The Rise and Fall of YuZu
Yuzu is (or was) one of the most popular Nintendo Switch emulators out on the web. There’s something to be said though about shining a bit too bright, as now they’ve caught the ire on Nintendo. Last month the company sued the developers, Tropic Haze, for facilitating piracy at a colossal scale.
YuZu Vs. Others like Dolphin Emulator
Now, what does that mean? We saw the makers of Dolphin Emulation get into some hot water last year which led to them pulling the release of the emulator from Steam and that included the keys needed to play games. Yuzu, on the other hand, doesn’t have that. It makes you (presumably) spoof the key from your own switch or realistically find one online. This was what Topic Haze trying to evade a piracy argument. But Nintendo is saying that providing a software which can utilize such keys in general is also piracy.
The End of Nintendo Switch Emulators?
The court agreed with Nintendo, and so now Tropic Haze not only need to surrender its domain name but cease work on all tools, features and social media that would promote Yuzu or help others make tools like the emulator. This also applies to Citra which was their 3ds emulation software. Oh yeah, almost forgot, they also need to pay a fine of $2.4 million! It may sound harsh but Nintendo has said that they can confirm Tears of the Kingdom, the latest Legend of Zelda had over 1 million copies pirated. Think about how big the fine might have been if they charged them for every title since Yuzu’s initial release back in 2018.
It makes sense why they folded so fast. In their wake, there’s been a swift rise in other Switch emulators but if this teaches us anything it’s that they should be wary, because Nintendo plays for keeps.