Quietly following on the heels of the injunction ruling against Yuzu emulator that resulted in its removal and ceased development, popular Nintendo 3DS emulator Citra is following suit. Yuzu's parent company, Tropic Haze LLC, is also the owner of the development team for Citra 3DS emulator, and because of the recent ruling, Citra has also met the same fate. As of current writing, Citra has been removed from download on its official website, and the Citra GitHub repository has been taken down as well.

An official statement from Bunnei, a representative for both Citra and Yuzu, was posted on the Discord channel for Yuzu, saying that they never intended to allow piracy to impact Nintendo, and that playing games on "unauthorized hardware" is harmful, so development on both emulators will cease as of today. Citra's Discord server has also locked itself down, following the announcement.

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[raxadian]

Ah shame no one released Citra source code.

They could have settle by selling Citra and Yuzu to Nintendo. The Switch 2 can use the codes to provide backward compatibility with Switch games and NSO classic games lineup for 3DS.

Nintendo literally confiscated their code it seems?

 

[Alexander1970]

Neither Yuzu nor Citra were the real targets, the real end goal of Nintendo was to scare off anyone from making an emulator for their upcoming system.

And always against the "small People".
Otherwise, as LEGO might have thought these days, they have no chance against really Big Companies because they themselves have enough money and good Lawyers...

But I think Nintendo is a company full of shitheads like that - they might sue anyone, no matter how "big" they may be...Or perhaps not ?

 

[DragonMals]

you should be first in line to criticize those who not only pirated an unreleased game, but bragged about it, posted content under embargo and made sure Nintendo knew about it.
They confirmed with a bang the bias Nintendo already had. That no, people aren't "buying" their game and then ripping it to enhance them, or backup them, they just pirate it and profit off the community's tools.

To add to the point of modern pirates being like this, I ALSO remember seeing something on Twitter where someone was playing Sonic Superstars, on Yuzu, that was complaining about the game when it was leaked prior to release that the game had a bunch of glitches in a deliberate attempt to make people dislike the game

 

[Mudb0y]

Now I feel bad because I can definitely see my self getting TOTK before release if I were sighted then bragging about it, but TBF I probably would've only done it to my friends and possibly Reddit or something in a relevant topic. Thank god I'm blind I guess.
In general though, I believe that piracy can be good for preservation, but I also won't say that I only pirate to preserve, in fact I mainly pirate just because I want to play games for free, and untill recently simply didn't have the money to buy the games I wanted to play. See that's the thing, now I do have the money, and if I want to play something like the Last Of Us I'll go and buy it because it's more convenient than piracy. If Nintendo gave me roms I could use in Citra or genuine 3DS systems, as unencrypted 3ds files, you bet I'd likely buy them because then I'd be sure it comes straight from the source and I'm the guy who likes to get stuff from as close to the original source as possible.
Instead, I have to resort to piracy, because the eShop is down, and Nintendo isn't going to sell me Pokemon BW, ORAS, or all of the Rhythm Heaven games anymore because fuck you.

 

[Kerbastrar]

DMCA in 3..2...1

Can't DMCA what's outside of America's jurisdiction. Many overseas providers decided on voluntarily honoring DMCA claims just to stay on uncle sam's good side. Still providers out there who treat DMCA claims as toilet paper

Maybe the days of patreon-funded emulator development is in jeopardy, but the scene existed just fine before anyone was able to make it their full-time job

 

[Hassal]

I mean I went to look at your original post again and you definitely talk about "people's right" when it comes to playing video games, which... yeah no, still not it.

I agree that the law is shit when it comes to not fully owning what you buy, or be able to rip it and do whatever you want. In an ideal world you would buy you game and you could back it up, play it wherever you want and mod it. In an ideal world no game would be left behind to die because companies can't be bothered to maintain an online store or provide a way to self-backup.
I absolutely agree, and people working on emulators, jailbreak primarily have that ideal in mind with their work.

But then... if you believe that it's how it should be, you should be first in line to criticize those who not only pirated an unreleased game, but bragged about it, posted content under embargo and made sure Nintendo knew about it.
They confirmed with a bang the bias Nintendo already had. That no, people aren't "buying" their game and then ripping it to enhance them, or backup them, they just pirate it and profit off the community's tools.

You can hate Nintendo all you want (and let's be honest, it's not a Nintendo special they all think alike) I couldn't care less. What makes no sense is the refusal to acknowledge the part of the responsibility of those who very much damaged the community for selfish reasons.

If someone brags about game piracy then the offender can by any person, heck they can be those fanboys that stem from the very evil of this company in order to start chaos and upheaval. All types of people exist over the internet and you cannot tell who is ingenuous from the malicious users that want to see the entire world burn.

 

[Jonna]

Sorry, did you say Nintendo or Billy Mitchell? I'm starting to get the 2 confused with these lawsuits.

 

[Paralel]

At least these updates from them have given everyone enough time to get the latest builds and source code from Archive before that is purged (which I am sure will happen since they tend to bend at the slightest headwind)

 

[CrazySquid]

Welp, that sucks. I mean, I don't care that much since I own a New 3DS XL, but y'know, for preservation it's cool to have emulators of dead consoles that are not being made anymore. However, I'm glad they closed Yuzu, Switch is still pretty much alive.

 

[Ligeia]

This.
Modern pirates are VERY NARCISSISTIC. they just can't help but to show off their dick (pirated content) to the whole world.
What the fuck did you expect would happen if you keep poking the bear? (corporations, copyright holders, government, law enforcers, etc etc)

stay under the radar
stay low profile
hide your power level
gatekeep piracy

piracy should be done in secrecy, not openly.

