#switch emulator

[3-hits]

Nintendo sues Yuzu Switch Emulator

February 28th 2024    Gaming / Nintendo / Lawsuit

KOSAMA

| Writer and Recovering Anime Addict

Nintendo has initiated legal action against the creators of Yuzu, an open-source Nintendo Switch emulator, as revealed by a lawsuit filed in a Rhode Island court on Monday. The lawsuit, detailed across 41 pages, targets Tropic Haze, the entity behind Yuzu, with specific mention of an individual identified by the alias Bunnei, who spearheads Yuzu's development. The genesis of this lawsuit was initially reported by Stephen Totilo, a correspondent for Game File.

Yuzu, which emerged in 2018 shortly after the debut of the Nintendo Switch, is a freely available emulator crafted by the same developers responsible for Citra, a Nintendo 3DS emulator. Essentially, Yuzu functions as software enabling users to engage with Nintendo Switch games on platforms such as Windows PC, Linux (including devices like the Steam Deck), and certain Android devices. While the legality of emulators per se isn't inherently contentious, their employment for pirating copyrighted games is a matter of concern. Nintendo's lawsuit contends that there exists no lawful avenue for utilizing Yuzu.

Within the legal documentation, Nintendo asserts that "there is no lawful way to use Yuzu to play Nintendo Switch games." Nevertheless, this assertion invites scrutiny and potential legal rebuttals on behalf of the emulator developers.

Firstly, the US Copyright Office generally permits users to create duplicates of legitimately acquired software for archival motives, subject to specific conditions. Consequently, accessing personal archival copies could conceivably constitute a lawful purpose for utilizing an emulator such as Yuzu.

Significantly, the Yuzu emulator, being open-source, does not incorporate copies of the necessary "prod.keys" mentioned in Nintendo's lawsuit, which users must supply themselves. This sets Yuzu apart from the Dolphin emulator, which faced removal from Steam in the previous year after Nintendo highlighted its inclusion of the Wii Common Key for decrypting game files.

In the absence of intrinsic capabilities to circumvent digital rights management (DRM), an emulator typically falls within the ambit of legal precedent permitting emulation of one hardware system on another through reverse-engineering methodologies.

Nintendo's legal pursuit against Yuzu reflects a complex intersection of intellectual property rights, digital preservation, and the evolving landscape of emulation technology. As the case unfolds, it promises to shape future discussions surrounding the legality and boundaries of emulator usage within the gaming community.

[moradach5]

BotW Opening (6 of 7)

I am finally able to play Switch on my pc. So freakin excited for this

[dragonflute]

for anyone who cares about emulation, unfortunately today we lost both yuzu (switch) and citra (3ds) emulators due to the lawsuit nintendo filed against the management that handled both emulators. this is a major loss for emulation as a whole. if you support emulation i recc downloading emulators that you may want to have in the future in the case that they get taken down in similar lawsuits

[timedyne]

yuzu and citra are dead because the yuzu/citra devs shot themselves in the foot. they continually POSTED footage and updates pertaining to games THAT WEREN'T OUT YET, which gave nintendo actual foothold to take them down for encouraging piracy. this is recorded directly in the legal documents for the case. they also (apparently, this is according to my friend who is more active in the emulation scene than i and i don't know of any recorded proof so take it with a grain of salt) straight up shared links to piracy sites in their discord which is an obvious no-no for any emulator???? and people straight up going on nintendo's OFFICIAL SOCIAL MEDIA POSTS saying "fuck you i'm just going to emulate [insert game here] using yuzu" which is. well. loose lips sink ships.

fuck nintendo and all that, but this is almost entirely on the backs of the devs for being stupid. to any aspiring emulator devs out there: don't post about anything relating to piracy ever, especially don't post about the games THAT YOU AREN'T SUPPOSED TO HAVE ACCESS TO YET, and wait a while before saying a brand new game is playable on your emulator.

also: they settled out of court. no judge saw the case. this isn't setting any sort of legal precedent. all of your other favorite emulators are fine for now as long as they don't make the same stupid mistakes yuzu was making.

[utopicwork]

Oct 1, 2024

[magichats]

Nintendo is not your friend-o

emulation is preservation

also be quiet about your emulators and roms, I feel like yuzu doing as much as they did in the public facing sphere is at least partially to blame for it getting taken down, regardless of how you feel about the patreon stuff and the developers. The Less Nintendo knows, the better it is for everyone else.

