Nintendo has made a statement about emulators and where it draws the line in terms of illegal activities. The company, above all in the gaming industry, is well-known for going after emulation software and taking swift action – sometimes in the form of hefty lawsuits – to prevent the piracy of its software. Nintendo has now made a stance on how it views some emulators as being perfectly legal, while others aren’t under certain circumstances.
As reported by Denfaminicogamer, during a recent appearance at an event run by Japan’s Association of Copyright for Computer Software, Nintendo’s patent attorney Koji Nishiura stepped up to talk about emulators and offer the company’s stance on the matter. Nishiura said that while some emulators might not be outright illegal, their usage could be breaking the law. For example, emulators that allow pirated video games is a no-no for Nintendo.
Piracy is where Nintendo draws the line, it seems. Nishiura also argues that emulators can be used to copy proprietary programs or disable security encryptions, which are quite illegal all the same. That said, a counterpoint made to pirated Nintendo games is the fact that many of the company’s past titles, especially from the Nintendo DS/3DS, Nintendo 64 and GameCube eras, simply aren’t available to play anywhere outside of their respective systems. Emulation groups have argued that since Nintendo isn’t taking action, emulation allows these games to be preserved.
Last year, Nintendo sued Yuzu, a popular Switch emulator, as well as Citra, a 3DS emulator that was widely regarded in the community as the best emulation software for the handheld console. Yuzu settled the lawsuit for $2.4 million, though this resulted in both emulators being completely pulled offline with no chance of returning. Nintendo went on a purge shortly after, taking down over 8,500 Yuzu Switch emulator clones from the internet.
Source: Denfaminicogamer
