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On the afternoon of February 27, 2024, gamers learned via social media that the world-famous video game publisher Nintendo had filed a lawsuit against Tropic Haze LLC, the developers of the popular Nintendo Switch emulator known as Yuzu.
The lawsuit was discovered by the journalist Stephen Totilo, who quickly took to the social media platform Twitter to share several screenshots of the lawsuit to the public.
In a complaint filed to the United States District Court of Rhode Island, Nintendo of America highlights that the emulator and its ability to play games developed for the Nintendo Switch may be harmful to its business model.
The largest point made in the suit is how the emulator has been used by many to pirate and play several first-party Nintendo games before their releases, with Nintendo citing that over 1 million users downloaded and played 2023’s The Legend of Zelda: The Tears of the Kingdom one week before release.
The lawsuit further claims that Topic Haze LLC has been profiting directly off of the piracy of Nintendo products as the company’s Patreon account nearly doubled in active donations during the one-week period before Tears of the Kingdom was released.
In addition to this, Nintendo claimed that Yuzu’s emulation of 1st party games potentially harmed paying customers as well, citing several tweets about how social media users were spoiled on plot points from Tears of the Kingdom as an example.
Because of these allegations, Nintendo is seeking damages for this alleged piracy front Tropic Haze LLC, as Nintendo deems they are secondarily liable for what users do with the emulator. In addition to this, the corporation is demanding a complete shutdown of the Yuzu emulator.
As the lawsuit was only recently filed, there is currently no information about how the United States Court system will respond to these allegations. This is a currently developing news story that will see several updates in the coming months. The lawsuit can be read in full here
