with some aspects of the DMCA.

But I mean ... I think saying Nintendo is being "absurd" for asking a law to be enforced fairly and universally is a bit strong. This would hardly be a landmark test of the DMCA for circumventing a console BIOS, Sony already did that with Sony v. George Hotz in 2011. He agreed to admitting to violating Section 1201 of the Digital Millennium, which is a civil offence, to avoid jail time for the Federal Fraud and Abuse Act violations he was also being accused of.

You might not agree that circumventing a digital lock should be illegal. I make no judgement call in regards to that view point. But it is. It unambiguously is. People have gone to jail for it. It's survived constitutional challenges and appeals. And the people who made Yuzu have agreed, in a legally binding document, that not only dose Yuzu do that but it's the primary function of Yuzu.

It's also important to note that Nintendo makes and sells a Switch emulator. It's part of the PC dev kit, because compiling a game on the Switch is not very fun. They also license that emulator to several companies for different applications. They licensed a 3DS emulator to a dentist chain in Japan. You could contact their sales and services team right now and ask for a price for using an official Nintendo emulation product to emulate any system (except, at least to my knowledge, the Wii U and Virtual Boy) for a personal project. If you agree to that price and the terms and conditions, you can use that emulator.

So they don't have a stance on emulation. They have a stance on people making emulators without their permission, and that stance is simply "laws apply to us just like they apply to everyone else".

That doesn't sound that evil to me. Laws, even the bad ones, protect everyone equally. We get to pick what laws we like or don't like, and even pick the people who write our laws. But we don't get to pick the ones we get to ignore. That's the fundamental building block of society.

I understand that the purpose of Yuzu is piracy, which is illegal of course, but I don't understand the emulator can be illegal. The statement refers to an agreement you "agree" to when using software on the Switch, not a law. Can anyone explain this to me?

@naxuu indeed. This does not change legalities at all! Settlements are more optic victories than anything as Nintendo gets a "win" in the sense that it will deter people from making emulators for their consoles in the future.

Based on the results seems like Nintendo was more interested in the optics than the legal precedent. They would still need to overcome previous precedent if they sued another developer in the future.

@Captain_on_Deck actually they do have the right to decide, if you just read the package of any game, you'll know

@Strumpan

I can try .. in fact I might have already, but I'm not completely sure what you're asking. Could you phrase it a bit differently?

@Narrator1 agreed. Those are solid points that I think put Yuzu in check from Nintendo's side.

I think the biggest lesson learned here is don't monetize your emulator. Dolphin has been fine because they don't monetize and only got Nintendo's lawyers attention (and was more flagged by Valve) when they tried to get it up on Steam. Dolphin has not been taken down or sued by Nintendo only blocked from Steam and Xbox. And Nintendo only took action when they absolutely has to.

Seems like not taking action against TotK pirates in addition to monetizing their emulator is what finally got Nintendo to take action against Yuzu. Don't poke the bear's tentpole releases is probably the best policy.

Nintendo seems willing to play dumb when money or official releases are not on the table.

@PipeGuy64Bit oh please, nintendo had a clean case this time. If yuzu didn't settle it would've been much worse. Its easy to find how yuzu shot themselves in the foot. They literally were asking for it.

@ChrisHoi
Well, I don't want to play 1000 of pirated games.
I played original games, bought with my salary since year 2013 and I removed all my pirated games since then.
I will never ever want to return to pirated games again.

You can still download the emulators, on other sites.
Once something is uploaded to the internet, trying to remove it, is futile. Still enjoying 3DS games on my Quest 3.

