Law Nintendo is suing the creators of Switch emulator Yuzu - Emulator tools aren't inherently illegal, but the way in which Yuzu is being actively used and promoted is what Nintendo appears to be objecting to here.

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New documents filed Monday, February 26 reveal that videogame giant Nintendo is taking action against the creators of the popular emulator tool Yuzu.

The copyright infringement filing, from Nintendo of America, states that the Yuzu tool (from developer Tropic Haze LLC) illegally circumvents the software encryption and copyright protection systems of Nintendo Switch titles, and thus facilitates piracy and infringes copyright under the Digital Millennium Copyright Act (DMCA).

Nintendo alleges that Tropic Haze's free Yuzu emulator tool unlawfully allows pirated Switch games to be played on PCs and other devices, bypassing Nintendo's protection measures.

The official Yuzu website suggests that the tool is to be used with software you yourself own: "You are legally required to dump your games from your Nintendo Switch" — but it's common knowledge, that this is not how these tools are primarily used.

The legal document claims that over a million copies of last year's The Legend of Zelda: Tears of the Kingdom were downloaded prior to the game's official retail release.

Additionally, Nintendo's filing points to the success of Yuzu's Patreon page, highlighting how the project is actively supported by over 7,000 members. At time of writing, the Yuzu Patreon currently brings in close to $30,000 USD per month. Nintendo's filing alludes that this Patreon page has been actively engaged in promoting the emulator, and thus by extension piracy.

Emulator tools aren't inherently illegal, but the way in which Yuzu is being actively used and promoted is what Nintendo appears to be objecting to here.

As a result, Nintendo is now seeking a trial by jury, damages, and is demanding that the Yuzu emulator is shut down.

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Genuinely hope Nintendo doesn't get a dime out of this. They are squeezing money out of nostalgia driven people, providing them with shitty overpriced games and services in return. This wouldn't be such a big problem for them if they just gave their customers better service.
 
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I used to be extremely against piracy, but now I'm of the belief that companies make it a vastly bigger deal than it actually is.

The only people who pirate are either poor, not currently interested enough in your product to pull the trigger on spending money on it, or are avoiding paying your company for personal reasons. The first and second category are potential customers if you impress them enough, and the first and third categories can't be squeezed enough if they have no alternative to make up for the potential eventual sales of the first two groups. To claim that you're "losing sales" with every copy of your product that's pirated very much falls apart upon giving it any thought, as most individuals wouldn't be interested enough to buy the product without being engaged in an extended trial, and your paying customers aren't actually harmed in any way.

A lot of piracy is, in fact, due to the inconvenience of access rather than any other barrier, in my opinion.

In this case, with the emulator developer slapping you in the face and making money on it, you very much have to go after them, though. They're not exactly minding their own business.
 
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Good. Any emulator dev who works off of Patreon deserves it. If those retards had kept their work underground and stuck to cleanroom reverse engineering this never would have happened. But they wanted money. I’m very skeptical that the work done on these more modern emulators is based on legitimate methods.

There’s a difference between seeking preservation and bottom-feeding for profit.
 
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George Lucas said:
Good. Any emulator dev who works off of Patreon deserves it. If those retards had kept their work underground and stuck to cleanroom reverse engineering this never would have happened. But they wanted money. I’m very skeptical that the work done on these more modern emulators is based on legitimate methods.

There’s a difference between seeking preservation and bottom-feeding for profit.
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If Nintendo wins this, it'll fuck over all emulators. Not just ones with devs that have a Patreon.
 
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I mean, to be fair to Nintendo, this thing plays brand new games perfectly, or better than the Switch on many occasions if you have a nice enough computer. That's a lot worse than your typical emulation of older games which doesn't really cost them any profits.

That said, fuck yeah I use Yuzu, it runs games better than the Switch does and I can get them for free. Make a better system, Nintendo.
 
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Agent Abe Caprine said:
If Nintendo wins this, it'll fuck over all emulators. Not just ones with devs that have a Patreon.
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That’s some absurd FUD right there. The patents on the old console components have expired. The dev kits and documentation have been widely shared and copied and any IP that could have had a valid claim has been effectively abandoned except for the ROMs themselves (and sites for those have continually been taken down while the emulator sites have largely been untouched). Nintendo and Sony and others literally use and rely upon some of the emulator code for their own purposes. The only case that could be made is on trademark, say against something like SameBoy, but even that’s a stretch.
 
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I'm really sick of pathetic moral-less assholes whing about how they deserve every single form of pop culture entertainment for free, in the exact shape and form that they desire, immediately and without consequence. Nintendo has been incredibly lax with piracy since the late 00's, considering how they used to go after unlicensed NES carts and peripherals back in the day. Video game developers are artists and they deserve to make money off their craft; it's irrelevant how much money the company is worth or the fact that they don't offer 100% of their back catalogue for sale. First of all there's complicated licensing issues, but it's ultimately Nintendo's decison whether or not what services they offer. I hope they sue more fucking people so I can laugh at all the Nintoddlers whining on X.
 
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Agent Abe Caprine said:
If Nintendo wins this, it'll fuck over all emulators. Not just ones with devs that have a Patreon.
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It doesn’t.

There’s a reason why Nintendo has only gone after people if they make money. Until you do that they don’t care.

And as said, if they’d not been retarded with a public patreon for the emulator this would not be happening.
 
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Prophetic Spirit said:
Probably. But Yuzu can do even better than OG Switch.
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Is that the case on mobile platforms though? Any emulator can be designed to overclock or render at higher resolutions (at the expense of stability and/or compatibility). It’s not a feature that’s worth $40k/month. Which makes me wonder, what are the developers spending the money on?
 
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My guess is Nintendo is hoping to establish legal precedent that allows them to shutdown emulators before they release their next console, so they can then go around suing anyone who attempts to make an emulator of it before they get anywhere
 
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Joe Swanson said:
My guess is Nintendo is hoping to establish legal precedent that allows them to shutdown emulators before they release their next console, so they can then go around suing anyone who attempts to make an emulator of it before they get anywhere
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They could already shut down emulators if they wanted to. It’s the money aspect Nintendo has an issue with.

Don’t have a public donation platform for your products of questionable legality. And certainly don’t use said place to advertise those products.

It’s not hard.

Hope Nintendo wins honestly just because Yuzu were idiots
 
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