News Nintendo v. Yuzu Lawsuit: Yuzu agrees to pay $2.4 million to settle, Yuzu and Citra emulators shutting down

[Dardan Sandiego]

Staff Communication

Hey folks, since previous threads about this topic quickly turned inflammatory and unproductive we have decided to reboot the discussion on the Nintendo v. Yuzu lawsuit. However, to ensure both the legal safety of the site and the well-being of our users, we will set a few ground rules that will be strictly enforced. Users who do not adhere to these rules will receive a thread ban. In more severe cases we will hand out site bans.

• Admission and advocacy of piracy of currently available games will not be tolerated. Linking to pirated content in any form is also not allowed. Please refer to the site rules as well as this recent staff post.
• Avoid discussions about the morality of piracy as they quickly veer into advocacy of piracy which is in conflict with our site rules. This includes making moralistic judgments about people who engage in piracy as they often devolve into classist rhetoric.
• Do not equate piracy with emulation. While we acknowledge that both are inextricably tied to each other, we would like for people to avoid generalizations and unfounded accusations.
• Be respectful of each other and do not resort to personal attacks.

Since this is a continuation of the previous thread warnings and thread bans will carry over here. Please be mindful of the guidelines while you discuss.

Switch emulator Yuzu shuts down as creator agrees to pay Nintendo $2.4m

Tropical Haze, the developer of open-source Switch emulator Yuzu, has agreed to pay $2.4m in damages to Nintendo and ce…

www.eurogamer.net

Tropical Haze, the developer of open-source Switch emulator Yuzu, has agreed to pay $2.4m in damages to Nintendo and cease all operations in response to the Mario maker's recent lawsuit.

[...]

"Defendant [Tropic Haze] is thus secondarily liable for the infringement committed by the users to whom it distributes Yuzu", Nintendo's lawyers argued, with the lawsuit ultimately seeking damages and demanding the emulator be shut down.

[...]

Additionally, Tropic Haze faces a permanent injunction preventing it from "offering to the public, providing, marketing, advertising, promoting, selling, testing, hosting, cloning, distributing, or otherwise trafficking in Yuzu or any source code or features of Yuzu", as well as "other software or devices that circumvent Nintendo's technical protection measures". This means the Yuzu team's 3DS emulator Citra will also be withdrawn.

 

[Dardan Sandiego]

New thread is now open.

 

[Bonejack]

With how quickly the whole situation ended, i guess the laywer the Yuzu devs hired saw the evidence against them and simply told them to play along.

Guess everyone benefits from this not going to an actual court, huh?

 

[TreeSign]

I still see the thread derailing and becoming inflammatory like it did last time. Requesting the thread be shut down.

 

[Imitatio]

I still see the thread derailing and becoming inflammatory like it did last time. Requesting the thread be shut down.

I'd suggest either using the Report button, then, or posting here instead: https://famiboards.com/threads/moderation-feedback-2023-2024-please-read-op.7903/latest

 

[BassForever]

With how quickly the whole situation ended, i guess the laywer the Yuzu devs hired saw the evidence against them and simply told them to play along.

Guess everyone benefits from this not going to an actual court, huh?

Absolutely, whatever small win people think the emulation community COULD have gotten here if they went all the way doesn't offset the damage if they had lost badly. With all the evidence we've seen, it seems very unlikely Yuzu would have won.

 

[Aether]

For the greater emulation community this is the better solution. (And in Nintendo's interest, setting a sign without risking the chance to fail and opening the floodgates)

Still not a great outcome that citra is done for.
Unlike switch that will probably be accessible through backwards compatibility, 3DS doesn't have that option.

 

[shoptroll]

This is probably the best possible outcome for all parties. Chances are that Yuzu's lawyer looked at the case, looked at the opponent and told their client they had a snowball's chance in hell of winning and to just take the L.

As someone who used to check regularly for new ZSNES and SNES9x releases during the N64/PS1 era it's been absolutely wild to see an emulator out there for a system that was actively being sold and supported by the manufacturer. Equally surprising is that they had a Patreon up for the project.

Still not a great outcome that citra is done for.
Unlike switch that will probably be accessible through backwards compatibility, 3DS doesn't have that option.

Something else will come along in the future. That's practically guaranteed given the OSS nature and the emulation community.