This emulator outfit was running a Switch business at the same time Nintendo was running theirs. Legalities aside, the old adage ‘timing is everything’, really must be heeded

yuzu and citra are open source, i can still use mine just fine, especially citra. Also there are other switch emulators, its just that Yuzu was gaining money out of it, and they shared the alot of important keys/manuals which is stupid. the lawsuit itself isnt about emulation per se, its about yuzu gaining money out of this and like i said sharing important stuff. the othe switch emulators arent affected cuz they're not doing any of that. Heck i remember when nintendo sued the n64 emulator in 99 (ultra hle?), and they won, and it did shut down, but we know what happened next, nothing, smarter people running emulators came to be and so many clones of that emulator emerged. Yuzu was just playing with fire at this point

@sanderev lol yeah I play the PC MH games too which are pretty fun. Not sure how much you know about the changes between the MH games, but after 4 Ultimate (and especially after Generations) they started feeling pretty crazy different to play.
4 Ultimate is still my all-time fave, it's got great balancing and a really solid lineup of monsters - so it's sad that this game is pretty much dead at this point without emulation, which is now also dying lol

@riderkicker yeah man, it's legit so much nicer playing with a proper right-stick instead of the gimped new 3DS nub lmao, definitely the way to go if you're considering a replay

@Anti-Matter there's a large group of people that play their purchased backups on pc. Don't act like it doesn't happen.

@IsThis5or6 The 3DS eshop in total had only slightly over 1000 games.

@Edu23XWiiU At least you admit it

@HeadPirate Yes, sorry if I am a bit slow here, but what exactly is illegal in what they are doing with the emulator? Is it specifically that the software is designed to "circumvent technological measures", and if so, what is the definition of technological measures?

@JohnnyMind I think the Injunction against developing or hosting Nintendo emulators for devices is arguably the most important outcome from Nintendo's point of view.

Because this emulator team who jumped from 3DS to Switch would have undoubtedly been racing to make a Switch 2 emulator when the system comes out. Had they not been sued it's pretty obvious next generation would see them continue to strategically designing builds of a Switch 2 emulator around garnering patreon money to play leaked pirated games before release date.

Citra was most likely just collateral in the rulings that were made to specifically prevent this team from repeating what happened with TOTK with Nintendo's next system. Probably to mitigate the impact of game leaks.

@nhSnork that was a whole lotta nothing. It’s not about sticking it to anyone. It’s that Nintendo offers crappy options to the consumer. They offer a bad service, so people look elsewhere. The day part of the appeal of a Nintendo game doesn’t include “wow it looks really amazing for a Nintendo game” is the day I’ll stop supporting piracy. Also, if someone, anyone, is actually price locked out of gaming, and they can’t afford to maintain a hobby they probably have enjoyed for many years, I don’t care what they do.

As someone who has purchased and owned every console, if someone told me they didn’t want to pay 400 dollars to play XC or Pokémon or Zelda or whatever with offensive framerates, less than muddy textures and ps2 animations (not that emulation really fixes that last one) i would have nothing at all to say to them. Don’t steal?

I look forward to more replies with them fancy 10 dollar words (thank you True Detective for that phrase)

@Omarzy nah, I wouldn't dare enter a competition in eloquence with phrases like "offensive framerates"😏 And it's not like an average Joe could talk anyone out of fiction piracy as long as the means are there - but for decades, many people have simply done the deed without the peculiar need to provide variably asinine excuses for it and even publicly blame the pirated side for it. An irritable addict's rant is all this sounds like.

EDIT: I think I'll believe in Santa Claus for longer than in Hookshot's italics tagging.😅

@HeadPirate you’re likely right about the DMCA being tested in the courts and this being a poor choice of a case to appeal to higher courts. Idk, maybe there’s an argument that there’s a societal value to DMCA and it’s narrowly tailored enough to be allowed despite the 1st Amendment. So it’s probably more proper to say that it’s time for like minded individuals organize a political movement to convince others of the damage the law is causing and eventually lobby lawmakers to change the law to better serve the interests of the people.

Either way stating that Nintendo makes their own emulators for all their systems that we can use if we pay them kind of proves my point about their intentions which is to maximize their business interests. Somehow I doubt Microsoft licensed Nintendo’s N64 emulator for Rare Replay. But sure N64 is old right?

Xbox series X is probably powerful enough to emulate Switch. Imagine if Microsoft built a Switch emulator for 3rd party developers to use to easily port their Switch games to Xbox. Ignoring that it would probably be easier for developers port the games the regular way. Is Microsoft’s switch emulator illegal just because they built it without Nintendo’s permission? Should it be?

