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Nintendo of America Sues "Yuzu Switch Emulator" Development Company

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Game File reporter, Stephen Totilo, has discovered a new Nintendo-filed legal document—the Japanese multinational video game company's North American office is ready to do battle (in court) with Tropic Haze. The latter's Yuzu Switch Emulator is the focus of Nintendo's legal case—initiated on February 26, at the United States District Court for the District of Rhode Island. Totilo's social media summary of goings-on stated: "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." The Dolphin Emulator—a Gamecube and Wii emulation platform—was removed from Valve's Steam store last year, following the sending of a Digital Millennium Copyright Act (DMCA) takedown order, but its development team was not pursued in US courts. The House of Mario is reportedly fiercely protective of its intellectual properties and technologies—gaining a hard-nosed reputation for engaging in plenty of legal action over decades past.

Nintendo's federal-level lawsuit alleges that Tropic Haze's Yuzu Switch Emulator played a large part in widespread illegal distribution of a 2023 flagship game title. They believe that "The Legend of Zelda: Tears of the Kingdom" was pirated over one million times in a time period prior to its official launch on Switch consoles, while Yuzu's Patreon funding almost doubled within the same cycle. Nintendo stated (through filed documentation): "With Yuzu in hand, nothing stops a user from obtaining and playing unlawful copies of virtually any game made for the Nintendo Switch, all without paying a dime to Nintendo or to any of the hundreds of other game developers and publishers making and selling games for the Nintendo Switch...In effect, Yuzu turns general computing devices into tools for massive intellectual property infringement of Nintendo and others' copyrighted works." They argue that Yuzu is capable of circumventing the Switch console's many layers of encryption—Tropic Haze's software, in their opinion, is "primarily designed" to break Switch software protections.




The Verge asked Richard Hoeg—a business attorney—about Nintendo's latest legal case: "The important thing is that Nintendo is bringing the case as a DMCA circumvention claim," says Hoeg, who hosts the Virtual Legality podcast. He tells me that that while emulators are broadly legal if engineered "correctly," the DMCA also lets Nintendo focus on whether the emulator was only designed to break Nintendo's control over its games. 'There is a real chance for them to win as the court 'tests' things like the effectiveness of the measure and just how the emulator was created," Hoeg says."

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If you read the filing, it's the pirates fault for pointing out that Yuzu can play the ripped ROMs (which you need a V1/mod-chipped Switch to read the cartridges, which is unrelated to Yuzu & emulation in general). :laugh: The idiots should've just NOT mentioned the emulator directly in their .NFOs and they would've not gotten them in trouble.

If Ryujinx was mentioned in a lot of those .NFOs too (they are in some though, I checked), they would've been caught in the fire.
 
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Ryujinx will be next i am betting.
 
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My understanding is that the legal status of video game emulators has long since been established in the Sony v. Connectix case, and this included commercial emulators. The embellished text "video game emulators are a piece of software which allows users to unlawfully play" won't make Nintendo suddenly win this case.


EU has a similar view: https://www.bileta.org.uk/wp-content/uploads/Software-Emulation-in-the-Light-of-EU-Legislation.pdf

Since Yuzu is FOSS, even if Nintendo lost + bought the rights to it with the intention of shutting it down like Sony did to Connectix's emulator, it would live on in some form.


Nintendo better have some real dirt on the Yuzu devs
 
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Wasn't there some Nintendo litigation in the past against emulators and they lost... or did I dream it?
 
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Wasn't there some Nintendo litigation in the past against emulators and they lost... or did I dream it?

Sony. One I brought up above.
 
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Yuzu you say......nah forget it, screw nintendo, even pirated I want nothing to do with them, since Iwata died it all went to crap imo
 
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The concept of a Switch emulator is a bit weird, since the console is still manufactured and sold.

But when a product reaches end of life, a law should allow it to become completely open and able to be reverse engineered. It's about preservation. Some will argue that old games can get remastered and re-released, but that's a different experience.

A pity those companies are not willing to work with emulator developers and make it official. They could actually make a profit, instead of damaging their reputation with DMCA takedowns.
 
