1 million TOTK downloads before release is wild and truly shows the magnitude of potential lost revenue. I'm with Nintendo on this one, especially in the current climate where thousands in the gaming industry are losing their jobs daily. Piracy isn't just stealing from Nintendo, its stealing from people who spent countless hours creating these games.

1 million TOTK downloads before release is wild and truly shows the magnitude of potential lost revenue. I'm with Nintendo on this one, especially in the current climate where thousands in the gaming industry are losing their jobs daily. Piracy isn't just stealing from Nintendo, its stealing from people who spent countless hours creating these games.

First off, no one has any obligation to prop Nintendo's or other game developers' business.

Not to mention piracy obviously isn't stealing. Can't believe it's 2024 and some people are still reheating this strawman.

First off, no one has any obligation to prop Nintendo's or other game developers' business.

Not to mention piracy obviously isn't stealing. Can't believe it's 2024 and some people are still reheating this strawman.

Emulation is 100% legal until you start to profit off of it. The fact that Yuzu was stupid enough to brag about their Patreon donations doubling AND provided instructions on how to acquire stolen keys was a shotgun blast to the foot and for that, they deserve what's coming to them. 

You've got emulators like Project64 that have been around since 2001, 23 years, that never came within Nintendo's sights. And that's because they only provide the emulator and nothing else. They even make the source code downloadable on their site to show that they're not stealing anything from Nintendo.

The site I get my ROM's from has been around since 1997, and the entire time, free of charge.

What! Man that is such a silly thing to do. Did they actually provide instructions? Source?

I don't think that is winnable, I seem to recall Sony previously suing an emulator maker and losing, with the court deciding emulators are fair use. Considering the judge has that precedent to call on, I just don't see Nintendo winning. They'd be better off suing the sites that host Switch game files to use on said emulators, without first verifying that the user owns a copy of the Switch game.

Edit: Looking into it more, Sony seemingly had a much stronger case against Bleem than Nintendo has against the makers of Yuzu emulator. Bleem was not only selling their emulator (Yuzu is free as far as I can tell), but Bleem themselves were planning on selling Playstation game packs to use on the Dreamcast version of the emulator, hurting both Sony and other game publishers by stripping them of possible software sales, and still Sony lost in court. Sony only defeated Bleem via attrition, fighting off the Sony lawsuits caused them so many legal fees they went bankrupt.

Yuzu by comparison to Bleem is a free emulator and their FAQ says that the only legal way to get Switch games to use on Yuzu emulator is to own a digital or physical copy on Switch and then dump your Switch's memory files onto your PC's hard drive.

Maybe Nintendo's goal, much like Sony, is not to win, but to put Yuzu out of business with legal fees. But in an age of crowdfunding, that could be difficult, I'm sure there are plenty of Yuzu users who will contribute to Yuzu's legal defense fund if Yuzu sets one up. And even if Nintendo does stop Yuzu, there is always the other Switch emulator, Ryujinx.