Maybe Switch is designed so that any emulator requires copyrighted code to function. Maybe that’s what got these Yuzu guys in trouble. But it shouldn’t anything to do with them were earning money from it. What if Microsoft charged developers for the use of that made up switch emulator? Would that make it illegal? Should it? What if all Nintendo fans move to Xbox because they decide they don’t care about Mario and Zelda and just want the 3rd party games ported to Xbox in 4k and Nintendo has to get out of the console business. Would that make what Microsoft did illegal? Should it?

If their emulator included proprietary code that belongs to Nintendo it would and should be Illegal. If it doesn’t and all they did was create a superior product that damages Nintendo’s business interests that’s not illegality, that’s competition.

@Captain_on_Deck while you might be right, no one's forcing you to buy Nintendo's products, im sure there are plenty other companies who does games (although its unclear to me if they have same/kinda policies)

@nhSnork Speak for yourself and those you can confidently speak for, but nobody else please. I will speak for myself; piracy is a service issue.

@Strumpan

Ok, let me break it down as simple as possible.

When you go to run a Switch game, be it on emulator or original hardware, the first thing it does is ask the thing running it "prove to me you're a Switch?". In order to answer that question requires a cryptographic key to be present. This is a core function of how the system works. Emulators do not work without this key.

It's easy to get lost in a echo chamber where the only people who ever really talk about emulators are people who are hugely invested in the idea that they are perfectly legal, but the reality is that the DMCA unambiguously makes it illegal (not even a civil offence, a flat out crime) to circumvent "digital locks" like this. So a core function that makes emulation possible is illegal. End of story. Even if you somehow wrote a system that didn't need the key to play locked out software, you circumvented the lock, which is the thing you are not allowed to do.

What IS a digital lock? It's extremely board, defined by the DMCA as "technological measures used to protect copyrighted works in the digital environment". It's not rigorously defined on propose, so that as technology changes it remains clear that something is a digital lock if the person who coded it says it is. If the intention in including the code was to limit access, then it's a digital lock, regardless of what it actually looks like.

Every argument you'll hear online comes down to some variation of "well, what if we invent a trivial technicality to this argument", like how Yuzu doesn't include these keys, the user has to bring them. The discourse you hear is generally around "logical" arguments for this justification, and that's why it's easy to get lost in them. They can sound well thought out and convening! But in reality the courts generally don't care about trivial technicalities or logic. They focus on the binary question "dose this violate the statute".

If you read the judgement, Yuzu make an admission of guilt where they say the primary purpose of Yuzu and any other Switch emulator is to circumvent digital locks in violation of the DMCA. So again, no ambiguity. Yuzu themselves say that Yuzu is illegal, and as a matter of public record, even go as far as to say that they agree with Nintendo's assertion that you can't make a Switch emulator legally.

So to talk objectively about this topic, you need to shift your paradigm. There is NO question as to if a Switch emulator is legal. It isn't. Every argument is actually just an argument as to how a given usage case, like backing up games you already own, might be an exception to the law. I mean, murder is illegal, but you can kill people in war or sometimes in self-defenses ... so clearly I can use an emulator SOMETIMES, right?

But the problem is that exceptions need to be written into the laws themselves. The DMCA has no exceptions for circumventing digital keys. It offers no wiggle room for acceptable usage cases. One of the key arguments people make, which is around "fair use", has already been fully explored and answered. In 1992 it was ruled that reverse engineering a software lock could be considered fair use in some cases, and people still bring up that case when talking about emulators. But the DMCA was specially written to strengthen the law so that none of these cases applied any more.

It's no longer about if the "key" is a copyrighted work, it's specifically about how putting a lock on something makes it illegal to open that lock without permission.

@eSocrates

Ok, real talk.

I'm a Marxist, so your general arguments about how Bourgeoisie bad, Proletariat good resonate. They make sense. The general idea that this isn't the best way things can be gets no argument from me.