[curesforwritersblock]

EVERYONE SHUT UP WE WON. WE FINALLY FUCKING WON

[good-fwiend-in-wome]

software is an objective proof that copyright is fundamentally incompatible with the modern age btw.

paintings, movies, and books never become obsolete. whatever current novel is hot will still be just as readable in decades when it becomes public domain, anyone with the knowhow can make a film projector.

software, on the other hand, specifically videogames, need active ongoing preservation; up to date emulators, storage, etc.

the people who say "um why are you emulating a console that is still on sale" fundamentally don't understand that preservation for games is an active process. if you wait until a console's lifetime is over to start doing this stuff tons of art will be lost, especially nowadays with digital storefronts that can take away your games, starting to make emulators and preserve games as soo as possible is crucial

nintendo's "case" (IANAL, but it's fucking bullshit) against yuzu was, as i understand it, based on the idea that since yuzu needed dumped parts of a real switch's OS, it was infringing on their IP. if we took this seriously and didn't allow bring-your-own-bios emulators until every part of a console's OS is in the public domain, then we might as well give up on emulation, because in decades by the time that's possible, all games will be lost and the tech will be so old that the amount of work to even start an emulator would be monumental

abolish IP.

[multbasa]

If you've gotten a game early illegally, then don't post about it online.

Not only is it annoying for people who are waiting until the official release to see leaks and spoilers, it puts emulators at risk as what happened to Yuzu.

Emulation is built on shaky legal ground and it continues to exist because of legal arguments such as aging hardware and software are no longer supported or sold by the company that produced them. This argument doesn't exist for new or unreleased hardware or software which is why Nintendo absolutely nuked Yuzu from orbit because they were profiting off of an unreleased brand new title, sharing the ROMs on Discord and selling an updated version of the emulator specifically to pirate that new game.

The bottom line is:

Stop giving companies legal grounds to sue emulation developers

Emulation is great for preserving old games because the official hardware and physical software breaks down over time. I WANT emulation to exist so I have the ability to continue to play old games that I loved, but people who pirate new games and especially unreleased games put emulation at risk. They paint a target on the back of emulation and give large companies like Nintendo legal grounds to attack that emulator.

Got a game early? Pirating it through an emulator? Keep your mouth shut.

I don't care how much you hate Nintendo or any other company, you're just shooting yourself in the foot by drawing their attention to things that are barely considered legal.

There used to be a ROM site for DS games which Nintendo got taken down because they were using Nintendo's official artwork on the site. Yuzu was profiting off of pirating TotK before it even released and all the kiddies online were bragging and making shots at Nintendo before Nintendo sued the Yuzu team for millions and even had their other DS emulator shut down by association.

Why don't people fight Nintendo in court instead of settle? Because Nintendo had legal grounds to sue and legitimate proof of damages and profit by Yuzu. Not to mention the lawsuit would have put emulation in a worse legal position if Nintendo won and they likely would have won in that case.

People are so short-minded and ignorant these days that they have no idea how anything works yet they continue to poke the bear. You can't hide behind the legal argument that emulation preserves old software that companies no longer produce while also bragging about pirating games from day one or earlier.

Suck up the arrogance and go incognito. It's better for the community who haven't gotten to play the game yet, and it's better for the emulation scene because companies like Nintendo will have less concrete grounds to sue.

Also don't publicly boast about pirating in Discord chats especially if you're part of an emulation team. They're not private. I can't believe people these days don't understand that. Very few places online are truly private if there are any at all, so don't incriminate yourself. Don't profit off of new or unreleased software especially so publicly, and get off the high horse, it is made of hay and twigs and can barely stand upright.

[moradach5]

BotW Opening (7 of 7)

I am finally able to play Switch on my pc. So freakin excited for this

[llumimoon]

So that poll I did the other day was to decide who I wanted to be the center character tehe <3

[mlembug]

from Ryujinx's Discord Server. This marks the second Nintendo Switch emulation project after Yuzu to be taken down this year.

[balketh]

Wow, nintendo must be fucking terrified of day 1 emulation on the switch 2. they shut down ryujinx, they're going after emulator videos on yt. switch 2 must be fully backwards compatible w/ switch 1, i.e.; the same fucking shit just juiced up a bit (so maybe their games won't run sub-30fps for fucking once). the fact that ryujinx on linux is STILL up on flatpack is hilariously telling. it's got nothing to do with principles. it's entirely profit-motivated.

they'll never learn tho. this kind of suppression never holds. they'll never stop folks doing the work. even denuvo didn't stop piracy.

remember, nintendo filed the patents they're trying to sue Palworld with AFTER palworld was released, AND got them expedited in the japanese legal system. that means they EXPRESSLY did so to sue Palworld. fuck 'em. fuck 'em to death.

pirate all nintendo games, even if you buy a switch 2.

[squidhominid]

The Yuzu court case is terrifying. Previously, emulation was protected by the legal case Sony Computer Entertainment v. Connectix Corp., 203 F.3d 596 (2000), but a modern emulator, necessitating console encryption keys, is in a legal gray area and whole new ground due to the DMCA.

This could be really bad for games preservation.