Yuzu is a free and open-source emulator released in 2018 by Tropic Haze. Developed in the C++ programming language, this emulator allows users to play exclusive games on the Nintendo Switch system on Windows, Linux, and Android operating systems.
On February 26, 2024, Nintendo filed a lawsuit against Tropic Haze LLC, the legal entity behind the development of Yuzu, in the United States District Court for the District of Rhode Island, seeking legal action against the developers of this Nintendo Switch emulator.
The main content of the lawsuit revolves around Nintendo's claim that the development of the Yuzu emulator is an wrongful act, providing means for users to engage in piracy. This has somewhat impacted Nintendo's revenue and needs to be immediately terminated:
"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. In effect, Yuzu turns general computing devices into tools formassive intellectual property infringement of Nintendo and others’ copyrighted works." - Nintendo's lawsuit against the makers of the Switch emulator
In the lawsuit, Nintendo also referenced an event that occurred prior to the release date of its exclusive action-adventure game on the Nintendo Switch system titled The Legend of Zelda: Tears of the Kingdom. The game is a sequel to the popular game The Legend of Zelda: Breath of The Wild, which won the prestigious Game of The Year award at The Game Awards in 2017. According to Nintendo, a week and a half before the release date, a copy of The Legend of Zelda: Tears of the Kingdom was leaked and immediately data-mined and used by millions of users on the Yuzu emulator software:
"As another example, recently, Nintendo published the already-acclaimed Nintendo Switch title The Legend of Zelda: Tears of the Kingdom (“ Zelda: TotK ”) and made it available for play on May 12, 2023. However, full copies of the game ROM began to becirculated online on May 1, 2023. Because Zelda: TotK had yet to be released to the public,every copy in circulation was undoubtedly a pirated copy and every user who possessed a copyhad not lawfully purchased the game." - Nintendo's lawsuit against the makers of the Switch emulator.
On the morning of March 5, 2024, the Yuzu development team decided to abandon the fight and surrender by settling the lawsuit with Nintendo. The developers of Yuzu will pay damages totaling 2.4 million USD and, accordingly, transfer the domain name yuzu-emu.org to Nintendo. With this decision, the Yuzu emulator officially ceases development. Consequently, Citra - a 3DS emulator, will also cease development activities according to Bunmei - the developer of Citra, as announced on their official Discord channel:
Hello yuz-ers and Citra fans:
We write today to inform you that yuzu and yuzu's support of Citra are being discontinued, effective immediately. Yuzu and its team have always been against piracy. We started the projects in good faith, out of passion for Nintendo and its consoles and games, and were not intending to cause harm. But we see now that because our projects can circumvent Nintendo's technological protection measures and allow users to play games outside of authorized hardware, they have led to extensive piracy. In particular, we have been deeply disappointed when users have used our software to leak game content prior to its release and ruin the experience for legitimate purchasers and fans. We have come to the decision that we cannot continue to allow this to occur. Piracy was never our intention, and we believe that piracy of video games and on video game consoles should end. Effective today, we will be pulling our code repositories offline, discontinuing our Patreon accounts and Discord servers, and, soon, shutting down our websites. We hope our actions will be a small step toward ending piracy of all creators' works. Thank you for your years of support and for understanding our decision.
Bunmei - the developer of Citra
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