Nintendo is going after the development team of an emulator. A legal case was filed by Nintendo yesterday, alleging that the Nintendo Switch emulator, Yuzu, has caused damages to the company by allowing for its games to be played illegally before release. The suit also claims that the company behind the emulator, Tropic Haze LLC, makes a profit by facilitating piracy, noting that during the leak of The Legend of Zelda: Tears of the Kingdom, Yuzu's Patreon saw a large increase in users. Nintendo's legal team makes a case that Tropic Haze profits from and popularizes video game piracy.

NEW: 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. pic.twitter.com/SGZVI6Cs0x

— Stephen Totilo (@stephentotilo) February 27, 2024

In the legal document, Nintendo refers to an emulator as, "a piece of software that allows users to unlawfully play pirated video games". They also assert that the Yuzu team is aware of the emulator's use in the context of piracy, and do not try to hide that aspect. In addition, Nintendo's legal team states that extracting your own keys from a Nintendo Switch console--a requirement to run any Nintendo Switch emulator--is illegal.

Source

 

[Dark_Ansem]

nowadays judges have are crazy with way of interpreting law.

Yeah, like the alabama judged

 

[G0R3Z]

Didn't bleem basically seize to exist after the Sony lawsuit?

Sure. But the case was eventually thrown out because it was obvious that the people using it, and not the software itself, was doing the pirating.

It's even more damning. you need the Firmware as well as keys, which isn't 'legally' available, to use Yuzu. You need to technically have a Switch. If anything it should be fair use of ones own property. Is it illegal for me to dump my own firmware, keys, and games, and play them on PC? Not to most courts, but to Nintendo, it apparently is copyright infringement.

 

[deinonychus71]

Quoting me from the other thread
My favorite part is the mental gymnastics they are going through to pin rampant piracy onto the emulator. Like, sure Nintendo, it definitely wasn’t the price hike. Also, I am pretty sure it’s not illegal to dump your own files but Nintendo seems to think it is, so wondering how that will turn out

Really doubt it was the price hike, you could get the game at $50 with another game using the vouchers.
Like I don't like what they're doing but let's not kid ourselves here.

 

[linuxares]

This doesn't sound like a lawyer speak here
", all without paying a dime to Nintendo or to any of the hundreds of other game developers and publishers"

EDIT: Yepp, the anti-circumvention and also anti-trafficking. They don't like that emulators support their current gen console, why they don't give a damn about Wii and WiiU emulation.
9.

Recognizing the threats faced by copyright owners like Nintendo in the age of digital piracy, Congress enacted the Anti-Circumvention and Anti-Trafficking provisions of the Digital Millennium Copyright Act (“DMCA”), making it illegal to circumvent or traffic in devices that circumvent technological measures put into place by copyright owners to protect against unlawful access to and copying of copyrighted works.

 

[Kioku]

So... If there is any copyrighted code or methods built in to circumvent protections or otherwise, this won't end well for the scene... Still, fuck off Nintendo. Kthx.

Oh, patreon...

Also... What damages?? It's all rhetorical, or implied. There is no fucking way they can prove, without a shadow of a doubt, that this caused loss of sales. Doesn't matter, I guess. Nintendo cried about loss of sales with the NSMB Wii debacle, and got their way.

 

[Dark_Ansem]

So 5 counts of damages in the hundreds of thoudands and somehow blaming Yuzu for THEIR leaks. I hate you Nintendo

 

[NyaakoXD]

Hope Nintendo lose.

They likely won't, but instead may choose to stall it out on purpose to make Yuzu devs lose so much money to the point where they go bankrupt and have no choice but to "settle".

 

[Maximumbeans]

Quoting me from the other thread
My favorite part is the mental gymnastics they are going through to pin rampant piracy onto the emulator. Like, sure Nintendo, it definitely wasn’t the price hike. Also, I am pretty sure it’s not illegal to dump your own files but Nintendo seems to think it is, so wondering how that will turn out

And unless I’m mistaken, the Mario 3D All Stars collection uses emulation to make Sunshine happen? Sure their argument could be that they have the rights to Mario so they can do that, fine, but it does also then present the rhetorical obstacle of them decrying emulators when the technology itself has benefitted them. Do they want to then argue that emulators should only be permissible to the publishers?

 

[cearp]

In the legal document, Nintendo refers to an emulator as, "a piece of software that allows users to unlawfully play pirated video games".

What about the NES emulator in animal crossing? (for one of many examples) lol

 

[Dark_Ansem]

Does Yuzu even have a legal team or they will simply fold?

 

[Jayro]

Lets hope their code really is clean (Unlike Dolphin), so they don't face legal repercussions.

 

[G0R3Z]

Nintendo mistepped here. They're trying to blame Yuzu for breaking the encryptions and stuff like the Prod.keys. Yuzu does not provide them. without those keys, Yuzu can't do anything, and YOU, the user, needs to provide them.

 

[Kioku]

What about the NES emulator in animal crossing? (for one of many examples) lol

Nintendo really going backwards here..

 

[Viri]

Meanwhile if you own a SteamDeck

I tried that last time with the Link's Awakening remake, and it ran like shit.

 

[G0R3Z]

I tried that last time with the Link's Awakening remake, and it ran like shit.

Really? The native Linux version runs wonderfully on a Deck.

 

[Subtle Demise]

I'm going to keep backups of the source code until github is forced to take it down. I unfortunately don't have the programming knowledge to keep it maintained and updated, nor the influence to have people work on it for me, but it will be available in perpetuity for those that do

 

[The Catboy]

Really doubt it was the price hike, you could get the game at $50 with another game using the vouchers.
Like I don't like what they're doing but let's not kid ourselves here.

This wasn’t to say that it was only the cause but that I doubt it didn’t play a factor in there. Life is becoming more expensive and charging more for games isn’t helping. It’s more of me just saying that companies should start looking inward to understand the problems they are creating or contributing to before just randomly blaming an emulator for all of their problems

 

[Viri]

Really? The native Linux version runs wonderfully on a Deck.

At the end of last year, I tried for hours to get the Link's Awakening remake to run on Yuzu, and it always ran like shit. I even fiddled with Emu Deck.

 

[Newhouse-Estates]

Uhh ohh lol
I bet Nintendo also hates the fact that Yuzu makes the switch almost obsolete (when it comes to graphical upgrades)
Nintendo should have released Zelda TOTK on the next switch console and they knew the switch had been hacked year one. Its their own fault for trying to profit off of selling 8 year old hardware for full price still.

 

[ut2k4master]

Quoting me from the other thread
My favorite part is the mental gymnastics they are going through to pin rampant piracy onto the emulator. Like, sure Nintendo, it definitely wasn’t the price hike. Also, I am pretty sure it’s not illegal to dump your own files but Nintendo seems to think it is, so wondering how that will turn out

the reason it was pirated so much is because it was the new big zelda game, thats it.
also its not as simple as claiming dumping your own copy is legal, this obviously depends on the country and for most its also a difference if you circumvent some form of drm. and lets not kid ourselves here, the emulator (and emulators in general) is 99% used for pirated copies