It’s still unclear what Switch emulator Yuzu’s settlement with Nintendo means for the broader emulation community, but it appears that, at the very least, those involved in the space are being more cautious and, in some cases, pulling their apps altogether.
There’s a widespread belief that Nintendo targeted Tropic Haze’s Yuzu because it offered a Patreon that, at one point, was earning roughly $30,000 USD (roughly $40,596 CAD) monthly. In its lawsuit, Nintendo claimed Yuzu facilitated “piracy at a colossal scale” and described the emulator as “software primarily designed to circumvent technological measures.”
Tropic Haze, the team behind Yuzu, agreed to pay the Japanese gaming giant $2.4 million USD (about $3.2 million CAD) and halt “engaging in activities related to offering, marketing, distributing, or trafficking in Yuzu emulator or any similar software that circumvents Nintendo’s technical protection measures.”
Likely in response to this, Android-based DS emulator Drastic just made its app entirely free (it previously cost roughly $6.75 CAD), and its creator confirmed plans to pull the app down entirely. That said, Drastic’s source code will be publicly available soon, according to the team behind the project. Along with pulling down Yuzu, Citra, a long-running 3DS emulator created by the same team behind Yuzu, has also been killed.
In Drastic’s official Discord, a member of the project that goes by ‘Exophase’ said, “I want to make it clear that I don’t have any kind of financial incentive” and that Nintendo taking down Yuzu has “made the whole process more urgent,” as first reported by The Verge.
On the other hand, Ryujinx, another Switch emulator, is no longer accepting invites to its Discord, and on the Steam Deck front, Yuzu has been removed from EmuDeck 2.1.5. That said, Ryujinx is still available in the quick setup Steam Deck emulation tool.
It’s important to keep in mind that given Yuzu’s open-source design, it will never disappear entirely despite the original team behind the emulator no longer being involved in the project. Yuzu’s codebase remains live on its GitHub page. Nintendo also filed a DMCA order against Android-based Switch emulator called Skyline back in May 2023, causing the team behind the project to abandon it (this was just ahead of the notable Switch game The Legend of Zelda: Tears of the Kingdom releasing).
A quick search in the Play Store reveals several Nintendo handheld and console emulators are still available in Google’s mobile marketplace, though they all appear to be free. It’s likely that moving forward, the teams behind more recent Nintendo console emulation projects will be far more careful, especially when it comes to offering paid versions of their apps.
Image credit: Wikipedia
Via: The Verge
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