 

[Lozjam]

It's going to be quite crazy that the only way to play 3DS games will be to track down a physical copy(if they even had a physical copy). It's a huge shame that a whole library is going to vanish off the face of the earth. So many great games:
A Link Between Worlds
Mario 3D Land
Mariokart 7
All of the Pokemon games(Pokémon X and Y is a baffling one now that with ZA coming out).
Kid Icarus Uprising
Bravely Default
And so many more.

All because a few developers flew too close to the sun. My 3DS is on its last legs, especially considering mobile tech doesn't tend to last as long as home consoles. I was considering on dumping my small collection that I have left, and playing on actually usable hardware. But I guess that isn't going happen now.

I really think the emulation community should learn from this, and kind of make a code to not do current hardware. I don't think it helps with anyone, including emulation enthusiasts, Nintendo, preservationists, general gamers, and yeah, even pirates too. I don't think it's a good situation for nearly anyone involved.

The Switch situation was definitely lightning in a bottle though. I think a Switch 2 emulator will be so much harder to pull off due to specs and feature set. So it may not be able to happen again.

 

[Aether]

As someone who used to check regularly for new ZSNES and SNES9x releases during the N64/PS1 era it's been absolutely wild to see an emulator out there for a system that was actively being sold and supported by the manufacturer. Equally surprising is that they had a Patreon up for the project.

Yeah, not Nintendos distance to current available computing power and more standardized and open hardware specifications, + better connected communities and publicly available dokumentation Made it possible. (And way better tools for development and analysing)

Something else will come along in the future. That's practically guaranteed given the OSS nature and the emulation community.

O for sure, but this will cool down the development for quite some time, and the people that pick it up in the future will need some time to get into it.

 

[Paxie]

It's going to be quite crazy that the only way to play 3DS games will be to track down a physical copy(if they even had a physical copy). It's a huge shame that a whole library is going to vanish off the face of the earth. So many great games:
A Link Between Worlds
Mario 3D Land
Mariokart 7
All of the Pokemon games(Pokémon X and Y is a baffling one now that with ZA coming out).
Kid Icarus Uprising
Bravely Default
And so many more.

All because a few developers flew too close to the sun. My 3DS is on its last legs, especially considering mobile tech doesn't tend to last as long as home consoles. I was considering on dumping my small collection that I have left, and playing on actually usable hardware. But I guess that isn't going happen now.

I really think the emulation community should learn from this, and kind of make a code to not do current hardware. I don't think it helps with anyone, including emulation enthusiasts, Nintendo, preservationists, general gamers, and yeah, even pirates too. I don't think it's a good situation for nearly anyone involved.

The Switch situation was definitely lightning in a bottle though. I think a Switch 2 emulator will be so much harder to pull off due to specs and feature set. So it may not be able to happen again.

Eh, Citra was open source, so someone can create a fork that's the original but wearing Groucho Marx glasses, same with Yuzu. On emulating the Switch 2, I feel the use of DLSS is going to be the bigger obstacle. I'm not a big technical person wrt the guts of emulators, but wouldn't that on its own make emulation difficult, along with requiring an NVIDIA GPU?

 

[Mer.Saloon]

Citra as was could run most if not all 3DS games in it's current iteration fine, it's not like it'll stop working. It's the loss of the multiplayer that is the biggest blow.

 

[BassForever]

Eh, Citra was open source, so someone can create a fork that's the original but wearing Groucho Marx glasses, same with Yuzu. On emulating the Switch 2, I feel the use of DLSS is going to be the bigger obstacle. I'm not a big technical person wrt the guts of emulators, but wouldn't that on its own make emulation difficult, along with requiring an NVIDIA GPU?

It might be open sourced, but I think it's way too risky, especially with Nintendo on the prowl. If any one fork gets too big, it'll draw the ire of Nintendo. If there are dozens of small forks, it's not convenient for anyone.

 

[Lozjam]

Eh, Citra was open source, so someone can create a fork that's the original but wearing Groucho Marx glasses, same with Yuzu. On emulating the Switch 2, I feel the use of DLSS is going to be the bigger obstacle. I'm not a big technical person wrt the guts of emulators, but wouldn't that on its own make emulation difficult, along with requiring an NVIDIA GPU?

Yeah, emulating a modern chip like that could be close to impossible with today's tech. Having a system with an instance of DLSS is going to be, probably bonkers hard. Kind of like Cell computing in the PS3. They wouldn't be able to just use Nvidia drivers too most likely, so emulators will probably have to come up with their own version of DLSS or like a translation layer to get things to run.

