Nintendo has yet again issued a series of DMCA takedowns across GitHub that specfically target popular Nintendo Switch emulators. Nintendo's reasoning is to protect its copyrighted IP and prevent unauthorized distribution.

It's common knowledge that most emulators worth their weight do not themselves include any cryptographic keys - with most requiring users provide their own. However, Nintendo has previously insisted that such emulators facilitate copyright infringement rather than claiming them to be illegal as such, and as of now, no court has formally ruled that using or distributing emulators without games violates copyright.

Of course, emulators offer many benefits rather than simply "facilitating piracy". One of the big ones, being of course; game preservation - allowing future generations to experience games that might no longer be available for purchase or that have been delisted. Emulators can also be a great help to users with accessiblity needs, providing alternate input options for those that need it.

What do you think? Is Nintendo justified in its crusade against emulators or should they take a step back?

Source

 

[Bladexdsl]

geez we can't go one month now without these pricks waving their DMCA dick around

 

[thekarter104]

except that those emulators are used for 99.999% piracy

Unfortunately yes, but yet another reason for Switch emulator is able to setup another Animal Crossing island without deleting your own on your Switch. Only one island per Switch. What a joke.

 

[Clydefrosch]

if you want a court to make a ruling, one way or another, someones gonna go to court.
so why is there never a donation drive for it?

 

[Retrojunkies]

Lol nintendo hate the fact that emulators prove that nintendo keep recycling the same shit but lie claiming its enhandes.

When you can emulate SW1 BoTW at higher resolution and faster fps than the so called switch 2 enhanced edition..

Just nintendo still recycling a game thats nearly a decade old.

 

[Captain-Z]

No, it simply isn't. Zero copyrighted material is actually being distributed with the emulators.

The only reason why Nintendo is taking the emulators down is because they "can be used for piracy".

Sure, they can be used for piracy, in the same way that a knife can be used for stabbing someone to death. But both have uses that are useful and legitimate.

While I agree with your point, something being used for piracy is enough to make it illegal under copyright law. As long as Nintendo can demonstrate emulators have a commercial impact on published works that includes TPMs then they can been deemed illegal in court, An emulator's potential legitimate uses don't matter.

At least for the US and Canada. Pretty sure most other first world countries are similar.

 

[SooraMaru]

No, it simply isn't. Zero copyrighted material is actually being distributed with the emulators.

The only reason why Nintendo is taking the emulators down is because they "can be used for piracy".

Sure, they can be used for piracy, in the same way that a knife can be used for stabbing someone to death. But both have uses that are useful and legitimate.

I don't know anyone who plays their legal copies and dumped firmware of the console on an emulator, so yes... it's used for piracy.

 

[Taleweaver]

.
Who the F@%$ cares about how much a company sold.

I do. And for the context of this discussion, it's about the best argument. It's pretty hard to say that emulators are hurting their sales when reality dictates that their sales aren't affected.

 

[SecureBoot]

Good news is it seems to be fairly toothless. Sure the GitHubs were targeted, but not the emulators themselves. Plenty of hosting alternatives out there. Scary that they're ramping back up on these efforts though. I'm glad we're at the end of the Switch life

 

[NinStar]

I don't see any of them going away soon, and the only one at risk is Eden, since it is officially on GitHub, whereas Citron and the others aren't.

They only use it as a mirror for the binaries as far as I know, the source code is hosted on their own forgejo instance.

 

[Bladexdsl]

What else do you think emulators are used for?

for running games over 9000 times better than their original pathetic tablet could in the first place!

 

[NinStar]

except that those emulators are used for 99.999% piracy

I don't know anyone who plays their legal copies and dumped firmware of the console on an emulator, so yes... it's used for piracy.

It's quite interesting that you guys keep saying this, but as another user already pointed out, do you have to data to backup your claims?

Also, if they are so concerned about piracy, why haven't they done anything about the countless sites literally distributing their keys for anyone to use? Some have been running for almost 5 years.

 

[eriols]

Nintendo switch games deserve to die with switch if Nintendo doesn't want to preserve it via emulation.

 

[realtimesave]

meh I just buy modchips from aliexpress and solder them into original hardware and game. I've managed to smuggle in plenty. emulators are great though for preservation. I hope people continue to update 'em til the end of the console's life.

 

[8BitWonder]

What else do you think emulators are used for? other than running 100% piracy software. It’s not as though you can say they are used for homebrew purposes

I've literally used emu's for debugging / prototyping homebrew before putting it on real hardware.

Obviously the number of folks using emu's for piracy is much higher, but we do exist lol

 

[MarkDarkness]

Just stop, Nintendo... stop making me feel ashamed of having invested so much money into your brand during most of my life (but no more).

 

[Xzi]

Well that's one way to give free advertisement to emulators that most people wouldn't have known about otherwise.

 

[chrisrlink]

their mindset is flawed Virtual machines is emulation, hell also their own NSO apps if this goes before the scotus (I doubt it will end this way though) i hope they even ban nintendo from using emulators meaning removing one feature of NSO

 

[RyanTheArchivist]

My very own message to all the Nin's legals:

Interesting

Post automatically merged: Feb 15, 2026

View attachment 556857​

Nintendo has yet again issued a series of DMCA takedowns across GitHub that specfically target popular Nintendo Switch emulators. Nintendo's reasoning is to protect its copyrighted IP and prevent unauthorized distribution.

It's common knowledge that most emulators worth their weight do not themselves include any cryptographic keys - with most requiring users provide their own. However, Nintendo has previously insisted that such emulators facilitate copyright infringement rather than claiming them to be illegal as such, and as of now, no court has formally ruled that using or distributing emulators without games violates copyright.

Of course, emulators offer many benefits rather than simply "facilitating piracy". One of the big ones, being of course; game preservation - allowing future generations to experience games that might no longer be available for purchase or that have been delisted. Emulators can also be a great help to users with accessiblity needs, providing alternate input options for those that need it.

What do you think? Is Nintendo justified in its crusade against emulators or should they take a step back?

Source

I mean.... the big thing here is all of these emulators are either based on Yuzu or Ryujinx and one was forced down due to a lawsuit and the other a legal agreement. Technically they are in their legal rights here. Now if a brand new emulator popped up from scratch and followed all the safety steps required then that would be where they would be stuck. Though technically with Ryujinx we don't know the situation just they came to an agreement.

 

[LokeYourLord]

Well that's one way to give free advertisement to emulators that most people wouldn't have known about otherwise.

The Streisand effect really keeps showing up more often the bigger they are, huh?

 

[Vixi]

While I agree with your point, something being used for piracy is enough to make it illegal under copyright law.

Are tweezers and paperclips illegal?