Nintendo’s Legal Team Goes After Yuzu Emulator, Files Lawsuit
As beloved as Nintendo is among its fans and the general gaming community, the Japanese entertainment giant doesn’t play around when it comes to protecting its intellectual property, keeping an iron grip around its hardware and software products whenever it can. With that in mind, the company recently filed a lawsuit against the makers of “Yuzu,” a Nintendo Switch emulation software.
The lawsuit was filed against Tropic Haze (the group that’s responsible for Yuzu), which is headed by a person known as “Bunnei” who is believed to be in charge of development of the emulator. The contents of the lawsuit have been posted online, and can be viewed here.
That being said, Nintendo is pushing for the court to shutdown the emulator, and to sue for damages. While emulation apps in themselves aren’t illegal per se, Nintendo says that most ROM download sites point people toward Yuzu in order to play their software copies. Part of Nintendo’s lawsuit reads:
“With Yuzu in hand, nothing stops a user from obtaining and playing unlawfulcopies of virtually any game made for the Nintendo Switch, all without paying a dime to Nintendo or to any of the hundreds of other game developers and publishers making and sellinggames for the Nintendo Switch. In effect, Yuzu turns general computing devices into tools formassive intellectual property infringement of Nintendo and others’ copyrighted works”
Nintendo also alleges that the availability of Yuzu allowed people to play the Legend of Zelda: Tears of the Kingdom in advance, nearly half a month before the game’s actual release date, in effect impacting the overall sales of the game.
Source: Polygon