
Yuzu (Emulator)
Part of a series on Nintendo Switch. [View Related Entries]
This submission is currently being researched & evaluated!
You can help confirm this entry by contributing facts, media, and other evidence of notability and mutation.
About
Yuzu was a Nintendo Switch emulator software developed by Tropic Haze. In February 2024, the developers of the emulator were sued by Nintendo over allegedly "facilitating piracy at a colossal scale." In March 2024, the lawsuit was settled out of court, with Tropic Haze taking down the emulator, all circumvention tools used in its development and its Nintendo 3Ds emulator Citra and agreeing to pay a settlement of $2.4 million to Nintendo.
History
On January 14th, 2018, 10 months after the release of the Nintendo Switch handheld console, the developers behind the Nintendo 3DS emulator Citra announced Yuzu, an emulator for Switch written in C++.[1][2] Kotaku[3] reported that Super Mario Odyssey was playable on Yuzu in November 2018 with minor glitches and slowdowns.
Yuzu was regularly updated since its initial release, adding multi-core CPU emulation,[4] Fastmem support[5] and other features. In May 2023, an Android version of the emulator was released.[6]
Lawsuit and Shutdown
On February 27th, 2024, Nintendo filed a lawsuit against Tropic Haze LLC,[7][8] the legal entity behind Team Yuzu, in US federal court, claiming that Yuzu illegally circumvents Nintendo's software encryption and "facilitates piracy at a colossal scale." The lawsuit mentioned The Legend of Zelda: Tears of the Kingdom being leaked a week prior to its official release, with the leaked copies meant to be played in the Yuzu emulator, with Nintendo arguing that "defendant's development and distribution of Yuzu to the public materially contributes to and induces those third parties to infringe the copyrights in Nintendo's games."

The development of Yuzu ended on March 4th, 2024, after Tropic Haze and Nintendo of America settled the lawsuit out of court. Team Haze agreed to pay $2.4 million to Nintendo and admit that Yuzu is “primarily designed to circumvent and play Nintendo Switch games.” The company also agreed to be permanently enjoined from working on Yuzu, hosting Yuzu, distributing Yuzu’s code or features, hosting websites and social media that promote Yuzu, or doing anything else that circumvents Nintendo’s copyright protection.[9]
On March 4th, Team Yuzu shut down its website, Github and Patreon and deleted all posts from social media, posting[10] a final message in which they spoke out against piracy (shown below).

Online Reactions
The March 2024 lawsuit and subsequent shutdown of Yuzu and Citra became a viral topic of discussion on social media as users discussed the legal status of emulation, argued about piracy and posted memes about Nintendo Lawsuits. For example, on March 4th, 2024, X[11] user @BlooHook posted a Thing, Japan meme that received over 1,900 reposts and 17,000 likes in one day (shown below, left).
Later that day, X[12] user @nonbatnary posted a meme about Shigeru Miyamoto personally forcing Team Yuzu to write their anti-piracy post, gaining over 1,300 reposts and 14,000 likes in one day (shown below, right).


Various Examples
![yuzu, in its current form, will cease to exist. www [yuzu] OatmealDome @OatmealDome yuzu, in its current form, will cease to exist. Their settlement with Nintendo prohibits any distribution of yuzu in built and source code form. Development must also stop. The yuzu website and related services will also be shut down. storage.courtlistener.com/recap/gov.usco... ent injunction is entered against Defendant enjoini ees, independent contractors, successors, assigns, ol from: fering to the public, providing, marketing, ad hosting, cloning, distributing, or otherwise traffic atures of Yuzu; fering to the public, providing, marketing, ad osting, cloning, distributing, or otherwise traffickir umvent Nintendo's technical protection measur 1:13 PM. Mar 4, 2024 2.9M Views employees, independent contractors, successors, assigns, attorneys, and all third parties acting in active concert or participation with Defendant-including but not limited to any domain name registrars or registries holding or listing Defendant's Website: a. surrender, and permanently cease to use, the domain name YUZU- EMU.ORG, any variant or successor thereof controlled by Defendant or its members, and any other website or system that Defendant or its members owns or controls, directly or indirectly, that involves or harms Nintendo's Intellectual Property; and to the extent the domain is under Defendant or its members' custody or control, or under the control of registrars or registries with notice of this Order, immediately transfer the domain name YUZU-EMU.ORG, any variant or successor thereof b. aantalled he. Dafandant as its mamham and : athan makita antams that Dafandant election and to the extent controlled by Defendant or its members, the destruction by deletion of all imvention devices, including all copies Yuzu, circumvention tools used for developing or using Yuzu-such as TegraRcmGUI, Hekate, Atmosphère, Lockpick RCM, NDDumpTool, nxDumpFuse, and TegraExplorer, and all copies of Nintendo cryptographic keys including the prod.keys, and all other electronic material within Defendant or its members' custody, possession, or control that violate Nintendo's rights under the DMCA or infringe copyrights owned or exclusively licensed by Nintendo. 6. The Court further orders, pursuant to 17 U.S.C. §§ 503 & 1203, upon Nintendo's election and to the extent controlled by Defendant or its members, the handing over to Nintendo of all physical circumvention devices that circumvent or attempt to circumvent the Technological](https://i.kym-cdn.com/photos/images/newsfeed/002/769/043/ae4.jpg)

