Nintendo takes action against Yuzu and piracy

While there will always be a section of players who feel that emulators are a great way to play games from the past, the fact that the technology involved can be used to enjoy the latest titles will always be controversial. For a company like Nintendo, that can mean a loss of profits and a hit to their branding, which is probably why the gaming giant has filed a lawsuit against Tropic Haze, the creator of the popular Nintendo Switch emulator, Yuzu.

As spotted by Game File’s Stephen Totilo, the lawsuit claims that both the emulator and its creator are “fully aware of the use of Yuzu by others in performing circumvention, and in facilitating piracy at a colossal scale.” The company further adds that “one recent major Nintendo video game, The Legend of Zelda: Tears of the Kingdom, was unlawfully distributed a week and a half before its release by Nintendo,” and that “those copies were successfully downloaded from pirate websites over one million times.”

Those numbers are certainly staggering, and from a business standpoint, it would appear that Nintendo would have plenty to gain from the shutdown of the emulator and its technology, which in its current form, is able to play Nintendo Switch games on Windows, Linux, and even Android systems.

“With Yuzu in hand, nothing stops a user from obtaining and playing unlawful copies 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 selling games for the Nintendo Switch,” the company continued. “In effect, Yuzu turns general computing devices into tools for massive intellectual property infringement of Nintendo and others’ copyrighted works.”

Nintendo is asking the courts to not only shut down the emulator, but also to be awarded damages from the fallout.