Yuzu Switch Emulator Development Shutdown, Nintendo Demands $2.4 Million in Damages

[T0@st]

The open-source Yuzu Switch Emulator attracted immediate Nintendo attention, around The Legend of Zelda: Tears of the Kingdom's launch window. Last Monday, news reports put many spotlights on freshly-filed legal documentation—the Japanese multinational video game firm's North American office took Tropic Haze LLC to court in Rhode Island. The aforementioned limited liability company created and distributed Yuzu and Citra—Switch and 3DS software emulators (respectively). Nintendo's lawsuit claimed that Tropic Haze's Yuzu software illegally circumvents their software encryption, and played a significant role in facilitating piracy "at a colossal scale." A prime example was presented in the case of Tears of the Kingdom—allegedly over one million illicit digital copies were distributed prior to its official retail release. The lawsuit proposed that "defendant (Tropic Haze) is thus secondarily liable for the infringement committed by the users to whom it distributes Yuzu."

According to a new filing, Tropic Haze has agreed to cease all operations and pay Nintendo $2.4 million in damages. This swift announcement arrived much earlier than expected—Yuzu's developer reportedly "lawyered up" late last week. According to Eurogamer: "over the weekend, Tropic Haze announced it had retained the legal services of an attorney and would be responding Nintendo's lawsuit within 60 days, but a new filing has now been spotted confirming both parties have reached a settlement—pending the court's final approval." A permanent injunction prevents Tropic Haze from: "offering to the public, providing, marketing, advertising, promoting, selling, testing, hosting, cloning, distributing, or otherwise trafficking in Yuzu or any source code or features of Yuzu." This order seemingly extends to Citra (their 3DS emulator): "other software or devices that circumvent Nintendo's technical protection measures." Tropic Haze has been ordered to surrender its website domains and turn in all held physical circumvention devices. Yuzu creators are required to not establish "new entities or associations to develop similar Nintendo emulation software" in the future. Open-source "Nuzu" and "Suyu" follow-ups/spiritual successors have already popped up online.

Hello yuz-ers and Citra fans:

We write today to inform you that yuzu and yuzu's support of Citra are being discontinued, effective immediately.

yuzu and its team have always been against piracy. We started the projects in good faith, out of passion for Nintendo and its consoles and games, and were not intending to cause harm. But we see now that because our projects can circumvent Nintendo's technological protection measures and allow users to play games outside of authorized hardware, they have led to extensive piracy. In particular, we have been deeply disappointed when users have used our software to leak game content prior to its release and ruin the experience for legitimate purchasers and fans.

We have come to the decision that we cannot continue to allow this to occur. Piracy was never our intention, and we believe that piracy of video games and on video game consoles should end. Effective today, we will be pulling our code repositories offline, discontinuing our Patreon accounts and Discord servers, and, soon, shutting down our websites. We hope our actions will be a small step toward ending piracy of all creators' works.

Thank you for your years of support and for understanding our decision.

View at TechPowerUp Main Site | Source

 

[loracle706]

Ryujinx for ever and Nintendo thieves

 

[Nephilim666]

F Nintendo.
I think we all know what we have to do.

F Nintendo.
I think we all know what we have to do.

 

[Easo]

Damages? What damages, exactly?

 

[ty_ger]

Damages? What damages, exactly?

"A prime example was presented in the case of Tears of the Kingdom—allegedly over one million illicit digital copies were distributed prior to its official retail release."

 

[wurschti]

"A prime example was presented in the case of Tears of the Kingdom—allegedly over one million illicit digital copies were distributed prior to its official retail release."

That was not yuzus fault, they have always openly disencouraged piracy, but they have done other crap like put fixes behind their patreon for TotK when it wasn't working before release. Also getting $30k/month is a big red flag, being that they were developing for the current console. But as everyone states, we have ryujinx, the loss of Citra is imho a bigger/worse outcome. All the other 3DS emulators are not even close to it.

 

[SOAREVERSOR]

F Nintendo.
I think we all know what we have to do.

F Nintendo.
I think we all know what we have to do.

Defending yourself against theft so you can pay your workers is bad because MUCH GAM1ING PC MUH GAM1NG PC MUH G4MING PC INCEL PC G4MING INCEL PC G4MING MUH G4MING PC.

And now you see why PC gamers are correctly viewed as neckbeards, incels, and the worst of the worst.

What's a worse insult than calling someone a pedophile, say they own a gaming PC! And that's being cruel to pedophiles!

 

[b1k3rdude]

Isnt the dev a small indipendant? where are they getting the alledged $2.4m from exactly..? or this just the usual inaccurate mis-reporting by the press..?

 

[apoklyps3]

"A prime example was presented in the case of Tears of the Kingdom—allegedly over one million illicit digital copies were distributed prior to its official retail release."

Did the Yuzu team distribute it? =)))))

 

[qwerty_lesh]

It amazes me the emulation developers are the ones being targeted as opposed to entities like IA, and separately it's unfortunate about the big hit in regression in terms of game preservation with the collateral damage done to Citra. Quite a shame indeed, and to happen so soon after the eShop deprecated too.

 

[trsttte]

"A prime example was presented in the case of Tears of the Kingdom—allegedly over one million illicit digital copies were distributed prior to its official retail release."

How is that Yuzu's fault? The game was made available early so people rushed in to get it, switch piracy didn't start on the PC and with emulators, far from it, it started with the console itself but they're somehow making it sound an emulator developed much later is the root of all switch piracy when they don't even release the necessary key files to run the emulator.

 

[ty_ger]

I don't know why you guys are all quoting me and asking me questions. All I did was provide a copy/paste of the relevant quote.

 

[trsttte]

I don't know why you guys are all quoting me and asking me questions. All I did was provide a copy/paste of the relevant quote.

Just how a forum works when you're addressing a specific comment

 

[qwerty_lesh]

It amazes me the emulation developers are the ones being targeted as opposed to entities like IA, and separately it's unfortunate about the big hit in regression in terms of game preservation with the collateral damage done to Citra. Quite a shame indeed, and to happen so soon after the eShop deprecated too.

just to make a correction - IA have an exemption https://blog.archive.org/2006/11/29...tion-to-the-digital-millennium-copyright-act/