Following an official filing in late February against Tropic Haze LLC and its Nintendo Switch emulator program Yuzu, Nintendo has reached a legal settlement with the developers to the tune of $2.4 million and what looks to be a complete shutdown of the program. <\/p>
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According to documents served in the U.S. District Court of Rhode Island for both parties, Tropic Haze and Nintendo reached a joint monetary relief settlement of $2.4 million<\/a> that shows a \u201creasonable relationship to the range of damages\u201d and other fees that would have been reached following the trial. In addition to that settlement for damages, Tropic Haze is being ordered to cease all distribution, development, or promotion of Yuzu in all forms<\/a>. <\/p>
Nintendo cited the early leak of The Legends of Zelda: Tears of the Kingdom<\/em><\/a> <\/em>more than a week before its May 12, 2023 release, which was reportedly downloaded over one million times from pirate websites that directed users toward Yuzu for this case. It also alleged that, at the same time as that leak, the Yuzu Patreon doubled in size. <\/p>
This is not the first time Nintendo has targeted emulators<\/a> or other entities for potential infringement or damaging use of its IP. Last May, Nintendo issued a DMCA takedown to Valve to prevent the popular Dolphin emulator from launching publicly on Steam<\/a> and the company has actively sent out cease and desists to multiple tournament organizers<\/a> for trying to use modded content in games like Super Smash Bros. Melee<\/em>. <\/p>
Update March 4 3:50pm CT:<\/strong> Following the settlement, Tropic Haze released a public statement <\/a>on multiple Yuzu social media accounts confirming all of the information and that the team will be discontinuing all aspects of the emulator effective immediately. <\/p>
In addition, this statement specifically mentions Citra, a popular 3DS emulator that was also developed by some of the same team behind Yuzu. While it wasn\u2019t the focus of the settlement, a matching post was shared on Citra social media pages<\/a>, confirming that the program will also go through the same process of removing all access to its programs and terminating its public presence.\u00a0<\/p>
With this blow to two of the most popular emulators for Nintendo platforms, there is growing concern about how sizable a blow this case will deal to the emulation scene<\/a> and game preservation.<\/p>","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
