Nintendo shuts down Switch emulator ‘Ryujinx’

Months ago, Nintendo successfully managed to shut down development on the Yuzu emulator, but the company had left one prominent back-up, Ryujinx, which remained in development. That changed this week, as the lead developer on the project was finally tracked down by Nintendo and as a result, that emulator is shutting down too. 

Ryujinx was a Nintendo Switch emulator, developed as an open source project. The lead developer was contacted by Nintendo earlier this week and “offered an agreement to stop working on the project, remove the organisation and all related assets”, as confirmed by former Ryujinx team member, riperiperi on their Discord server.

While the other members of the project were unsure if the lead developer would accept the offer, the organisation was removed within hours, so it seems Nintendo did in fact squash development.

While the company behind Yuzu, Tropical Haze, was faced with a lawsuit and ended up settling for $2.4 million, it doesn't look like Nintendo filed a lawsuit against those behind Ryujinx, so whoever was part of the project may have got off easy.

Due to the shutdown of Ryujinx, the emulator's GitHub page has been stripped clean and there will be no future updates. However, as this was an open source project, it is entirely possible that someone else picks up where the previous developers left off.

KitGuru Says: Emulators are legal software, however, circumventing copyright protections is not and as these emulators are often used to play pirated games, it is pretty clear why Nintendo wants to strong-arm them into shutting down. 

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