Not to mention, if Switch 2 has 16 gigabytes of ram, you probably would need like 32 gigs of ram to properly emulate it. And that's not even considering that it will be a pretty powerful chip on the CPU and GPU side to emulate. That's the reason why you don't even see PS4 emulators working nowadays.

 

[WonderLuigi]

I'm glad I got Citra running on Deck before this mess happened.

 

[hologram]

One thing I find bizarre and troubling about the outcome of this case is that Nintendo and Yuzu have asked a federal judge to agree to the following statement:

Developing or distributing software, including Yuzu, that in its ordinary course functions only when cryptographic keys are integrated without authorization, violates the Digital Millennium Copyright Act’s prohibition on trafficking in devices that circumvent effective technological measures, because the software is primarily designed for the purpose of circumventing technological measures.

(Source: The Verge)

There are two significant points to this:

1. It seems unusual to me that settling parties would ask a judge to make a statement on interpretation of law that would normally only come up in the course of an actual trial. Including this seemingly as part of the conditions to settle feels like Nintendo trying to create precedent without any court ruling. As far as I know, precedent can't be created without a court ruling, but it still concerns me that Nintendo appears to be trying to do so anyway.
2. Unless I am misunderstanding, any Switch game requires cryptographic keys to emulate, so the claim is that DMCA basically does not allow emulating Switch games at all, either now or in the future. That feels pretty alarming.

Thoughts?

 

[Mer.Saloon]

One thing I find bizarre and troubling about the outcome of this case is that Nintendo and Yuzu have asked a federal judge to agree to the following statement:

(Source: The Verge)

There are two significant points to this:

1. It seems unusual to me that settling parties would ask a judge to make a statement on interpretation of law that would normally only come up in the course of an actual trial. Including this seemingly as part of the conditions to settle feels like Nintendo trying to create precedent without any court ruling. As far as I know, precedent can't be created without a court ruling, but it still concerns me that Nintendo appears to be trying to do so anyway.
2. Unless I am misunderstanding, any Switch game requires cryptographic keys to emulate, so the claim is that DMCA basically does not allow emulating Switch games at all, either now or in the future. That feels pretty alarming.

Thoughts?

I would love clarification on this too. I saw statements in the other forum that a statement from the judge wouldn't set any actual precedent regardless, but I'm not lawyer enough to know why that is.

 

[Hailinel]

It's a judge's responsibility to approve the settlement. But approving the settlement isn't specifically an act that sets precedent. It's really more that the judge doesn't find anything about the settlement terms outlandish.

 

[Razgriz]

One thing I find bizarre and troubling about the outcome of this case is that Nintendo and Yuzu have asked a federal judge to agree to the following statement:

(Source: The Verge)

There are two significant points to this:

1. It seems unusual to me that settling parties would ask a judge to make a statement on interpretation of law that would normally only come up in the course of an actual trial. Including this seemingly as part of the conditions to settle feels like Nintendo trying to create precedent without any court ruling. As far as I know, precedent can't be created without a court ruling, but it still concerns me that Nintendo appears to be trying to do so anyway.
2. Unless I am misunderstanding, any Switch game requires cryptographic keys to emulate, so the claim is that DMCA basically does not allow emulating Switch games at all, either now or in the future. That feels pretty alarming.

Thoughts?

Pretty sure this is just how settlements work in the US from the ones I've seen in the past; the Verge is most likely reporting on nothing of note. When a case is settled, the parties don't literally settle the case privately; the case is a part of public record which means the judicial system decides on it.

What actually happens when someone settles is that both lawyers agree on a document containing the settlement conditions and charges (in this case, the settlement includes an admission of guilt) and that document then gets submitted to the judge with the request to make it the actual judgement. The judge then usually just approves that document verbatim and considers the case resolved. The judge could also reject the settlement and let it go to trial (usually doesn't happen) or add their own comments to the settlement while approving it (this tends to happen with frivolous lawsuits, where the judge tends to warn the Plaintiff to check respective law beforehand in the future).

It's generally understood that this doesn't actually create any relevant precedents for US common law (which the main worry for most people).

(General disclaimer that I am not a lawyer, and especially not yours.)

 

[Jersh]

Unless I am misunderstanding, any Switch game requires cryptographic keys to emulate, so the claim is that DMCA basically does not allow emulating Switch games at all, either now or in the future. That feels pretty alarming.

