It looks like Yuzu will be forced to shut down operations entirely after Nintendo’s decisive victory…
The creators of the Yuzu emulator for the Nintendo Switch owe Nintendo $2.4 million after settling a lawsuit over the open-source emulator with the developer of Legend of Zelda: Tears of the Kingdom. Nintendo accused the creators of the emulator of, among other things, copyright infringement, circumventing the protection of the Nintendo Switch, and selling said circumvention technologies under the name Yuzu.
Yuzu is a free Nintendo Switch emulator that was released in 2018, months after Nintendo launched the Nintendo Switch.
It is a software that allows people to play Nintendo Switch games on their computer or phone. Among them is Tears of the Kingdom. The latter was cited by Nintendo in the lawsuit, saying Yuzu allowed people to play leaked copies of the game in the past. Specifically, according to Nintendo, more than 1 million people played the game before its release date due to leaked copies. Yuzu itself does not offer pirated or leaked games. However, Nintendo targeted the company because an emulator is one of the few options to play these games.
Goodbye, Yuzu!
In addition to the money, the settlement terms also stipulate that Tropic Haze must completely shut down Yuzu’s operations. They may not distribute or market it in any way on their website or social media. They must also give up the Yuzu domain name.
In a statement posted on Discord, Yuzu’s creator, Bunnei, confirmed that everything related to Yuzu will be offline.
“Piracy was never our intention, and we believe that piracy of video games and on video game consoles should end. Effective today, we will be pulling our code repositories offline, discontinuing our Patreon accounts and Discord servers, and, soon, shutting down our websites,” Bunnei wrote. “We hope our actions will be a small step towards ending piracy of all creators’ works.”
Yuzu and Nintendo 3DS emulator Citra’s website, Patreon page, and GitHub repositories have all been taken down. The Discord channel remains online.
The publisher of Tears of the Kingdom is known to be strict with its intellectual property. Nintendo has already won several lawsuits against piracy sites like RomUniverse. He was awarded more than $2 million in damages. Nintendo also infamously went after an alleged Nintendo Switch hacker named Gary Bowser. He was arrested and charged with selling Switch hacks.
Although released from prison, Bowser still owes Nintendo $10 million; in prison, he paid Nintendo $175 from the money he earned working in the prison library and kitchen.
The lawsuit between Nintendo and Yuzu has reignited the debate over emulation – whether emulation itself is illegal. Of course, fans of emulation do not believe this. Many consider Yuzu and other emulators to be an important means of preserving video games. Nintendo obviously disagrees.
Bunnei, one of Yuzu’s creators, posted a message on the group’s Discord page about the settlement, saying that all Yuzu code, Patreon accounts, and Discord servers would also be shut down.
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