Emulators allow you to play console-exclusive titles on PC and other devices. Nintendo is now suing a provider of such an emulator.
Emulators are designed to mimic the functionality of computers and consoles in order to simulate them on another device. Typically, emulators replicate software and games from older generations, often those tied to a specific console. Especially in the modding community, emulators are essential for enhancing console-exclusive games with mods.
However, a provider of an emulator that simulates the Switch for PC and smartphones is now facing significant difficulties.
Nintendo Sues Creator Of Switch Emulator Yuzu
Nintendo is a company you don't want to mess with on a legal level. The gaming company is notorious for ruthlessly pursuing copyright infringements. However, that didn't stop Tropic Haze from offering a Switch emulator for PC, Linux, and even Android devices, starting as early as 2018, not long after the hybrid console's release.
It looks like Nintendo is no longer tolerating this. Game File reporter Stephen Totilo shared excerpts from a complaint filed by Nintendo of America against Tropic Haze on Twitter/X.
NEW: Nintendo is suing the creators of popular Switch emulator Yuzu, saying their tech illegally circumvents Nintendo's software encryption and facilitates piracy. Seeks damages for alleged violations and a shutdown of the emulator. pic.twitter.com/SGZVI6Cs0x
— Stephen Totilo (@stephentotilo) February 27, 2024
In the document, Nintendo accuses the creators of Yuzu of enabling users to "unlawfully play pirated video games that were published only for a specific console." They further state:
As to piracy, for instance, one recent major Nintendo video game, The Legend of Zelda: Tears of the Kingdom, was unlawfully distributed a week and a half before its release by Nintendo. Infringing copies of the game that circulated online were able to be played in Yuzu, and those copies were successfully downloaded from pirate websites over one million times before the game was published and made available for lawful purchase by Nintendo.
It is important to mention that emulators are not inherently illegal, but pirating games to play on them is. Nintendo makes the point that it is impossible to use Yuzu without violating copyright law. They write, "Yuzu unlawfully circumvents the technological measures on Nintendo Switch games and allows for the play of encrypted Nintendo Switch games on devices other than a Nintendo Switch."
Nintendo hopes to obtain "equitable relief and damages for unlawful circumvention of copyright protection systems" with this lawsuit. Whether it will indeed mark the end of the Switch emulator remains uncertain.