Last month, Switch emulator Ryujinx was forced offline after Nintendo contacted its owner to arrange its removal. While there were rumblings that the emulator might not be completely dead a few weeks back, it seems that Nintendo has now taken official ownership of the website, presumably to stop anything from reappearing under the same domain (thanks, GamesRadar).
This change in ownership was flagged on the r/Ryujinx Reddit forum by user XeClutch, sharing a screenshot of the WHOIS database website which positions Nintendo of America as the emulator's main 'Registrant Contact'.
According to WHOIS, the domain information was last updated on 7th November, though there's every chance Nintendo took official ownership of the Ryujinx site prior to this date.
Of course, the emulator site itself is no longer functional. Shortly after the announcement that it would be shut down, the Ryujinx site stopped offering emulator downloads, though the domain remained live. While the site still loads nothing, we'd imagine that Nintendo's formal ownership of it is a precautionary measure to prevent it from being used for emulator downloads in the future.
Towards the end of last month, a new Ryujinx update was released on its Github page, suggesting that work continues on the emulator. Nintendo may now have ownership over its site, but it's potentially far from stamping Ryujinx out for good.
We'll keep you updated if we hear any further updates on this story.
[source whois.com, via reddit.com, gamesradar.com]
Comments 25
So they own the emulator but they’re not taking it down?
Yeah likely protective measures to stop people using it to rehost the emulator or using the site to redirect to another one.
@anoyonmus No, they own the web domain they don't own the emulator
Hey, maybe Nintendo liked it so much, it's looking to use it to break into the PC-space in an official capacity!
One can hope, right?!
Yeah, as expected that's it for Ryujinx... officially at least, good luck taking down the current version (and past ones as well) if not even unofficial future ones!
@Shufty ah okay. My bad
So it's still releasing on Github - how is that finished with then?
@Glasso
The original project lead and maintainer had to drop the project, but someone else has picked up from a fork, unaffiliated with the original team.
If Nintendo indeed own the Ryujinx domain, this may mean that if anyone is using older builds of Ryujinx that makes calls to the original Ryujinx website domain, Nintendo might be privy to that data.
They need to make it a single image site with that angry Mario from when they had that page to report piracy.
Removed - unconstructive
They are going to be again switch emulators in some years, when the system is considered Retro and Nintendo doesn't care anymore, So I'm fine.
Most Switch emulation users are anyway pirates
All your site are belong to us
@sfb this is dominating without even dominating ☠️☠️
Switch successor will be called Nintendo Ryujinx confirmed.
So you change the name and alter a couple things and republish it... Same as alll the movie pirating sites so this just gives Nintendo false sense of security as others will adapt and survive
@HingryHuppo perhaps they were so impressed they hired them to emulate switch on switch 2
@ParadoxFawkes switch is not being emulated on switch 2
oh my, more Nintendo bullying!!!
They should have a message on the site 'All your base belong to us'
@JohnnyMind you enjoy people stealing from you too?
"All your site are belong to us."
Lol the header almost sounded demonic 🤣 ryunix needs an excorsist from that.
I hope Nintendo has a good use for it on the switch 2. To emulate their own games.
@ChakraStomps No because again, emulators in themselves aren't illegal and even if they were those using them while supporting the official releases aren't affecting Nintendo at all - not that it particularly matters to me personally as I haven't used a Switch emulator yet (if I ever used one it would be to play the cool mods people make for all the games I've bought), I'm just sad that as usual this affects more those who make such uses than those who pirate even if they could support the official releases as they will find a way to do so regardless, not to mention the collateral damage like Citra in the case of Yuzu!
@JohnnyMind I mean, you can say that, but the past 7 years or so have been full of people gleefully bragging about how they'd never "lower" themselves to buy a Switch, citing weak hardware specs, while extolling how much better NS games play on PC. Who knows how big that group of people is, but there's clearly been a vocal group of gamers doing this.
Which is a pretty unique situation. I can't think of any other platform in modern history that has had such an active contemporary modding scene.
We can argue all day about to what extent NS emulation is affecting Nintendo's business, but it's very obviously having an effect.
@Kestrel I'd rather Nintendo take action against those actually doing that like the person we heard of recently (https://www.nintendolife.com/news/2024/11/nintendo-suing-streamer-for-allegedly-broadcasting-pirated-switch-games-ahead-of-official-release) than the emulators themselves then.
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