But, and I mean this with all possible respect, as soon as you try to work that into a specific idea about this one corporation and how we should or shouldn't be required to follow laws if they benefit corporations or we don't like them, it's nonsense. Beware the argument that people shouldn't have to follow laws they don't agree with, because eventually you're going to met someone who doesn't agree with the laws preventing them from beating you up and taking your stuff. They might even make a convening argument that you have too much stuff! Or the way you earned your stuff was bad. Or you don't do good things with your stuff and we would all be better off if they had it instead. They might even be right!

The second problem here is that you are presenting a lot of uninformed opinions. You are wading into this argument with some huge core knowledge gaps. And that's fine! We only know what we know, and we all know very little. The whole point of discourse is to inform our opinions! But you need to be asking questions more then making statements. You need to be looking to inform your incomplete understanding, not arguing how your incomplete understanding supports a given viewpoint.

For example, your WHOLE argument about Microsoft? Yeah, they have that. They have a Switch conversion kit for Windows Universal Platform that would allow a developer to take a game made on WUP and port it to the Switch, or vise versa. You can also run your code (ie, play your game) with the system accurately simulating Switch hardware. So Microsoft makes a tool that allows you to play Switch code on PC, in a environment that perfectly mimics the Switch, something that would generally be called "emulation". It was made without Nintendo's input or permission.

How can they "get away with that"? Well, it's because they understand the technical details and legal issue on a higher level. What they've made isn't an "emulator", because it can't run any other game but the one you are coding, in it's pre-rerelease form. If you tried to cut and past the source code by TOTK into that environment, it wouldn't run. Not because the system wouldn't "allow" it, but because it's literally incapable of running that code.

The reason it wouldn't run is critical ... as a Switch RELEASE, and not your own code, it will only run if you provide it with the Switch lockout key. That's the thing the DMCA says you can't do ... so Microsoft doesn't do it. The system has no ability to provides that key. If the software asks "are you a Switch", MS's tool replies "Nope, I'm a development tool. Please don't run on me". Devices that allow you to circumvent that key violate the DMCA. This is not a core component of emulation as a concept, but it is a core component of emulators.

You can read the post above this for a breakdown of why emulators that allow you to run ROMs of released games that requires "lock out" codes to run violate the DMCA in all cases. Remember, Yuzu themselves do not dispute this fact.

And NOW the 3DS is really dead. Good job!

@Captain_on_Deck you can't fly on a car, your suppose to use it on land, on a road,. Same way you buy a game, for example, for the Nintendo Switch, and you want to play it on a Steam deck?
Just because you can do something, doesn't mean you should do it. I see there a sense of entitlement that I don't particularly share.

@HeadPirate I don’t think I said any of the companies are necessarily bad. I did call Nintendo a malevolent force but that mostly wasn’t about emulation but more the frustrating restrictions that come along with being a genuine paying customer. Friends Codes, accounts being tied to hardware, digital game sharing being painful compared to the way competitors do it. There’s PLENTY I don’t like about the current industry outside Nintendo too.

And I’m not trying to make Marxist arguments or claim people shouldn’t have to follow laws because they don’t like them. I only started posting because people who seem to know even less about all this than me were prescribing weird reasoning for Nintendo’s actions. And others basically claiming we shouldn’t be allowed to do anything that’s bad for a company they like, legal or not. And I was mainly trying to illustrate the contradictions to THEIR thinking on all this.

But I guess I got on a bit of a tangent with the imaginary xbox emulator thing. And I totally understand what you’re saying that it actually would be illegal. You’re right I didn’t know about the lockout key when I was writing it though I swear I’m not some naive Pollyanna. I’ve known about systems having lockout methods but not thought about how they apply after DMCA. Actually this is the first I’ve thought about DMCA in years.

I’m not sure the signed “confession” has any power to set precedent since it was a settlement not a judgement but I’m definitely not a lawyer and frankly we should probably move this lovefest to some Reddit sub on case law if we want go further into all that, lol.