Yes, that's basically the state of US copyright law. Over in Blu-Ray land, there's no way to legally playback a Blu-Ray except through an authorized Blu-Ray player, as playing a digital backup requires circumventing the encryption. So things that you'd think should be nothing - like ripping a Blu-Ray to your private Plex server - are technically considered piracy.

I do not know if anyone's ever tried letting this go to court yet.

 

[hologram]

Pretty sure this is just how settlements work in the US from the ones I've seen in the past; the Verge is most likely reporting on nothing of note. When a case is settled, the parties don't literally settle the case privately; the case is a part of public record which means the judicial system decides on it.

What actually happens when someone settles is that both lawyers agree on a document containing the settlement conditions and charges (in this case, the settlement includes an admission of guilt) and that document then gets submitted to the judge with the request to make it the actual judgement. The judge then usually just approves that document verbatim and considers the case resolved. The judge could also reject the settlement and let it go to trial (usually doesn't happen) or add their own comments to the settlement while approving it (this tends to happen with frivolous lawsuits, where the judge tends to warn the Plaintiff to check respective law beforehand in the future).

It's generally understood that this doesn't actually create any relevant precedents for US common law (which the main worry for most people).

Got it, thanks for the explanation. Next question -

(General disclaimer that I am not a lawyer, and especially not yours.)

- god dammit!

Yes, that's basically the state of US copyright law. Over in Blu-Ray land, there's no way to legally playback a Blu-Ray except through an authorized Blu-Ray player, as playing a digital backup requires circumventing the encryption. So things that you'd think should be nothing - like ripping a Blu-Ray to your private Plex server - are technically considered piracy.

Holy shit. I knew the DMCA was pretty rotten but this feels especially dire

 

[TrashMarket]

Yes, that's basically the state of US copyright law. Over in Blu-Ray land, there's no way to legally playback a Blu-Ray except through an authorized Blu-Ray player, as playing a digital backup requires circumventing the encryption. So things that you'd think should be nothing - like ripping a Blu-Ray to your private Plex server - are technically considered piracy.

I do not know if anyone's ever tried letting this go to court yet.

I think the closest we've got atm are right to repair laws focused on bypassing software locks to repair tractors and shit. maybe a concrete decision in the right direction there could be used as a precedent in cases around emulation down the road

 

[Razgriz]

I do not know if anyone's ever tried letting this go to court yet.

Section 1201 has never outright been tested with a full trial case on its merits in specific to my memory (lots of DMCAs have been filed with it though) but in terms of notable cases, we have the whole DeCSS fiasco (DVD CAA v. Burner failed on procedural errors, but a preliminary injunction was granted whilst appeals court sided with Burner on a different law involving trade secrets) and the Geohotz case (George Hotz was sued in 2011 by Sony for hacking the PS3, case was privately settled on terms not too dissimilar to the Yuzu settlement; Hotz got an injunction against hacking Sony devices ever again).

And I guess we can now add the Yuzu settlement to that list; around 80% of the content in the original complaint was about violating section 1201.

 

[MSnap]

Yes, that's basically the state of US copyright law. Over in Blu-Ray land, there's no way to legally playback a Blu-Ray except through an authorized Blu-Ray player, as playing a digital backup requires circumventing the encryption. So things that you'd think should be nothing - like ripping a Blu-Ray to your private Plex server - are technically considered piracy.

I do not know if anyone's ever tried letting this go to court yet.

This is also the reason those new PS5 disc attachments need to connect to the internet. It needs to be “authorized”

 

[meatbag]

I still see the thread derailing and becoming inflammatory like it did last time. Requesting the thread be shut down.

This query is more appropriate for Moderation Feedback. Please post it there in order to avoid unnecessary disruption of this thread.

 

[Shoulder]

Yeah, emulating a modern chip like that could be close to impossible with today's tech. Having a system with an instance of DLSS is going to be, probably bonkers hard. Kind of like Cell computing in the PS3. They wouldn't be able to just use Nvidia drivers too most likely, so emulators will probably have to come up with their own version of DLSS or like a translation layer to get things to run.

Not to mention, if Switch 2 has 16 gigabytes of ram, you probably would need like 32 gigs of ram to properly emulate it. And that's not even considering that it will be a pretty powerful chip on the CPU and GPU side to emulate. That's the reason why you don't even see PS4 emulators working nowadays.

That got me thinking towards what else Nintendo, and Nvidia have done in customizing Drake, and what other measures are in place to make the prospect of emulation more difficult for the average person, let alone those who program a piece of software to do so.