That's a very fair point and I agree piracy should be kept low profile.

But I suspect Nintendo being assholes had a lot to do with people wanting to brag about the TotK leak and stick it to them.

 

[Bladexdsl]

piracy should be done in secrecy, not openly.

welp that rules this site out that's how nintendo caught kongnutz

 

[WG481]

Nintendo was smart, who cares even if they wouldn't have won in court they scared everyone off and got a settlement out of it.

It pays to sue, I guess.

This is a practice i like to call suit slamming.

Even if the claim is unfounded, Nintendo still wins because how is an open source developer supposed to pay for legal fees?

Reading the statements makes me think those were drafted by Nintendo because they seem so robotic and lame. Emulation is legal, so why kill it when it doesn’t affect them? Piracy is a user problem. Pirated content can still be played on a Switch anyways, so what’s the good in shutting down an emulator? Are you gonna shut down every switch now too?

 

[Hassal]

This is a practice i like to call suit slamming.

Even if the claim is unfounded, Nintendo still wins because how is an open source developer supposed to pay for legal fees?

Reading the statements makes me think those were drafted by Nintendo because they seem so robotic and lame. Emulation is legal, so why kill it when it doesn’t affect them? Piracy is a user problem. Pirated content can still be played on a Switch anyways, so what’s the good in shutting down an emulator? Are you gonna shut down every switch now too?

That letter was so cringe I didn't make myself read to the end. Its obvious it came out from N mouth word by word.

 

[LightBeam]

Even if the claim is unfounded, Nintendo still wins because how is an open source developer supposed to pay for legal fees?

Crowdfunding. I'm sure people would have paid a lot, much more than if it was Ryujinx that was being sued.
The issue is that they either thought they wouldn't have a case, or it was just cheaper to pay and leave (most likely the 2nd option in my opinion)

Piracy was just one of the argument, yuzu was just making bank and Nintendo most likely had proof that they were pirating stuff, that was enough to make the yuzu guys shit their pants

 

[Ligeia]

Crowdfunding. I'm sure people would have paid a lot, much more than if it was Ryujinx that was being sued.
The issue is that they either thought they wouldn't have a case, or it was just cheaper to pay and leave (most likely the 2nd option in my opinion)

Piracy was just one of the argument, yuzu was just making bank and Nintendo most likely had proof that they were pirating stuff, that was enough to make the yuzu guys shit their pants

I don't think it's all about the legal money. I mean even if you can win, you have to be able to stomach possibly years of precedure, it's a lot of stress. That's not even mentioning the other shady means of pressure such big companies can resort to. When threatened by a massive company like Nintendo, the average person is going to run away from the trouble.

 

[CoolMe]

Oh god, such devastating news.. If any of you out there that care about these projects, simply stop supporting Nintendont from now on, unsubscribe from NSO, stop buying their games etc, and start pirating the shit out of their games, it's the least we could do.. N can fuck off!

Dark times indeed..

Post automatically merged: Mar 5, 2024

Also, folks should expect stuff like Switch cfw (Atmosphere etc) projects following suit as well, yep, it's that bad.. Vote with you wallets people!

 

[BeniBel]

God this generation is so entitled. Mad because Nintendo shut down an emulator, for a device that's still being sold.

I hear people moan about game preservation. Want to preserve all these games? Go out and f*cking by them.

This emulator was used for 99.9% to pirate stuff, and they were making money from it.

But the games run horrible on the Switch? Please, I played Superman 64 back in the day, sure you can survive a few drops in frames.

Prices are too high? Those on Ps5 or even higher, be glad.

Playing games isn't a fundamental right, so don't act like it's one. You take the games that are available as they are. Don't like it? Move on.


Honestly, what's wrong with your brain if you even twist it like Nintendo is the bad guy in this situation?

Oh yeah, and before people say I'm sucking up to a company and all those fifth grade insults: I haven't bought a Nintendo game in years. I also used emulation or used my hacked switch. So yeah, too bad the emulator is gone, but I'm not putting blame where it doesn't belong.

 

[ertaboy356b]

To the people who share the same "mental gymnastics" as said by an individual answer this:.

How did they manage to sell over 20m copies within the first 6 months of launch? They made 1.4b in revenue just from one game, something unheard of even in the blockbuster film industry. I'm still waiting for them to uncover the latest sales report.

Imagine complaining that a luxury item is too expensive .

Don't get me wrong, I've done piracy and emulation too.

I was there during the 3DS, twas one of the first to try and risk a frankenfirmware, back then no one is waiving their dick around hurr durr my 3DS can play pirated games.

I was there at the time ZSNES is the only performant SNES emulator. The FF5 english patch and bahamut dragoon are great, I had a good time.

Nowadays, pirates thinks game companies owes them everything . Piracy affects the small publishers/devs more than the big ones. No one is telling you to stop pirating, just stop waving your dick around.

 

[LightBeam]

Prices are too high? Those on Ps5 or even higher, be glad.

You're right. Thank you Nintendo-sama, and do as you please and shutdown the next Smash Bros tournament whenever you want

 

[NinStar]

For that particular group of people, it's all about the narrative against Nintendo. They'll say anything to justify piracy.

I think you misread my comment, I literally said that makes no sense to have exceptions for emulation based on it being commercial or not or it emulating a current gen system.