Tuesday, October 1st 2024

Nintendo Takes Down Ryujinx Emulator, YouTube Videos Showing Emulation Get Strikes

Nintendo is living up to its litigious reputation this week, with news reports emerging of the gaming giant issuing a massive wave of copyright strikes on any YouTube videos containing footage of emulation. In addition to this, it seems like Nintendo may have had some harsh words for the lead developer of a popular open-source Switch emulator.

As of an announcement today, the open-source Switch emulator, Ryujinx, is no longer available for download from its GitHub repository. One of the more active developers for the project confirmed via a message in the official Discord that the lead developer, who goes by gdkchan, was contacted by Nintendo with an "offer," although given the outcome of the interaction, it was likely less an offer and more a threat. Shortly before that, Retro Game Corps, a popular content creator in the Nintendo emulation community, posted on X that his YouTube channel had received multiple copyright strikes, requiring that he move away from showing game emulation on-screen.
Ryujinx was an open-source, cross-platform Switch emulator written in C#, and had been in development since 2017. During its time as an active emulator, the developers and contributors of Ryujinx managed to validate approximately 3,400 Switch games as playable and port the emulator to Windows 10, Windows 11, macOS, and Linux. The project also managed to rack up a rather substantial following, with nearly 15,000 stars on GitHub and over 500 Patreon followers. At the time of writing, the emulator's download page is still up, but the actual content on the page has been removed and replaced with white space. The message posted to the Ryujinx Discord server reads:
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. 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.
Anyone that follows gaming news with any form of regularity will know that this is far from the first time Nintendo has taken such a hard stance against emulation and content creators, especially those showing Nintendo games in their videos. While game-streaming is something of a gray area, it's generally overlooked by copyright holders, because most game publishers recognize that having their game on a YouTube or Twitch stream should generally have a positive effect on the game's popularity.
Sources: Ryujinx Discord, Retro Game Corps on X
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69 Comments on Nintendo Takes Down Ryujinx Emulator, YouTube Videos Showing Emulation Get Strikes

#1
Bruno_O
sudachi is superior

f Nintendo and their pathetic hw
Posted on Reply
#2
JohH
Simply put I am not buying any Nintendo products since the Yuzu incident.

I'll stick with my old SNES from which Nintendo will receive no revenue with which to prosecute their excessive application of intellectual property.
Posted on Reply
#3
wolf
Better Than Native
And somehow I feel that it wont be the last we hear of Ryujinx or Yuzu. I'm willing to bet switch emulation development will continue, and Nintendo will keep trying to squash the bigger players.

Posted on Reply
#4
phints
This is a shame, but Ryujinx final build, much like Yuzu is forever available to download on many sites. Heard it still runs latest games like TOTK and Echoes almost perfect too.
Posted on Reply
#5
Metroid
I told to idiots to stop posting videos about emulation 10 years ago and I said this would happen but they never listened, anyway, emulation should have never gone mainstream, only few places used to talk about it and should have kept like that.
Posted on Reply
#8
eidairaman1
The Exiled Airman
MetroidI told to idiots to stop posting videos about emulation 10 years ago and I said this would happen but they never listened, anyway, emulation should have never gone mainstream, only few places used to talk about it and should have kept like that.
Yes the Days before Youtube were amazing, youtube is a steaming pile of shit now, and nintendo are jackasses
Posted on Reply
#9
GoldenX
Bruno_Osudachi is superior

f Nintendo and their pathetic hw
You mean the dude that took hundreds of thousands to port to iPhone and just announced it will never happen, that it was just a proof of concept? The dude that fails to provide the source code of his ports, which are GPL and demand the changes to being published?

Don't promote grifters.
wolfAnd somehow I feel that it wont be the last we hear of Ryujinx or Yuzu. I'm willing to bet switch emulation development will continue, and Nintendo will keep trying to squash the bigger players.

Development will continue, the problem is the quality of it.

Real talent moved to other areas, you're left with fresh people learning the trade, or borderline criminals promising heaven and never delivering.

It will take years to get real progress done now.
Posted on Reply
#10
Bruno_O
GoldenXYou mean the dude that took hundreds of thousands to port to iPhone and just announced it will never happen, that it was just a proof of concept? The dude that fails to provide the source code of his ports, which are GPL and demand the changes to being published?

Don't promote grifters.


Development will continue, the problem is the quality of it.

Real talent moved to other areas, you're left with fresh people learning the trade, or borderline criminals promising heaven and never delivering.

It will take years to get real progress done now.
that was the Suyu guy

sudachi is a fork of yuzu as well, but open and maintained, and it continues improving on the emulator

the way yuzu was built is shady, but the code is on the internet forever so there's nothing nintendo can do

btw I actually buy the games I play, but having owned a Switch I just find the hw too pathetic, 20 fps...argh... some of the games are great tho, and playing them at locked 60 fps / 4k is the way to honor the creators
Posted on Reply
#13
GoldenX
Jarrod has been illegally distributing GPL based forks by not including the source code, has been doing it for years, and it's what got him kicked from the Mac development community.

Every time someone asks him to provide the source, he eternally stalls. Great fella.
Posted on Reply
#14
qlum
I feel like this is a case of lay low till nintendo moves on to the switch 2 / stops releasing new switch get games, then continue. Emulation itself is legal, but it allowing you to pirate unreleased switch games makes it a bit of a grey area.


Sadly two sides are not on equal footing to make their case and nintendo can just bully it's viewpoint across.
Posted on Reply
#15
AusWolf
Did the developers actually breach any copyright of Nintendo? If not, they could have sued.
Posted on Reply
#16
GoldenX
AusWolfDid the developers actually breach any copyright of Nintendo? If not, they could have sued.
You need a huge team to go against them, and if you fail, you set a nasty precedent for any other emulator in existence.
Posted on Reply
#17
AusWolf
GoldenXYou need a huge team to go against them, and if you fail, you set a nasty precedent for any other emulator in existence.
I'm afraid the precedent has already been set either way.
Posted on Reply
#18
GoldenX
AusWolfI'm afraid the precedent has already been set either way.
Not legally, it's just a scare.

The question is, would you risk it alone?
Posted on Reply
#19
AusWolf
GoldenXNot legally, it's just a scare.

The question is, would you risk it alone?
If I was either emotionally or financially invested, I'd seek legal advice first, or probably contact the media, post Nintendo's message on every platform, etc.
Posted on Reply
#20
FoulOnWhite
phintsThis is a shame, but Ryujinx final build, much like Yuzu is forever available to download on many sites. Heard it still runs latest games like TOTK and Echoes almost perfect too.
It does
Posted on Reply
#21
Chomiq
It was just a matter of time, I expect the same thing to happen with PS4 emulator.
Posted on Reply
#22
Dragokar
Well some patents filled to sue Palworld are expedited done via Japanese laws to just be able to sue them.....which is a shame I do believe.
Posted on Reply
#23
Dr. Dro
GoldenXShould I tell them?
Hahahaha immediately came to mind
Posted on Reply
#24
redeye
AusWolfI'm afraid the precedent has already been set either way.
as the idiom goes “ you can’t beat someone who enjoys what they do” and nintendo REALLY enjoys taking down emulators…
Posted on Reply
#25
Nater
If I already own the games I'm using the emulator for, doesn't that fall under "fair use".

Sorta the whole ripping/copying CD's and DVD's years ago?

Suppose they have something in their EULA that puts the nix on that argument.
Posted on Reply
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