Last week, emulator Nintendo Switch famous Yuzu was shut down after Nintendo filed a lawsuit against the developer Tropic Haze. The two sides finally came to an agreement that Tropic Haze must pay Nintendo $2.4 million. The developers behind the upcoming alternative emulator though – “Suyu“- seem confident that they can similar incident.
After Yuzu was discontinued, alternative products started flooding the internet trying to take the emulator’s place. This is despite Nintendo making its stance against emulators very clear. Nintendo’s Intellectual Property and Copyright Infringement FAQ page states that players are not allowed to download old games that are no longer for sale, ROMs of owned games, and creating backup copies of the game play. Regarding emulators, the Switch publisher emphasized: “While we recognize players’ passion for classic games, supporting emulators is an illegal act of copyright infringement.” Our products.”
A new project built from the Yuzu source code, with the bold name Suyu, was born as the “successor” of the Yuzu emulator. Despite the recent incident, the team behind Suyu is trying their best to avoid encountering trouble similar to Yuzu’s case. After consulting with law school alumni for legal advice, one of the emulator developers revealed that Suyu would not be monetized, provide no tutorials to help users play the game, and Furthermore, this emulator takes a strict anti-piracy stance. Players will be required to use physical game keys from titles they own and have paid for, as well as firmware from their Switch. However, there is no way for the emulator to verify for sure whether the above items are owned legally or not.
Will Suyu’s anti-piracy stance help developers avoid legal trouble? Nintendo has previously noted that backing up owned games is not allowed, so it seems that the Switch creators will also have this emulator in their sights.
