Yuzu Creators, Tropic Haze has agreed to pay $2.4 million in damages to Nintendo and shut all operations, along with the 3DS emulator Citra. Read on to learn more about the lawsuit settlement.
Nintendo Shuts Down Yuzu Operations
Nintendo and Tropic Haze Agree on $2.4M Settlement
A newly disclosed document unveils a joint motion of agreement between the creators of the Yuzu Emulator and Nintendo of America. Under this agreement, the Yuzu Emulator creators have agreed to pay $2.4 million in damages to Nintendo. Furthermore, they will discontinue support for the widely-used open-source Switch emulator.
This settlement signifies the conclusion of a lawsuit initiated by Nintendo, who sued the developers of Yuzu for facilitating the playing of pirated Nintendo Switch games on unauthorized devices. Notably, one such pirated game, "The Legend of Zelda: Tears of the Kingdom," was downloaded over 1 million times and Yuzu's Patreon page allowed its developers to earn $30,000 per month for updates on said pirated Nintendo games.
Furthermore, as part of the agreement, Tropic Haze is subject to a permanent injunction. This injunction prohibits the company from engaging in various activities related to the Yuzu emulator, including "offering to the public, providing, marketing, advertising, promoting, selling, testing, hosting, cloning, distributing, or otherwise trafficking of Yuzu" or "any of its source code or features."
In addition, Tropic Haze is required to "surrender and permanently cease to use" the website domain named "EMU.ORG" or any other variant or successor that "harms Nintendo’s Intellectual Property."
Furthermore, the creators of Tropic Haze have consented to refrain from establishing new entities or associations aimed at developing comparable Nintendo emulation software in the future.
Citra Will Also Shut Down
Following the news of the Switch Emulator being shut down, Yuzu announced on their Twitter page that "yuzu and yuzu’s support of Citra", the 3DS Emulator, is "being discontinued, effective immediately."
In their statement, the team behind Tropic Haze asserts their longstanding stance against piracy. They clarify that their projects were initiated with "good faith" and "out of passion" for Nintendo and its consoles and games, with no intention of causing harm.
However, they acknowledge the unintended consequence of facilitating extensive piracy through their work. The team expressed their deep disappointment, particularly when "users have used our software to leak game content prior to its release and ruin the experience for legitimate purchasers and fans."
Their statement ends with them stating that they "cannot continue to allow this to occur" and will be pulling their "code repositories offline," discontinuing their Patreon and Discord, and shutting down their websites effective immediately
They hope their actions will be "a small step towards ending piracy" and thank their fans for their "support and understanding."
Source:
Tropic Haze Joint Mot for Entry of Consent Judgment