If things like Ray-Tracing, and DLSS are front and center for many of Switch 2's biggest titles, on top of what the CPU and GPU are both doing, plus like you said the Ram situation, and while we're at it, the Cache available too. It might not be the most trivial thing to emulate going forward. Not to mention with the highly probable chance of Switch 1 compatibility for Switch 2, any potential gray areas might also be skewed as well since those games could technically still be sold as "new" on the eShop indefinitely.

Yes, that's basically the state of US copyright law. Over in Blu-Ray land, there's no way to legally playback a Blu-Ray except through an authorized Blu-Ray player, as playing a digital backup requires circumventing the encryption. So things that you'd think should be nothing - like ripping a Blu-Ray to your private Plex server - are technically considered piracy.

I do not know if anyone's ever tried letting this go to court yet.

It's been awhile since I last bought a Blu-Ray, but you're correct, and I'd forgotten about this whole situation. That also said, it can be common for consumers to use HDMI splitters when connecting multiple devices, and I believe in most cases (it's been several years, so correct me if I'm wrong), that will strip the HDCP protection. So does that mean HDMI splitters are also illegal by that very nature, or is it more nuanced than that?

I think the closest we've got atm are right to repair laws focused on bypassing software locks to repair tractors and shit. maybe a concrete decision in the right direction there could be used as a precedent in cases around emulation down the road

Automaker McLaren uses one particular model of a old Compaq Laptop to do servicing for the McLaren F1. The issue now is those laptops are showing their age, and dying. McLaren is now forced to come up with a way to emulate the software that directly communicates with the F1's own computers when owners come in for a service. This article is several years old now, and McLaren themselves might have solved the issue since then, but it illustrates the point where software locks/limitations over time can force even the creator of the product itself have to eventually implement new software techniques/solutions.

https://www.extremetech.com/cars/22...y-be-serviced-with-this-ancient-compaq-laptop

To your point directly, Right-to-Repair may or may not be the solution to "emulating" old software, but I could certainly see a scenario where if the existing hardware no longer functions, let alone exists, there must be other ways to keep it running. I don't believe that same logic would apply for hardware/software that still currently exists, though in the case for John Deere, Farmers have to resourceful, and handy in order to perform their duties. And waiting days, sometimes weeks or months for a Deere technician to show up to fix a piece of farming equipment is not conducive to productivity.

If the same logic is applied all around where a Farmer can buy grey market software/hardware to bypass software locks put on by John Deere, are Farmers breaking the law by DMCA standards? And how would that scenario apply in the case for playing video games on specific hardware?

 

[Razgriz]

That also said, it can be common for consumers to use HDMI splitters when connecting multiple devices, and I believe in most cases (it's been several years, so correct me if I'm wrong), that will strip the HDCP protection. So does that mean HDMI splitters are also illegal by that very nature, or is it more nuanced than that?

Actually depends a lot on the splitter. I have an HDMI splitter that had the explicit warning it didn't work with the PlayStation (which enforces HDCP for some reason) if I wanted to use it alongside recording equipment.

From what I understand, reputable brands don't sell HDMI splitters that can strip HDCP because it's illegal, but the market of off-brand products is so massive that actual enforcement borders on impossible (since they don't advertise themselves as stripping HDCP, they're just not putting a warning on the product that it doesn't strip HDCP).

 

[WestEgg]

The more I read about all this, the more it looks like Yuzu really, really screwed themselves over.

 

[Hailinel]

The more I read about all this, the more it looks like Yuzu really, really screwed themselves over.

The sheer brazen nonsense of it all. They were dealing in shady actions that would have blown up in their faces had it gone to trial. There are aspects to this that are clearly outside the gray area boundary of emulation disputes.

 

[BloodMoon]

The more I read about all this, the more it looks like Yuzu really, really screwed themselves over.

Yikes!

Does this imply that Nintendo has all the download and user information of all of those people?

I wonder if they can actually do anything with that?

EDIT: Have the Yuzu devs basically sold out their entire user base? No wonder the settlement is much smaller than I expected

 

[BassForever]

Yikes!

Does this imply that Nintendo has all the download and user information of all of those people?

I wonder if they can actually do anything with that?

EDIT: Have the Yuzu devs basically sold out their entire user base? No wonder the settlement is much smaller than I expected

No, I believe they settled to avoid that outcome

 

[Hailinel]

I wonder how many people that downloaded Yuzu actually knew that they were sharing usage data with the devs?