![final message in the yuzu discord general channel [archer] @archer_uwu final message in the yuzu discord general channel Alter @unicodesnek Today at 2:31 PM F discord GreenSwede @greenswede Today at 2:31 PM Barnar 46 42 43 43 59 263 37 39 You must verify your identity by phone before you can send messages in this server. Barnars 2:46 PM Mar 4, 2024 213.3K Views 34 F 47 36 39 : Verify Phone to](https://i.kym-cdn.com/photos/images/newsfeed/002/769/049/7de.jpg)


![i dont really think they deserve all too much sympathy for reaping what they sowed Rhey @Rheycore blah blah blah nintendo bad, whatever, i just want you people to consider for a minute that yuzu's team is notorious for stealing code from other emulators and paywalling their releases on patreon, i dont really think they deserve all too much sympathy for reaping what they sowed OatmealDome @OatmealDome • 20h [yuzu] yuzu, in its current form, will cease to exist. Their settlement with Nintendo prohibits any distribution of yuzu in built and ... Show more ent injunction is entered against Defendant enjoini ees, independent contractors, successors, assigns, ol from: fering to the public, providing, marketing, ad hosting, cloning, distributing, or otherwise traffic atures of Yuzu; fering to the public, providing, marketing, ad osting, cloning, distributing, or otherwise traffickir umvent Nintendo's technical protection measur 2:11 PM Mar 4, 2024 33.3K Views employees, independent contractors, successors, assigns, attorneys, and all third parties acting in active concert or participation with Defendant-including but not limited to any domain name registrars or registries holding or listing Defendant's Website: surrender, and permanently cease to use, the domain name YUZU- EMU.ORG, any variant or successor thereof controlled by Defendant or its members, and any other website or system that Defendant or its members owns or controls, directly or indirectly, that involves or harms Nintendo's Intellectual Property; and to the extent the domain is under Defendant or its members' custody or control, or under the control of registrars or registries with notice of this Order, immediately transfer the domain name YUZU-EMU.ORG, any variant or successor thereof a. : b. annteallad kus Dafandant an ita mamaham and an athan mahaita au muntans that afandant election and to the extent controlled by Defendant or its members, the destruction by deletion of all circumvention devices, including all copies of Yuzu, all circumvention tools used for developing or using Yuzu such as TegraRcmGUI, Hekate, Atmosphère, Lockpick_RCM, NDDumpTool, nxDumpFuse, and TegraExplorer, and all copies of Nintendo cryptographic keys including the prod.keys, and all other electronic material within Defendant or its members' custody, possession, or control that violate Nintendo's rights under the DMCA or infringe copyrights owned or exclusively licensed by Nintendo. 6. The Court further orders, pursuant to 17 U.S.C. §§ 503 & 1203, upon Nintendo's election and to the extent controlled by Defendant or its members, the handing over to Nintendo of all physical circumvention devices that circumvent or attempt to circumvent the Technological](https://i.kym-cdn.com/photos/images/newsfeed/002/769/046/188.jpg)
Search Interest
External References
[1] Hot Hardware – Nintendo Switch 'Yuzu' Emulator Announced By Citra 3DS Developers
[3] Kotaku – Super Mario Odyssey Is Already Playable In An Emulator
[4] Wccftech – Yuzu, the Nintendo Switch Emulator, Can Now Take Advantage of Multicore CPUs
[5] Internet Archive – New Feature Release – Fastmem Support
[6] XDA – Nintendo Switch emulator Yuzu officially comes to Android
[7] X – @stephentotilo
[8] The Verge – Nintendo sues Switch emulator Yuzu for ‘facilitating piracy at a colossal scale’
[9] The Verge – Nintendo Switch emulator Yuzu will utterly fold and pay $2.4M to settle its lawsuit
[12] X – @nonbatnary
Recent Videos
There are no videos currently available.
Top Comments
Edgar Weebling
Mar 05, 2024 at 10:10AM EST
dancing cactuar
Mar 05, 2024 at 01:21PM EST