Nintendo recently issued a major DMCA takedown notice to GitHub, targeting over 8,500 repositories containing clones of the popular Nintendo Switch emulator Yuzu. This mass takedown wiped out a huge network of repositories related to playing Switch games on PC via emulation.
The DMCA notice claims that these Yuzu emulator repositories enable piracy of Nintendo Switch games by bypassing the console’s technological protection measures. Nintendo states that Yuzu specifically allows users to play pirated copies of popular Switch titles like The Legend of Zelda: Tears of the Kingdom.
Nintendo has been battling Yuzu and Switch emulation for years, even suing the developers of Yuzu earlier in 2024. That lawsuit settled for $2.4 million, with Yuzu agreeing to stop distribution and destroy all copies. But Nintendo is still fighting to eliminate all traces of the emulator code.
The core issue is that Yuzu relies on decrypted game keys to run Switch titles on PC. Nintendo says this violates the DMCA’s anti-circumvention rules. Even though Yuzu itself did not contain the Switch’s private keys, it did have code to generate title keys for games.
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Nintendo previously sued over instructions on Yuzu’s site that explained how to dump cryptographic keys from a Switch using a separate tool. The company also alleged that illegal copies of Zelda were playable on Yuzu before release and downloaded over 1 million times.
Even with the takedown of over 8,500 repositories, Yuzu’s code and influence persist. Nintendo’s popularity and software protections almost ensure that emulators will be created and distributed. Successors like Sudachi have removed some of the legally questionable code but still enable Switch emulation. As long as eager Nintendo fans want to play Switch exclusives on their PCs, emulation will endure.
What do you think of Nintendo DMCAing Switch emulators? Leave a comment and let us know.
One thing developers still cannot seem to understand, is that people who PIRATE a game or movie would NOT have PAID to see that movie or play that game.
So basically, fighting piracy equates not to protecting your copyrights, but rather to punishing people who dare have fun with their products without permission. Even the word ‘piracy’ is complete propaganda, since the company in question literally loses no profits nor property from the practice.
Downloading a movie or hacking a game is not ‘stealing’, and never has been.