Edit/
This guy above me saying we can’t buy a car and fly it around.

This illustrates the main point I was trying to make. It’s the FAA (ie the government) that decides what is a safe vessel for flight. Not Toyota (a private entity). If someone can turn a Prius into a plane Toyota shouldn’t have any right to stop them. Even if they start making money doing it for other people. Even if it really screws up Toyota’s plans to start selling planes. Or Ford. Or Honda. Even your very favorite car manufacturer.

Unless it involves circumventing a digital key I guess 🤣

@Omarzy deliberately circumventing the need to pay for specific entertainment instead of seeking more agreeable alternatives in the context of provided reasoning will always be a first world hedonistic addiction issue in the end. Whether one has it in themselves to acknowledge it or not.

@eSocrates

A few quick points rather then an essay this time!

1 - We are all "some naïve Pollyanna" and there is no shame in that. We only know what we know. Their are literally infinite subjects I know nothing about, and the best I can say for myself is that there are an infinitely small number of subjects I know ALMOST nothing about. In the end, compared against all knowledge, what I know is indistinguishable from zero. We need stop being ashamed of that. The trick is just being aware! When it's a topic you know nothing about, listen. When it's that small part of a topic you actually understand? Talk.

2 - "Precedent" isn't at issue. What the "Statement of Facts" in this case mean is that the next time someone says "nah-ah, OUR emulator is completely legal" the prosecutor can point to this judgement and say "but these people, who made the same product, admitted it wasn't possible to make a legal emulator even though that meant they admitted to a crime". That's going to heavily inform the judges opinion. It's basically expert testimony, but it's extremely important and relevant.

3 - Nintendo isn't decided what you can and can't do, the law, as decided by people voted into positions by you and me, decides that. Nintendo do not have any control over how the court ends up ruling. They just pointed at someone and said "the thing they are doing violates a civil law". You can do that. I can do that. I HAVE done that, because people have infringed on IPs I manage. And if you, me, or Nintendo are correct, the court will find against the person we pointed at. If we pointed at someone doing nothing wrong, then the court will find in their favor.

@HeadPirate
1. I’m right there with you in not being afraid to admit I don’t know about something. Eventually at least 😄.

2. The expert testimony point is interesting.

3. Yeah. But there are comments on here that read like they think Nintendo should get to decide what’s right or wrong. Or legal or illegal even.

And I’m not claiming Nintendo or any other company is just so powerful they get rulings in their favor that regular folks wouldn’t get. But there are bad judgements everyday that get overturned on appeal. There are likely bad judgements that never get appealed simply due to cost of further litigation for the defendant (or plaintiff). Also there are times when someone pointing a finger makes sure they’re in a specific courtroom when they’re doing the pointing because they know that specific judge is favorable to their reason for pointing. The court system isn’t perfect is all I’m saying.

But this is getting way OT. This was a settlement so no appeals here. We’ll have to wait to see how much this ends up affecting the rest of the emulation/modding ecosystem.

@HeadPirate Ok thanks a lot, I didn't know that, that's a crazy law! I can think of a number of cases where that could lead to absurd results. I suppose it would be possible for programmers to develop the code in other countries that don't have this law.

@Strumpan

Bad news for ya! While the DMCA is a US law, WIPO treaties allow for most of the civil provisions to apply to any WIPO member by making a request with local authorities. So while you might not risk criminal charges, unless you are in East Timor, Marshall Islands, Micronesia, Nauru, Palau, Solomon Islands or South Sudan ... you're not getting around the DMCA or IP law in general.

I mean, their are some cavorts, like how when the US sends an official DMCA request to China they generally reply with "well get right on that when we're done banging your mom" and nothing comes of it or how I have no idea how any of this applies to Russia right now ... but international trade laws are fun like that.

If law-abiding people didn't legally purchase these games then they wouldn't even be developed in the first place. Nobody is working for free. I don't understand why people think they are entitled to other people's work for free. Well done Nintendo on taking the correct stance. "Preservation". LOL

@Arawn93 That's nice