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I do not feel sorry for Nintendo, if Nintendo is really hurt then I advise Nintendo to release their titles on Steam, many players don't want to have a console anymore, they want to have more good games on PC.
 
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"muhh uhh our console sucks and our games are running better on an emulator than on the real thing"

Nintendo can go fuck them selves!

If you read the filing, it's the pirates fault for pointing out that Yuzu can play the ripped ROMs (which you need a V1/mod-chipped Switch to read the cartridges, which is unrelated to Yuzu & emulation in general). :laugh: The idiots should've just NOT mentioned the emulator directly in their .NFOs and they would've not gotten them in trouble.

If Ryujinx was mentioned in a lot of those .NFOs too (they are in some though, I checked), they would've been caught in the fire.

There's established precedent for dumping your own roms just like for cloning your own CD's/DVD's/BluRay's, and anyone can say whatever they want, Nintendo would need to link Yuzu to the pirates, the other way around is just a SLAPP suit.
 
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I do not feel sorry for Nintendo, if Nintendo is really hurt then I advise Nintendo to release their titles on Steam, many players don't want to have a console anymore, they want to have more good games on PC.
Exactly, even Sony has released very good AAA games on PC.
 
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Exactly, even Sony has released very good AAA games on PC.
Star Ocean 2 remake is available on Nintendo Switch and I could have played for free using an emulator but I chose the PC version and paid 60 usd just because I could play the game on PC with 144fps. Star Ocean 2 Remake is capped on Nintendo Switch at 30fps, 60fps on PS5, so that is reason enough to never play anything on consoles and that is just one example.
 
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I'll admit. I have been using Yuzu and it is a fantastic emulator. I own Switch and every game I have played on Yuzu is also in my collection. Tears of the Kingdom simply looks much better with 4K/60fps on PC, reshade and some other mods. Especially the no weapon breaking mod makes the game more fun.
 
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The concept of a Switch emulator is a bit weird, since the console is still manufactured and sold.

But when a product reaches end of life, a law should allow it to become completely open and able to be reverse engineered. It's about preservation. Some will argue that old games can get remastered and re-released, but that's a different experience.

A pity those companies are not willing to work with emulator developers and make it official. They could actually make a profit, instead of damaging their reputation with DMCA takedowns.

I have to agree, nintendo would make a packet selling legal copies of the roms on their store, i'd buy them.

Star Ocean 2 remake is available on Nintendo Switch and I could have played for free using an emulator but I chose the PC version and paid 60 usd just because I could play the game on PC with 144fps. Star Ocean 2 Remake is capped on Nintendo Switch at 30fps, 60fps on PS5, so that is reason enough to never play anything on consoles and that is just one example.

Games on ryujinx run at 60fps, not tried star ocean.
 
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What was so brilliant about Wii U? I have no idea, never used it.
I think(not certain) wii u introduced the handeld that could be used on a big tv.
 
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Just downloaded the latest Yuzu build in case it gets pulled because of this nonsense. There are very few Switch games worth touching imo, and all the multiplatforms look and run like crap compared to other platforms, but for the few good ones it's worth having. I played LA, TOTK, and MPR this way at 1440p 60fps with a Dualsense. Thanks to Yuzu.
 
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Just downloaded the latest Yuzu build in case it gets pulled because of this nonsense. There are very few Switch games worth touching imo, and all the multiplatforms look and run like crap compared to other platforms, but for the few good ones it's worth having. I played LA, TOTK, and MPR this way at 1440p 60fps with a Dualsense. Thanks to Yuzu.
TOTK is zelda, what are LA & MPR? LA Noire?
 
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I think(not certain) wii u introduced the handeld that could be used on a big tv.
I know, I was just curious how Switch could be more crap than Wii U. Never heard the latter getting any praise.
 
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I know, I was just curious how Switch could be more crap than Wii U. Never heard the latter getting any praise.

I had a wii u thought it was pretty good.
 
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Ryujinx next in the ninty scope i bet.
 
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