I also imagine that there wasn't a terms of usage agreement that needed acceptance.

 

[Zellia]

The more I read about all this, the more it looks like Yuzu really, really screwed themselves over.

There's playing with fire and then there's whatever the hell this is

 

[Hajeman]

I'm just curious, why all emulation likes Yuzu etc didn't have technology to block any illegal activities ? If someone want to use Yuzu for any illegal activities, Yuzu system automatically block that. Why all emulation didn't have this kind of blocking technology ?

 

[Serif]

I wonder how many people that downloaded Yuzu actually knew that they were sharing usage data with the devs?

It's a pop-up on first boot and could be toggled.

 

[BotenAnna]

It's going to be quite crazy that the only way to play 3DS games will be to track down a physical copy(if they even had a physical copy).

You don't need a physical copy to play on real hardware, and things that were eshop only exist still. Losing Citra is a huge bummer for accessibility of a dead console, but if you get real hardware, then access to games still exists. There's also another 3DS emulator in dev separate from Citra, so maybe that'll get more dev time invested now but who knows. Regardless Citra was a great emulator so I hate to see it go over all of this.

 

[Raccoon]

I'm just curious, why all emulation likes Yuzu etc didn't have technology to block any illegal activities ? If someone want to use Yuzu for any illegal activities, Yuzu system automatically block that. Why all emulation didn't have this kind of blocking technology ?

because it doesn't exist

 

[darthdiablo]

There's playing with fire and then there's whatever the hell this is

Ah yeah I guess that tracks - I was kind of surprised at how quickly they settled, I feel like it was only yesterday the lawsuit against Yuzu was mentioned. And boom, a settlement in (what feels like) a few days later.

I guess Yuzu's lawyers probably advised Yuzu they don't have a case considering details like this (ROMs in a Discord channel)

 

[Joe]

I've seen people say that this situation will cause the Switch 2 to be a Wii U-scale financial disaster.

Am I wrong, or is that way off-base to say? I feel like this issue is something only a (relatively speaking) very small amount of online people are going to care about. The average person is not even going to know about this, much less care.

I'd go as far as to say that even the people upset now are going to stop caring about it once the Switch 2 reveal happens.

 

[Dekuman]

Yeah it's a lot worse than what I imagined since it's logging user data and devs were exchanging illegal roms

The Tweet notes they handed over all of it to Nintendo lawyers, so I think Nintendo has it all now

 

[PixelKnight]

I'm just curious, why all emulation likes Yuzu etc didn't have technology to block any illegal activities ? If someone want to use Yuzu for any illegal activities, Yuzu system automatically block that. Why all emulation didn't have this kind of blocking technology ?

What kind of blocking technology? Yuzu made switch games playable once the user had a key to disable security measures. Once a user had the key and a copy of the game, Yuzu had no idea if it’s a pirate copy or a legit backup for emulation, outside of collecting anonymous metadata on games being played that aren’t out yet (something that likely helped sink any defence they might have had vs Nintendo here). It’s not like pirate copies have something that flags up that they aren’t a legit copy that Yuzu could test for and block, when they are literally the same file as a copy used for emulation.

 

[Dekuman]

Probably from people playing before release

 

[WestEgg]

I've seen people say that this situation will cause the Switch 2 to be a Wii U-scale financial disaster.

Am I wrong, or is that way off-base to say? I feel like this issue is something only a (relatively speaking) very small amount of online people are going to care about. The average person is not even going to know about this, much less care.

I'd go as far as to say that even the people upset now are going to stop caring about it once the Switch 2 reveal happens.

People online tend to vastly overestimate how important they and their specific interests are to the outside world.

 

[Jersh]

Got it, thanks for the explanation. Next question -

- god dammit!

Holy shit. I knew the DMCA was pretty rotten but this feels especially dire

Yeah, the language used it rather absurdly broad and written in a way that doesn't really allow loopholes. Some relevant bits (pulled from here):

No person shall circumvent a technological measure that effectively controls access to a work protected under this title.

(A) to “circumvent a technological measure” means to descramble a scrambled work, to decrypt an encrypted work, or otherwise to avoid, bypass, remove, deactivate, or impair a technological measure, without the authority of the copyright owner; and
(B)a technological measure “effectively controls access to a work” if the measure, in the ordinary course of its operation, requires the application of information, or a process or a treatment, with the authority of the copyright owner, to gain access to the work.

