How Nintendo's Destruction of Yuzu Is Rocking the Emulator World (theverge.com) 33
An anonymous reader quotes a report from The Verge: When Nintendo sued the developers of Yuzu out of existence on March 4th, it wasn't just an attack on the leading way to play Nintendo Switch games without a Switch. It was a warning to anyone building a video game emulator. Seven developers have now stepped away from projects, are shutting them down, or have left the emulation scene entirely. Of those that remain, many are circling the wagons, getting quieter and more careful, trying not to paint targets on their backs. Four developers declined to talk to The Verge, telling me they didn't want to draw attention. One even tried to delete answers to my questions after we'd begun, suddenly scared of attracting press.
Not everyone is so afraid. Four other emulator teams tell me they're optimistic Nintendo won't challenge them, that they're on strong legal footing, and that Yuzu may have been an unusually incriminating case. One decade-long veteran tells me everyone's just a bit more worried. But when I point out that Nintendo didn't have to prove a thing in court, they all admit they don't have money for lawyers. They say they'd probably be forced to roll over, like Yuzu, if the Japanese gaming giant came knocking. "I would do what I'd have to do," the most confident of the four tells me. "I would want to fight it... but at the same time, I know we exist because we don't antagonize Nintendo."
There's a new meme where Yuzu is the mythical Hydra: cut off one head, and two more take its place. It's partly true in how multiple forks of Yuzu (and 3DS emulator Citra) sprung up shortly after their predecessors died: Suyu, Sudachi, Lemonade, and Lime are a few of the public names. But they're not giving Nintendo the middle finger: they're treating Nintendo's lawsuit like a guidebook about how not to piss off the company. In its legal complaint, Nintendo claimed Yuzu was "facilitating piracy at a colossal scale," giving users "detailed instructions" on how to "get it running with unlawful copies of Nintendo Switch games," among other things. Okay, no more guides, say the Switch emulator developers who spoke to me. They also say they're stripping out some parts of Yuzu that made it easier to play pirated games. As Ars Technica reported, a forked version called Suyu will require you to bring the firmware, title.keys, and prod.keys from your Switch before you can decrypt and play Nintendo games. Only one of those was technically required before. (Never mind that most people don't have an easily hackable first-gen Switch and would likely download these things off the net.) The developer of another fork tells me he plans to do something similar, making users "fend for yourself" by making sure the code doesn't auto-generate any keys.
Most developers I spoke to are also trying to make it clear they aren't profiting at Nintendo's expense. One who initially locked early access builds behind a donation page has stopped doing that, making them publicly available on GitHub instead. The leader of another project tells me nothing will ever be paywalled, and for now, there's "strictly no donation," either. When I ask about the Dolphin Emulator, which faced a minor challenge from Nintendo last year, I'm told it publicly exposes its tiny nonprofit budget for anyone to scrutinize. But I don't know that these steps are enough to prevent Nintendo from throwing around its weight again, particularly when it comes to emulating the Nintendo Switch, its primary moneymaker. Since Yuzu's shut down, a slew of other emulators left the scene. The include (as highlighted by The Verge):
- The Citra emulator for Nintendo 3DS is gone
- The Pizza Boy emulators for Nintendo Game Boy Advance and Game Boy Color are gone
- The Drastic emulator for Nintendo DS is free for now and will be removed
- The lead developer of Yuzu and Citra has stepped away from emulation
- The lead developer of Strato, a Switch emulator, has stepped away from emulation
- Dynarmic, used to speed up various emulators including Yuzu, has abruptly ended development
- One contributor on Ryujinx, a Switch emulator, has stepped away from the project
- AetherSX2, a PS2 emulator, is finally gone (mostly unrelated; development was suspended a year ago)
Not everyone is so afraid. Four other emulator teams tell me they're optimistic Nintendo won't challenge them, that they're on strong legal footing, and that Yuzu may have been an unusually incriminating case. One decade-long veteran tells me everyone's just a bit more worried. But when I point out that Nintendo didn't have to prove a thing in court, they all admit they don't have money for lawyers. They say they'd probably be forced to roll over, like Yuzu, if the Japanese gaming giant came knocking. "I would do what I'd have to do," the most confident of the four tells me. "I would want to fight it... but at the same time, I know we exist because we don't antagonize Nintendo."
