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.

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.

Box Limited, a popular PC and electronic retailer in the United Kingdom, has ceased doing business—this follows insider reports of Box Ltd. filing for administration last week. A few days ago, the company's web store was updated with a front page announcement that confirmed a total cessation of operations. The online store is still semi-functional (at the time of writing)—you can add items to your basket, but the checkout process automatically kicks you back to the site's main page. UK publication, eTeknix, had the inside track on Box's troubles—despite a very buoyant 2023: "Box Limited is one of the biggest PC and tech retailers in the UK, or at least… we thought they were. When Tactus bought them out last year for £100 million, it seemed like things were only on the up for Box, but according to our sources, things are looking pretty bleak for the UK retailer."

Last week's article elaborated further on problems behind-the-scenes: "Firstly, Box may be owned by Tactus, but are currently being sued by their new owner for £18 million because they had allegedly over-inflated their value before they were bought out. That's a big no-no in the business world, obviously, and while I cannot confirm if that is true or not, as that's a matter for the courts to decide, it's fairly safe to assume that it has some bearing on their more recent predicament...Sources close to us, whom we cannot disclose, have informed us that Box Limited has submitted an administration application. Further sources have indicated to distributors of various hardware that "box is end of life" and that their insurance companies are recommending they do not send products to Box Limited. No point sending hardware to them if they're going into administration, as you would just be throwing money away… not a good business move." The Tactus Group has a pretty large portfolio of UK retail presences, including: Chillblast, Horizon, Geo, and CCL Computers. The loss of Box.co.uk is certainly going to sting (following last year's £100 million investment) since their acquisition also covered several brick and mortar shops located in the UK Midlands.

Lian Li Industries has filed a legal case against Phanteks Europe/Axpertec Inc. at the US District Court (Central District of California)—they allege in their patent suit that the Phanteks D30 RGB cooling fan series infringes on a June 2020 registered design (US patent 10,690,336 B1). Notice was initially sent out back in May of this year, but Phanteks appears to have ignored those early warning signs and continued to market and sell its D30 RGB products. Lian Li believes that Phanteks has copied their simple and compact connection method of daisy chaining RGB fans—as featured on the UNI FAN lineup. The P28 120 mm model was semi-recently awarded with a highly recommended verdict.

TechPowerUp reviewers have not had the chance to have a poke around with any Phanteks daisy-chainable D30 RGB fans, but a quick comparative glance between relevant product pages reveals a little bit of "inspired-by." The September 8 filing has Lian Li seeking damages to date—upon a successful outcome (in their favor). Additionally Phanteks will be required to pay a license fee if it decides to keep its D30 series alive post-case conclusion. Corsair and Thermaltake have also produced fan products with daisy-chaining connectivity—iCUE Link and SWAFAN EX respectively—could these manufacturers be targeted in the near future?

Microsoft is closing in on its proposed $69 billion acquisition of Activision Blizzard—the company is celebrating another victory, following the conclusion of a crucial court case against the US Federal Trade Commission (FTC). Both parties were recently engaged in five days of arguments and deliberation—yesterday Judge Jacqueline Scott Corley's final ruling stated: Microsoft's acquisition of Activision has been described as the largest in tech history. It deserves scrutiny. That scrutiny has paid off: Microsoft has committed in writing, in public, and in court to keep Call of Duty on PlayStation for 10 years on parity with Xbox. It made an agreement with Nintendo to bring Call of Duty to Switch. And it entered several agreements to for the first time bring Activision's content to several cloud gaming services."

The lady justice continued: "This Court's responsibility in this case is narrow. It is to decide if, notwithstanding these current circumstances, the merger should be halted—perhaps even terminated—pending resolution of the FTC administrative action. For the reasons explained, the Court finds the FTC has not shown a likelihood it will prevail on its claim this particular vertical merger in this specific industry may substantially lessen competition. To the contrary, the record evidence points to more consumer access to Call of Duty and other Activision content. The motion for a preliminary injunction is therefore DENIED."

Apple and Epic Games have been locked in a bitter legal feud for two years, relating to an antitrust case started by the latter company. The iPhone and Mac computer giant has made an appeal to the US Supreme Court—as demonstrated in a court filing that was released to the public on Monday (June 3). They request that justices take up its appeal of a ruling for tomorrow (June 7) by the San Francisco-based 9th U.S. Circuit Court (of Appeals). A 2021 verdict determined that Apple had to cease anti-steering practices. Apparently game developers were restricted to certain payment practices (imposing of fees) within the iOS App store. Epic Games sued Apple for anti-competitive practices back in 2020, with the US district court of California rejecting nine of out Epic's ten claims the following year—only the aforementioned anti-steering case was allowed to proceed.

The Ninth Circuit rejected petitions from Apple and Epic late last week—both companies urged that the court reconsider an April 2023 decision about the Californian law violation. Epic thinks that certain legal decisions have been made in Apple's favor, and the latter continues to rile against the App Store order. It argues that Epic was the sole "non-representative" plaintiff, yet the injunction applies to all iOS developers and US states outside of California. Apple believes that the ruling "raises far-reaching and important questions" about the federal court's limited authority to issue injunctions that apply to organizations not directly involved in the case.

According to a recent news article released by Chinese news group Sina Technology, NetEase has filed a lawsuit against its former publishing partner Blizzard Entertainment, to the tune of (around) $43.5 Million. The Chinese Internet technology company is seeking compensation, in the form of a very large refund, following Blizzard's total exit from the nation's online gaming sector - its server infrastructure in China was shut down in January of this year. The closing of Blizzard-related services represented a very abrupt end to a 14-year long relationship between the two online gaming specialists - press coverage at the time presented a tense situation involving many major disagreements - the partnership was broken because of unfavorable terms on Blizzard's part.

NetEase posits that it had to compensate its customer base through refunds from its own reserves, after the sudden shutdown of Blizzard's hugely popular MMO - World of Warcraft, and other online multiplayer game series including Overwatch, Hearthstone, Diablo and Starcraft. A significant chunk of the $43.5 million settlement is said to cover the company's cost in refunding part of its customer base - somewhere in the range of 1.12 million players - for discontinued games and services. NetEase is also reported to be seeking damages for broken license agreements, unsold merchandise inventory and the loss of access to future Blizzard intellectual properties.

Update Apr 25th: According to an article from PC Gamer, published today, NetEase is not taking Blizzard to court. It turns out that a serial litigator, Yang Jun, has included NetEase as an appellant in his filed legal documents - under another company name, The9, an apparently defunct former licensing partner. PC Gamer has been informed that Yang Jun has sued NetEase in the past, and that his latest batch of legal documents have been amended to reflect that he is the lone party in demanding a financial settlement from Blizzard.