First of all: No, this case will not serve as jurisprudence in the future. Without judgment being rendered, this amicable settlement will not affect Imitation’s legal history. Other software (Dolphin type) is therefore safer. According to the legal documents (already available online), the agreement between Tropic Haze and Nintendo prohibits any distribution by the current team of the compiled version or source code of the emulator. Development should stop today, the website should be thrown into oblivion, and all adjacent services (including Discord managed by the team) should also disappear. Additionally, Tropic Haze will need to remove any lines of code, tools, and files used to create Yuzu.
Acid awareness
In a sense, this judgment was the best possible outcome for imitation in general: Yuzu is software Open source, and although Tropic Haze is clearly the reference team on the technical question, other digital tinkerers may take over development. The controversy specifically only pits Nintendo and Tropic Haze against each other. The Japanese manufacturer complained of the widespread use of emulators by pirates, arguing that Zelda: Tears of the Kingdom would have been pirated millions of times before its official launch in May 2023; An example illustrated by r/newyuzupiracy, a defunct forum dedicated solely to piracy on the Yuzu emulator.
Here, compared to other active imitators, the bone of contention was clearly Tropic Haze’s patronage that allowed Nintendo’s products to continue to generate revenue despite this wave of piracy. Some Makes (sometimes temporarily) were reserved for paid supporters, which, in effect, monetized the product and went beyond a simple donation to the creator (although it was possible to download the code for free and compile it yourself). According to reports, the developers even shared illegal ROMs in their Discord VIP room. Switch Ryujinx emulator (which costs €1600/month anyway) and Skyline are not concerned at the moment.
- Also read | A brief overview of the homebrew scene
