Nintendo is suing the makers of Yuzu, an open-source Nintendo Switch emulator, according to a lawsuit filed Monday in a Rhode Island court. Game File reporter Stephen Totilo first report filed.
The 41-page lawsuit was filed against Tropic Haze, the company that makes Yuzu. (Nintendo also specifically refers to an individual with the alias Bunnei, who is leading the development of Yuzu.) Yuzu is a free emulator that was released in 2018, months after the Nintendo Switch originally launched. The same people who created Citra, a Nintendo 3DS emulator, created this one. Basically, it is a piece of software that allows people to play Nintendo Switch games on Windows PC, Linux and Android devices. (It also runs on Steam Deck, which Valve showed off – and then wiped away – in a Steam Deck video clip.) Emulators are not necessarily illegal, but pirating games to play on them are. But Nintendo said in its lawsuit that there is no legal way to use Yuzu.
Nintendo argued that Yuzu runs codes that “defeat” Nintendo’s security measures, including decryption using “an illegally obtained copy of prod.keys.”
“In other words, without Yuzu’s decryption of Nintendo’s encryption, unauthorized copies of games would not be able to be played on PCs or Android devices,” Nintendo wrote in the lawsuit. As for the alleged damage caused by Yuzu, Nintendo pointed to the release of The Legend of Zelda: Tears of the Kingdom. Tears of the kingdom leaked almost two weeks ahead of the game’s May 12 release date. The pirated version of the game spread quickly; Nintendo said it had been downloaded more than 1 million times before Tears of the kingdomthe release date. People used Yuzu to play the game; Nintendo said that more than 20% of download links pointed people to Yuzu.
Although Yuzu does not release pirated copies of games, Nintendo has repeatedly said that most ROM sites refer people to Yuzu to play the games they downloaded.
Nintendo said it has spent “significant resources to stop the illegal copying, marketing, sale and distribution” of its Nintendo Switch games. It says that Yuzu earns the team $30,000 a month on his Patreon from more than 7,000 customers. Nintendo said the company has made at least $50,000 in paid Yuzu downloads. Nintendo said Yuzu’s Patreon doubled the number of paid members in the period between May 1 and May 12, when Tears of the kingdom was released.
Nintendo asks the court to shut down the emulator and for damages. Polygon has contacted Nintendo and Tropic Haze for comment.
The Tears of the kingdom publisher is notoriously strict with its intellectual property. Nintendo has won several lawsuits against pirated gaming sites such as RomUniverse, where it was awarded more than $2 million in damages. Nintendo also notoriously went after an alleged Nintendo Switch hacker named Gary Bowser, who was arrested and charged for selling Switch hacks. Although he has been released from prison, Bowser still owes Nintendo $10 million; he paid Nintendo $175 while in prison from the money he earned working in the prison library and kitchen.