Nintendo is suing the makers of Yuzu, a popular Nintendo Switch emulator, saying it facilitates piracy of its games and illegally circumvents security features on its current console, in violation of the Digital Millennium Copyright Act.
The gaming giant filed its suit against Yuzu owners Tropic Haze on Monday in U.S. District Court in Rhode Island. It is seeking damages, including $150,000 per Nintendo game allegedly copied for testing in Yuzu. It also wants an injunction against Yuzu’s developers, a surrender of their websites to Nintendo and “the seizure, impoundment, and destruction of all copies of the Yuzu emulator.”
“Yuzu provides any Internet user in the world with the means to unlawfully decrypt and play virtually any Nintendo Switch game—including Nintendo’s current generation and most popular games—without ever paying a dime for a Nintendo console or for that game,” Nintendo’s lawyers state in the suit.
“And to be clear, there is no lawful way to use Yuzu to play Nintendo Switch games, including because it must decrypt the games’ encryption.“