There's a new meme where Yuzu is the mythical Hydra: cut off one head, and two more take its place. It's partly true in how multiple forks of Yuzu (and 3DS emulator Citra) sprung up shortly after their predecessors died: Suyu, Sudachi, Lemonade, and Lime are a few of the public names. But they're not giving Nintendo the middle finger: they're treating Nintendo's lawsuit like a guidebook about how not to piss off the company. In its legal complaint, Nintendo claimed Yuzu was "facilitating piracy at a colossal scale," giving users "detailed instructions" on how to "get it running with unlawful copies of Nintendo Switch games," among other things. Okay, no more guides, say the Switch emulator developers who spoke to me. They also say they're stripping out some parts of Yuzu that made it easier to play pirated games. As Ars Technica reported, a forked version called Suyu will require you to bring the firmware, title.keys, and prod.keys from your Switch before you can decrypt and play Nintendo games. Only one of those was technically required before. (Never mind that most people don't have an easily hackable first-gen Switch and would likely download these things off the net.) The developer of another fork tells me he plans to do something similar, making users "fend for yourself" by making sure the code doesn't auto-generate any keys.
Most developers I spoke to are also trying to make it clear they aren't profiting at Nintendo's expense. One who initially locked early access builds behind a donation page has stopped doing that, making them publicly available on GitHub instead. The leader of another project tells me nothing will ever be paywalled, and for now, there's "strictly no donation," either. When I ask about the Dolphin Emulator, which faced a minor challenge from Nintendo last year, I'm told it publicly exposes its tiny nonprofit budget for anyone to scrutinize. But I don't know that these steps are enough to prevent Nintendo from throwing around its weight again, particularly when it comes to emulating the Nintendo Switch, its primary moneymaker. Since Yuzu's shut down, a slew of other emulators left the scene. The include (as highlighted by The Verge):
- The Citra emulator for Nintendo 3DS is gone
- The Pizza Boy emulators for Nintendo Game Boy Advance and Game Boy Color are gone
- The Drastic emulator for Nintendo DS is free for now and will be removed
- The lead developer of Yuzu and Citra has stepped away from emulation
- The lead developer of Strato, a Switch emulator, has stepped away from emulation
- Dynarmic, used to speed up various emulators including Yuzu, has abruptly ended development
- One contributor on Ryujinx, a Switch emulator, has stepped away from the project
- AetherSX2, a PS2 emulator, is finally gone (mostly unrelated; development was suspended a year ago)
Don't make an emulator of Current Products (Score:4, Interesting)
Products that are no longer sold can have emulators sold on the open market https://www.amazon.com/mame-ar... [amazon.com]
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https://gamesarcadia.com.au/pr... [gamesarcadia.com.au]
Built-in 60000 Game For PSP/PS1/NES/N64/NDS 20000 3D Games For Free -pretty sure it looks like a retro Nintendo machine
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Products that are no longer sold can have emulators sold on the open market https://www.amazon.com/mame-ar... [amazon.com]
Those products all paid licensing fees to whomever owns the underlying IP. You can find examples where the IP owner decides to be a dick. I'll call out everyone's least favorite, EA, and point out that you can't legally get the SNES version of Sim City on modern hardware via any sales channel that I'm aware of. Of course, there are "gray" options to play it, but you won't find it in the Wii store [mynintendonews.com] and there's no (legal) packaged emulator for it on Amazon.
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I highly doubt they pay license fees.
It's more that of they get closed down they'll open a new Amazon store.
The bundler can disappear and pop back up and doesn't really have high effort. It's also their job, not their hobby.
Re:Don't make an emulator of FUTURE products (Score:5, Informative)
One of Nintendo's major Switch releases for 2023: Legend of Zelda Tears of the Kingdom was leaked weeks before it went on sale. That was a separate piracy issue and shouldn't have affected Yuzu development.
And it wouldn't have if the Yuzu devs hadn't majorly fucked up. The release versions (both public and patreon) of Yuzu would not properly play the leaked LoZ TotK game, so they *acquired* their own pirated copy so that they could fix their emulator. After they implemented the fixes, they then kept it behind the patreon backer paywall for a period of time, as they did with all of their initial patches.
