Nintendo Shutting Down Ryujinx Emulator?!

[TrepieGroupie#1]

Ryujinx is a Nintendo Switch Emulator, earlier this year Nintendo also shut down Yuzu Emulator.

My friend passed me this.:

 

[Deadgar64]

Oh dear

 

[Shigeru_Miyamoto]

I'm sorry guys the ninja's have gone rogue.

 

[Settyness]

Time for a fork!

Unfortunately, however, it looks like the GitHub is down: https://github.com/Ryujinx/Ryujinx

Yuzu and Citra didn't surprise me much, as both projects were taking money on the side on Patreon and Google Play respectively. Ryujinx also has Patreon, so that may be part of the problem. There's nothing inherently illegal about emulators, provided they're not supplying decryption keys or workarounds for DRM (per the DMCA). Taking money on the side may complicate things, however.

 

[Gorse]

Taking money on the side may complicate things, however.

This is why I can't take any of these emulators' sides in these scuffles. I love emulation, and the effort these devs put into their work is truly admirable, but they have to know that accepting money is going to get them in trouble. Even if it isn't technically "illegal" (a moot point, since Nintendo can DMCA them at their leisure and any attempt to take the emulator teams to court will result in said groups immediately disbanding), publicly requesting financial compensation for software that violates Nintendo's IP is a really, really stupid idea.

They can argue fair use on the internet until they're blue in the face, but Switch and 3DS games are still very much under copyright, and any attempts to subvert that will be met with legal action as soon as Nintendo is aware of them. (Corporations are actually required to do this, or else they set a precedent for others to exploit in the future.) For decades, the people who made emulators did their work anonymously and under-the-table – that's the only way things can continue if these teams want to avoid prosecution for what is essentially piracy.

 

[Settyness]

... publicly requesting financial compensation for software that violates Nintendo's IP is a really, really stupid idea.

Yup, and to be abundantly clear on this, Nintendo absolutely considered this when going after Yuzu (whose founder also heads Citra).

Nintendo Sues Makers of the Wildly Popular Yuzu Emulator

The Switch-maker alleges that Tropic Haze is “facilitating piracy at a colossal scale.”

www.wired.com

For instance, the lawsuit points to data showing that leaked copies of The Legend of Zelda: Tears of the Kingdom were downloaded 1 million times in the week and a half before the game's release, a time period that also saw "thousands of additional paid members" added to Yuzu's Patreon. Yuzu is "secondarily liable" for "inducing" this kind of infringement, Nintendo argues.

Nintendo 3DS emulator Citra taken offline as collateral damage in Yuzu lawsuit settlement

Yuzu's developers also founded Citra in 2014, forcing them to discontinue "Yuzu's support of Citra" after Nintendo lawsuit.

www.pcgamer.com

... and the Yuzu Patreon proved lucrative, eventually earning tens of thousands of dollars per month around the launch of The Legend of Zelda: Tears of the Kingdom in 2023.

They can argue fair use on the internet until they're blue in the face, but Switch and 3DS games are still very much under copyright, and any attempts to subvert that will be met with legal action as soon as Nintendo is aware of them.

Indeed even with the law technically on the emu developers' side, Nintendo has virtually infinite legal funds, which is all that matters in a pay-to-play legal system. The added recklessness of accepting money on the side opens the door for Nintendo to potentially upend decades of precedent and set emulation, and therefore preservation, back to square one.

 

[DJPlace]

this is just stupid IMO....

 

[Sayo]

Plenty of people don't contribute to these kinds of projects anymore because of passion but also because it might contribute to their portfolio and being tied to a project that has been under legal fire from Nintendo will not look good, which is one reason as to why progress might slow down from now on even if forked.

 

[It's Thinking 2]

I'm sure someone will have a good Switch emulator up and running midway through the Switch 2's lifespan. Nintendo won't be as focused on Switch 1 as Switch 2. By then I'm sure there will be Switch 2 emulators in their earliest stages getting shut down left and right. I mean you gotta expect that for current systems.

 

[lucasgvse]

I have that Suyu installed on my PC. Prople will keep finding their way of bring these emulators back or keep sharing them somehow, altough it's sad for the team and bad for players if they need support. :/