Switch Emulator Yuzu Settled Lawsuit with Nintendo For $2.4 Million

Tropic Haze, the company behind the famous Switch emulator Yuzu has settled their lawsuit with Nintendo for $2.4 million.

Around 1 week ago, Nintendo sued Switch emulator Yuzu for piracy, claiming that the emulator “facilitated piracy on a colossal scale”, while also adding that The Legend of Zelda: Tears of the Kingdom was pirated 1M times.

Yuzu in response to the lawsuit, hired a lawyer on 29th February 2024, seemingly ready to fight against Nintendo in court.

Yuzu has responded to the Nintendo summons and they have a lawyer now pic.twitter.com/Q2Sk1CKZrQ

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And today, Yuzu and Nintendo filed a joint motion to settle the lawsuit, with Yuzu agreeing to pay Nintendo $2.4 million.

As a result of the settlement, Yuzu will shut down and cease all distribution of the emulator.

In the joint motion, it is mentioned that the “defendant and its members irrevocably and fully waive any and all right to appeal the Final Judgment and Permanent Injunction,” which means that the Yuzu developers are now bound by a permanent injunction and will not be able to appeal the judgment.

In the permanent injunction, it is written that Yuzu developers are forbidden 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.
• Offering to the public, providing, marketing, advertising, promoting, selling, testing, hosting, cloning, distributing, or otherwise trafficking in other software or devices that circumvent Nintendo’s technical protection measures, including without limitation by using unauthorized copies of Nintendo’s proprietary cryptographic keys to decrypt Nintendo’s video games (or component files)
• Effecting assignments or transfers, forming new entities or associations, or using any other device for the purpose of circumventing or otherwise avoiding the prohibitions set forth in subparagraphs (a)-(c).

Furthermore, the permanent injunction also calls for the developers to surrender, and permanently cease to use, the domain name YUZU-EMU.ORG and transfer it to Nintendo’s control.

Tropic Haze will also need to carry out “the destruction by deletion of all circumvention devices, including all copies of Yuzu” and “all circumvention tools used for developing or using Yuzu” to the extent they can. Which effectively means the death of Yuzu, at least for this iteration of the software.

Even though this case is now settled, Yuzu losing the lawsuit will undoubtedly cause a huge blow in the emulator industry. And with such a decisive win, it might also encourage Nintendo to go for other emulators as well, such as another open source Switch emulator, Ryujinx.

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