Nintendo has shut down Ryujinx, a popular emulator that allowed people to play Switch games on their PC for free, as part of a controversial crackdown on video game piracy.
The move marks Nintendo’s latest blow against the emulation scene, a thriving community of enthusiasts devoted to preserving and playing classic and contemporary games, and follows its legal takedown of fellow emulator Yuzu in March.
On Tuesday, the download page on Ryujinx’s website went blank, its Github repository (containing its software assets) was removed, and its official Discord server stopped taking invites.
Shortly after, Ryujinx’s account on X released a statement suggesting that Nintendo pressured its lead developer to shutter the project for good.
Why was Ryujinx shut down?
"Yesterday, gdkchan was contacted by Nintendo and offered an agreement to stop working on the project, remove the organization and all related assets he’s in control of," developer and moderator "ripinperiperi" wrote on Ryujinx’s Discord.
— Ryujinx (@RyujinxEmu) October 1, 2024
“While awaiting confirmation on whether he would take this agreement, the organization has been removed, so I think it’s safe to say what the outcome is.”
The statement goes on to thank the people who worked on Ryujinx and its upcoming updates, including an iOS port of the Switch emulator that is also presumably dead now.
The Standard has reached out to Nintendo for comment.
In February, Nintendo sued the creators of the Yuzu Switch emulator, accusing them of "unlawfully circumventing technological measures" designed to prevent game piracy.
Just weeks later, Yuzu settled, agreeing to cease development and pay $2.4m – a major victory for Nintendo that sparked concern about whether it would target other emulators, especially Yuzu's peer, Ryujinx. Now, it seems that’s exactly how things have played out.
The shutdown comes as Nintendo is seemingly on the warpath against those who stand accused of pirating or stealing its intellectual property.
Last week, popular YouTube gaming channel Retro Game Corps said that Nintendo had targeted it with copyright strikes for showing its games running on other platforms. As a result, the channel decided it would no longer show Nintendo games in its videos.
I hate making posts like this, but I received another copyright strike this morning. I'm going to have to change the way I make videos. More info: https://t.co/ihGy4OLNzx pic.twitter.com/xRHx0PN2pn
— Retro Game Corps (@RetroGameCorps) September 28, 2024
Separately, Nintendo is also suing Pocketpair, the game developer behind the viral hit Palword, which has been likened to Pokémon, for allegedly infringing its patents.
What are the Ryujinx alternatives?
Together, Yuzu and Ryujinx were the twin pillars of open-source Nintendo emulation software, offering users a straightforward way to play Switch games on other platforms, with plenty of fine-tuning options for more advanced gamers.
Their loss leaves a massive gulf in the Switch emulation community. And, with the folding of the Skyline emulator for Android in May, there are now no real viable alternatives for gamers and hobbyists.
However, there are still plenty of emulators that let you play older Nintendo games on phones and PCs. Chief among them is Delta, which was recently released on iOS and can run games from the NES all the way to the Nintendo DS. Similar emulators include Citra for Nintendo 3DS games and RetroArch, which also offers Xbox, Sega, and PlayStation emulation.
Is emulation legal?
It’s easy to see why Nintendo is targeting emulators. Nintendo’s strength lies in its ability to offer exclusive games on its consoles that you can’t play anywhere else, including the likes of Mario, Zelda, and Metroid.
So, when someone gets those games running on another platform and then shares the results online, as Rujinx did by running the recently released Zelda: Echoes of Wisdom on PC, they’re bound to draw Nintendo’s ire.
Those involved in emulation argue that they are preserving older games at the risk of becoming obsolete to help others experience gaming history. They also often improve upon existing games with new features, like multiplayer support, and enhanced visuals – itself a cornerstone of the PC modding culture.
Notably, they claim they already own the games they are playing, and only use emulators to access their purchased content on other devices.
All of this can be true, but it still doesn’t stop Nintendo and others from suing the developers of emulators for copyright infringement. While emulation software isn’t illegal on its own, the issue often lies with how it is developed (for instance, does it contain copyrighted software code?) and the purposes for which it is used.
For its part, Nintendo alleged that Yuzu facilitated “piracy at a colossal scale”, and allowed Yuzu users to play “virtually any game made for the Nintendo Switch, all without paying a dime to Nintendo” or any other Switch game developer.
