(Photo : Ryujinx, Nintendo / Screenshot taken from official blog)
Nintendo is continuing with its crackdown on piracy as it forces Switch emulator Ryujinx to shut down all of its operations.
The situation comes after the Japanese gaming company reportedly offered "an agreement to stop working" on the emulator. The makers have now pulled the open-source project offline after talking with Nintendo.
Nintendo Shuts Down Ryujinx Switch Emulator
The news was announced by one of the developers of Ryujinx in a post on Discord on Tuesday, Oct. 1, 2024. The shutdown of this particular Switch emulator marks the second such development this year alone.
The first one that sparked Nintendo's crackdown was Yuzu which settled with the Japanese company in March 2024 with a $2.4 million payout. A representative for Ryujinx said that the emulator's lead developer, gdkchan, was contacted by Nintendo.
The representative noted that while awaiting confirmation on whether or not the lead developer would accept the offer, the organization has already been removed. This suggests that the outcome was already decided, according to Polygon.
The Ryujinx emulator was a program that allowed people to play Nintendo Switch games on their computers. It was compatible with more than 3,400 games before it was shut down. The official website is still online despite the removal of its assets.
Read Also: Discord Targets Emulator Devs Following Nintendo's Switch-Yuzu Lawsuit
Many other pages, such as guides, FAQs, and a compatibility list, are no longer accessible to the public. The emulator's Patreon, which has more than 800 members and a monthly profit of around $1,661 per month, was also still live shortly after the news broke out.
The representative, rip in peri peri, said that there was a lot going on behind the scenes in relation to what Ryujinx had planned for the future. These will no longer see the light of day and include an iOS port that was said to have run "really well," PCGamer said.
Crackdown on Piracy
There was also an Android version that was not quite ready for prime time and many other work-in-progress improvements. The latter would have increased performance, and compatibility, and made the "overall user experience" better.
On top of shutting down Ryujinx, Nintendo also issued a copyright strike against a YouTube channel that posted reviews of retro handheld emulators. The creator behind the channel is Retro Game Corps.
They mainly review modern handhelds that run emulated titles. The creator issued a statement about the situation, saying that he received a copyright strike from the Japanese company, according to Games Industry.
They added that they were still considering a counterclaim under fair use because the videos that they posted were made for educational use and were transformative in nature. They also had no effect on the market itself.
Related Article: Nintendo's DMCA Notice Wipes Out Yuzu Emulator Repositories on GitHub