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The creators of the Nintendo Switch emulator, Yuzu, owe Nintendo $2.4 million after reaching an agreement with the Legend of Zelda: Tears of the Kingdom developer, following a lawsuit over open source emulator last week. Both Nintendo and Tropic Haze, the company behind Yuzu, requested a final ruling and permanent injunction on Monday. according to court documentsafter Nintendo accused Yuzu makers of copyright infringement, circumvention of Nintendo’s Switch protections, and sale those circumvention technologies like Yuzu, among other things.
However, the agreement is pending approval by a judge.
Yuzu is a free Nintendo Switch emulator that was released in 2018, months after Nintendo launched the Nintendo Switch. It is software that allows people to play Nintendo Switch games on their computers or phones, including Tears of the Kingdom, which Nintendo cited in its lawsuit, saying that Yuzu allowed people to play leaked copies of the game from the beginning. Specifically, Nintendo said that more than 1 million people played the game before the release date due to leaked copies. Yuzu doesn’t offer pirated or leaked games, but Nintendo targeted the company because the emulator is one of the few ways to play those games.
Beyond the money, the terms of the deal dictate that Tropic Haze will have to completely stop operations on Yuzu: it cannot distribute it in any way or market it on its website or social media. Yuzu will also have to give up its domain name.
In a statement posted on Discord, Yuzu maker Bunnei confirmed that everything related to Yuzu will be taken offline.
“Piracy was never our intention and we believe that piracy of video games and video game consoles should end. Starting today, we will be taking our code repositories offline, discontinuing our Patreon accounts and Discord servers, and soon shutting down our websites,” Bunnei wrote. “We hope that our actions are a small step towards ending piracy of the works of all creators.”
The website, Patreon page, and GitHub repositories for Yuzu and the Nintendo 3DS emulator Citra have been taken offline. The Discord channel remains online.
A Nintendo representative pointed Polygon toward the Entertainment Software Association when contacted for comment on the deal. Lawyers for the emulator maker did not respond to a request for comment.
He Tears of the Kingdom The publisher is known to be strict with its intellectual property. Nintendo won several lawsuits against pirated game sites such as RomUniverse, where he was awarded more than 2 million dollars in damages. Nintendo also notoriously went after an alleged Nintendo Switch hacker named Gary Bowser. who was arrested and accused of selling Switch hacks. Although he has been released from prison, Bowser still owes Nintendo $10 million; He paid Nintendo $175 while in prison with money he earned working in the prison library and kitchen.
Nintendo and Yuzu’s lawsuit has once again ignited a debate over emulation: whether the act of emulation is inherently illegal. Of course, emulation fans don’t believe that: many people watch Yuzu and others Emulators as an important tool for the preservation of video games.. Nintendo clearly disagrees.
Update: Bunnei, one of Yuzu’s creators, posted a message addressing the deal on the group’s Discord page, where he said that all Yuzu code, Patreon accounts, and Discord servers will be shut down. We have updated this story to include a portion of this statement. Here is the full message:
Hello yuz-ers and Citra fans:
We are writing to you today to inform you that Yuzu and Yuzu’s support of Citra will be suspended with immediate effect.
Yuzu and her team have always been against piracy. We began the projects in good faith, out of passion for Nintendo and its consoles and games, and we had no intention of causing harm. But now we see that because our projects can bypass Nintendo’s technological protection measures and allow users to play games outside of authorized hardware, they have led to widespread piracy. In particular, we were deeply disappointed when users used our software to leak game content before its release and ruin the experience for legitimate buyers and fans.
We have come to the decision that we cannot continue to allow this to happen. Piracy was never our intention and we believe that piracy of video games and video game consoles should end. Starting today, we will be taking our code repositories offline, discontinuing our Patreon accounts and Discord servers, and soon shutting down our websites. We hope that our actions are a small step towards ending piracy of the works of all creators.
Thank you for your years of support and for understanding our decision.
Update (4:58 p.m. ET): This story was updated after the creators of Yuzu and Citra took the code, Patreon page, and website offline.
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