Nintendo was able to demonstrate that Tropic Haze, the Yuzu developer's incorporated company, made money by specifically patching their emulator to work with a game that wasn't yet released. Legally, they were making money by furthering piracy.
From their, it's anyone's speculation as to what happened. Nintendo was able to get all of their Discord messages and Tropic Haze folded amazingly fast, so it's likely that the devs passed that copy of LoZ TotK around to each other so that they could implement those fixes. It's also likely that they had pirated more than just that game. Regardless, Tropic Haze settlement tells us that they really didn't want to come close to a courtroom.
Re:Don't make an emulator of Current Products (Score:4, Informative)
That's not what caused the issue for Yuzu, as I understand the legal situation. It's the fact that they were making money out of it.
If it is done as just a hobby project with no donations or other commercial interests, there wouldn't be a lot Nintendo could do. That's why there were only able to remove Dolphin (Gamecube and Wii emulator) from Steam, but not get the project itself taken down entirely where it is available for free. Like Yuzu, it relies on Nintendo encryption keys that the user must provide.
Yuzu had a Patreon, with exclusive features for users who paid.
Don't make an emulator of Nintendo products. (Score:4, Insightful)
Let Nintendo's products become forgotten about over time. And don't buy their current products because of the way they treated Yuzu. The only winning move is not to play [Nintendo].
Re:Don't make an emulator of Nintendo products. (Score:4, Insightful)
Exactly. Just like people should stop buying from Amazon because of how they treat their employees. Look at how well that's worked out.
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Don't concern yourself with things you cannot control. Be the change you want to see in the world. I stopped and I got my wife to stop, which was a huge accomplishment. She would buy several things a week when we met. Now she shops local. Unfortunately, I cannot get to her stop shopping entirely.
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I suppose that if you really want to make sure that you avoid any gaming company which has ever done anything wrong then you could stick to indie games on the PC. As long as you avoid the ones base
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Yeah... Nail in the coffin for me (Score:1, Informative)
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I find most of their games too simplistic to enjoy, but my wife, kids, and extended family feel they offer a nice balance of fun and challenge.
The Wii didn't print money because it targeted the typical gamer who would visit Slashdot.
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Get mad and even (Score:1)
Yuzu should "accidentally" leak the emulator source code online as an F. U. to Nintendo. Cheap knockoffs will then fly out of the 3rd world.
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Hyperbolic title (Score:1)
People got so brazen with emulation that they even started profiting off of it.
It'll just go back to the status quo of the past 30 years, a world where you don't poke the dragon.
Re: Hyperbolic title (Score:2)
All emulators were pay for in the beginning, it took NESticle to change some of that, being the first free (and high compatibility) emulator. Then came Bleem! which Sony sued and lost, showing that emulators are legal, free or paid didn't matter. Paid and Patreon supported emulators have been around for over 15 years now.
This was only because Nintendo tried to sue based on a unique angle (being them talking about supporting a pirated
Re: Hyperbolic title (Score:2)
First NES emulator came in in 1990 (Famicom more exactly), seven years before NESticle. And it wasn't the only one.
Now, I can't find a listing of payment options here, but it does point out that NESticle was one of the first freeware emulators, which does indicate that others were paid for.
Nintendo defending it's profit margin... (Score:2)
Nothing to see here - A company is simply stopping people undercutting its sales with illegal copies - it's why they won so easily
Emulate the current hardware, or hardware that can play current games ... and Nintendo will do the same .... and Nintendo won't be bothered
Emulate the obsolete hardware to play obsolete games only
When has a video game emulator been legal.... (Score:2)
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Brewers know people do horrible things when consuming their product. They can't claim they are innocent.
Car makers know their cars can be used as deadly weapons. They can't claim they are innocent.
Camera makers know stalkers will use their equipment to break the law. They can't claim they are innocent.
Microsoft and Apple operating systems are used to commit cyber crimes. They can't claim they are innocent.
Actually, they can; because it ultimately is up to how the end user themselves uses the product. They t
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I've done homebrew development on old game systems, using open-source toolkits (gcc), and using emulators for testing purposes. As long as the maker of the emulator is not distributing pirate copies of games, there is no "gray area", this is a perfectly legal thing to do.
Re: If we boycott Nintendo maybe they will back of (Score:1)
Emulators have legitimate use! (Score:1)