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

 

[Foxi4]

Of course, but any DLSS support will be a big step up from Switch rendering at 540p or less.

720p, I can’t contain my excitement!

 

[Deleted member 466238]

"Nintendo can't do shit about emulators" people said.

 

[Xzi]

720p, I can’t contain my excitement!

Might keep the requirements for running Switch2 games at 1440p and 2160p on *GASP* emulators lower too. Assuming they can tap into that DLSS implementation somewhat directly, anyway.

 

[Foxi4]

Might keep the requirements for running Switch2 games at 1440p and 2160p on *GASP* emulators lower too. Assuming they can tap into that DLSS implementation somewhat directly, anyway.

It’s equipped with a GPU roughly equivalent to 3/4 of an RTX 2050, so it should run well on just about anything - 1536 CUDA cores.

 

[Xzi]

It’s equipped with a GPU roughly equivalent to 3/4 of an RTX 2050, so it should run well on just about anything - 1536 CUDA cores.

So around a thousand cores? That's four times as many as Switch, seems like a bit more than incremental!

 

[Noctosphere]

IMHO, it's up to Nintendo to make us want to pay for their game again.
They have to stop releasing FFF games while charging us the price of a AAA game.
If they start putting some effort and quality (actual quality) in their game, then maybe players will be more encline to pay for their games (even pirates).
Most pirates (at least, for what I know) have some code of honor. They will pirate the game, test it, and if they actually like it, will pay for it.


PS : FFF game should be the new name for "crap game with the budget of a AAA game"

 

[CeeDee]

I just got my law degree from the university of armchair nintendo speculation!
as a real lawyer, i am going to use my very real and very true knowledge to preach to the choir and throw another "it's always morally correct to" comment in, because i know much better than actual lawyers

 

[SomeKindOfUsername]

I’m pretty sure that Rizla knows their papers are used to smoke pot, and loads of it. That’s the users doing that, Rizla’s not in charge of what perfect strangers use their product for. It’s a bad look, to be sure, but not necessarily a hole in one.

Maybe, but then why isn't Ryujinx also getting sued? Could be that Nintendo hasn't gotten around to them I guess but the fact that what Bunnei said was brought up twice in the suit leads me to believe it's particularly relevant.

 

[realtimesave]

Better late than never, Eh Nintendo? This far along in the life cycle of the Switch lol

 

[Foxi4]

So around a thousand cores? That's four times as many as Switch, seems like a bit more than incremental!

The PS5 is 10 TFLOPS compared to the PS4’s 1.8. The Series X is 12 TFLOPS compared to the Xbox One’s 1.4. The biggest benefit from this 5-8x increase in compute is a higher resolution and framerate, is it not? Remember that the Switch sweats bullets trying to run its own AAA software at 30 FPS and 540p. This “big increase” will allow you to play those games how they should’ve ran day 1. The specs are comparable to the Steamdeck, that’s what you should expect in terms of raw performance, which isn’t half-bad, but the Steamdeck came out 2 years ago whereas the Switch 2 isn’t even announced yet.

 

[Slluxx]

Ive read the entire document. They want 2.5k for each violation of anti-piracy circumvention and 150k for each copyright act violation. They throw multiple numbers around but mention that TOTK has been downloaded and played over a milllion times. Thats quite a huge sum.

While format shifting is legal, since you only buy a license to play the game, that basically gets thrown out the window.

I dont know, the entire thing reads like yuzu is solely responsible for any pirated copy out in the wild aswell as for the games that get leaked ahead of their release. I know that they want things to be in their favor so they overdramatize but a few of their points wont hold any ground. Such as romfs being the reason for leaked media, because atmosphere supports this too and they havent taken any measures to stop it.

The thing is that they mention the head dev speaking about piracy in a way that doesnt shine a good light. Emulators itself are legal but them mentioning piracy in the way they did can and will bite them in the ass.

 

[Xzi]

This “big increase” will allow you to play those games how they should’ve ran day 1. The specs are comparable to the Steamdeck, that’s what you should expect in terms of raw performance, which isn’t half-bad, but the Steamdeck came out 2 years ago whereas the Switch 2 isn’t even announced yet.

Yeah I would be a lot less surprised if it was anyone else, I just didn't expect Nintendo hardware to take that kind of leap. More like 2x the power of Switch and call it a day, but I guess they really didn't want the first generation Steam Deck to be able to emulate it lol.

 

[raxadian]

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

*looks at Nintendo own emulators.

Hypocrisy is the name of the game.

 

[Foxi4]

Yeah I would be a lot less surprised if it was anyone else, I just didn't expect Nintendo hardware to take that kind of leap. More like 2x the power of Switch and call it a day, but I guess they really didn't want the first generation Steam Deck to be able to emulate it lol.

If you recall my Hate Train article, this is assuming the Switch 2 will run full tilt. It will not, for a variety of reasons. Just assume most times you’ll get a half of that, and maybe 3/4 when docked. They’ll find a way to fuck up a good thing.

 

[The Catboy]

Ah fuck... I forgot that dumb system

Sadly the US still uses that stupid system, along with many other stupid systems

 

[kiaghi7]

Ahhhh... After reading the filing, Nintendo isn't going after Emulation, because they know that's settled case law and they would lose in wholesale fashion...
What they ARE going after is Yuzu using Nintendo's prod.keys according to the filing, which presumably Nintendo has copyrighted, and THAT would be enforceable, as Nintendo can in fact demonstrate that they are the originators of that original work.

This might not be good for the Yuzu team, I do not claim to be a copyright lawyer, but squabbles over copyrighted code have often gone the way of the original developer before, so before everyone starts thinking Nintendo is going to lose, or they don't know what they're doing, it seems that they might have sufficient grounds.

 

[fst312]

Why they took this long for, also isn’t Zelda tears of the kingdom the reason they took to long to go after lock pick.

 

[JeepX87]

What happened with Bleem 25 years ago may didn't set the precedent for all future lawsuits that involved with emulators or other part (like key), so I don't know about outcome with Nintendo vs. Yuzu.

Many years ago, US Supreme Court said states cannot charge sale tax on online shopping and they overruled old ruling, and allow states to remit sale tax on online shopping now.

 

[Noctosphere]

By the way, Nintendo Switch is the third best selling console of all time. Are they trying to say that piracy has something to do with it not being second or first?

 

[worm28]

Im sick of Nintendo being a sue happy company its not about gaming and having fun its all about money and profits i used to collect physical copies of switch games not any more now i pirate my switch games and i dont need yuzu i have two v1 unpatched switches fuck Nintendo!