Directly after Nintendo launched legal action against the Nintendo Switch emulation software Yuzu, alternatives have already started appearing online.
Yuzu has made it possible for users to play Nintendo Switch games on PC, and it was revealed last week Nintendo has filed a lawsuit against Tropic Haze, the company behind it. At the time, Nintendo claimed that the emulator “gives any internet user in the world the means to illegally crack and play almost any Nintendo Switch game – including Nintendo’s current generation and most popular games – without paying a single dime for the Nintendo console or the game.” It added that “there is no legal way to use the Yuzu to play Nintendo Switch games,” in part because it has to decrypt the game’s encryption in order to function.
Yesterday, March 4th, it was confirmed to be Tropic Haze will pay Nintendo a $2.4 million settlement, and in a statement the emulation company said the team has “always been against piracy” and “we were deeply disappointed when users used our software to leak game content before its release.” They hope that taking the software offline “will be a small step toward ending piracy of all copyrighted works.”
However, that hasn’t stopped an influx of new emulation software popping up across social media and beyond in an attempt to take Yuzu’s place, some of which were seemingly uploaded just hours after Yuzu’s shutdown was announced. Tropic Haze has not publicly commented on this at the time of writing.
Although many emulators are advertised as legal, it’s worth noting that Nintendo’s official stance is firmly against emulation of any kind. Frequently asked questions about intellectual property and piracy pagethe company states: “While we recognize the passion players have for classic games, supporting emulation also supports the illegal piracy of our products. Wherever possible, Nintendo and its licensees try to find ways to bring legitimate classics to current systems (via Virtual Console titles, for example).”
It also adds that you’re not supposed to back up games you own, so the problem extends beyond people being able to access games they haven’t paid for. “There is some misinformation on the Internet regarding this backup/archive exception. This is a very narrow limitation that extends to computer software. Video games comprise many types of copyrighted works and should not be categorized as software alone,” he explains. Nintendo.
“Therefore, the provisions relating to backups would not apply to copyrighted video game works, and in particular to ROM downloads, which are usually unauthorized and infringing.”
With that in mind, it seems likely that Nintendo could also take legal action against these new emulators, although it remains to be seen how long that will take.
If you are looking for some new games to play on Nintendo’s current generation console, you can check out our list the best Nintendo Switch games.