No one's been willing to let this go to an actual trial, and Yuzu's case was evidently too laughably tainted with other stuff for them to try. That's not stopping Nintendo from parading Section 1201 around though, as it's a catch-all for playing any modern game in a way they don't explicitly authorize; obviously it's in their best interest to assert a strict interpretation of that.

 

[Mekanos]

I've seen people say that this situation will cause the Switch 2 to be a Wii U-scale financial disaster.

Am I wrong, or is that way off-base to say? I feel like this issue is something only a (relatively speaking) very small amount of online people are going to care about. The average person is not even going to know about this, much less care.

I'd go as far as to say that even the people upset now are going to stop caring about it once the Switch 2 reveal happens.

Anyone who says that is trolling or in a complete bubble, lol. 99% of Switch owners don't even know about pirating games being a thing.

Which sorta makes Nintendo's heavy hand here feel more egregious, but y'know.

 

[BotenAnna]

I've seen people say that this situation will cause the Switch 2 to be a Wii U-scale financial disaster.

Am I wrong, or is that way off-base to say? I feel like this issue is something only a (relatively speaking) very small amount of online people are going to care about. The average person is not even going to know about this, much less care.

I'd go as far as to say that even the people upset now are going to stop caring about it once the Switch 2 reveal happens.

This almost assuredly has no impact on Switch 2, it's kind of a dumb thought to even throw out there really. It's true that the average person doesn't know or care, and a good section of the online types will get over it.

If you are into emulation parts of it, the Switch 2 has never been a factor and anything related to it won't solve my sadness from this case. Yuzu imploding is whatever, they were doing a shitty job and RyujinX is still going. Yuzu bein the best android client and now being dead kinda sucks, but that's whatever in the grand scheme of things. Citra going down is a huge loss that's not going to be rectified any time soon, and that's a lot more upsetting as somebody who loves spreading the gospel of the 3DS library.

The other thing in the emulation sphere is the chilling effect. You're already seeing some changes to public facing projects if you're paying attention, and there's going to be more to come. I do hope the lesson is learned to not be as crazy and stupid as Yuzu was, sure, but public projects are going to be a lot slower or just not hitting release soon. The biggest concern is other projects pull out due to fear of litigation or Nintendo starts targeting other emulators for dead consoles. If they decide they can successfully target Dolphin for instance that'd be an all out war on emulation and could end in disaster.

 

[Jersh]

I've seen people say that this situation will cause the Switch 2 to be a Wii U-scale financial disaster.

Am I wrong, or is that way off-base to say? I feel like this issue is something only a (relatively speaking) very small amount of online people are going to care about. The average person is not even going to know about this, much less care.

I'd go as far as to say that even the people upset now are going to stop caring about it once the Switch 2 reveal happens.

That's incredible

Do they believe the Switch install base is propped up by people with modded Switches dumping their games to Yuzu? There's no other logical way to interpret this assertion. Because everyone else is either playing their games on Switch, and thus utterly unaffected, or pirating their games on Yuzu, and thus not contributing to Nintendo's sales numbers.

 

[Hailinel]

It's a pop-up on first boot and could be toggled.

I stand corrected. At least it had that!

 

[Jersh]

The biggest concern is other projects pull out due to fear of litigation or Nintendo starts targeting other emulators for dead consoles. If they decide they can successfully target Dolphin for instance that'd be an all out war on emulation and could end in disaster.

I'll note here that I believe Dolphin is also in violation of section 1201. GameCube and Wii discs are encrypted (albeit in a less secure manner).

That said, Nintendo gains a lot less and (imo) stands more to lose from targeting Dolphin. Dolphin's seemingly had little to no effect on sales of GCN/Wii remasters, and the public backlash would probably be much larger than what we're seeing with Yuzu. Dolphin is also a lot more no-nonsense when it comes to piracy (excluding section 1201) and doesn't take money (to my knowledge). Nintendo would have to be confident they could set precedent with section 1201 enforcement to take that to court, as there's nothing else to stand on.

 

[Lugia667]

I've seen people say that this situation will cause the Switch 2 to be a Wii U-scale financial disaster.

Am I wrong, or is that way off-base to say? I feel like this issue is something only a (relatively speaking) very small amount of online people are going to care about. The average person is not even going to know about this, much less care.

I'd go as far as to say that even the people upset now are going to stop caring about it once the Switch 2 reveal happens.

……what?