Nintendo Targets More Switch Emulators in Ongoing Anti-Emulation Efforts: “For Every One Taken Down, Ten Will Arise”

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Nintendo is ramping up its efforts against Switch emulation, recently issuing a new wave of DMCA takedown notices to several prominent emulators.

You might recall that Nintendo took a strong stance against emulation two years ago, targeting the Yuzu emulator with a lawsuit that resulted in a $2.4 million settlement for its creator. Shortly after, Ryujinx also went offline after Nintendo allegedly “offered an agreement to stop working on the project.” At that time, the outcomes for both emulators raised concerns about the future of Switch emulation, and it seems those fears are now materializing.

A Reddit user shared the latest news, revealing that multiple emulators on GitHub, including Citron and Eden, received DMCA takedown notices. Responses in the thread indicated that other emulator communities were also affected, but it appears that self-hosted repositories outside of GitHub remain unaffected.

“If they take one down, ten more will emerge,” one commenter noted. “Take down ten, and a hundred will rise. They can never eliminate emulation.”

An Eden developer acknowledged the situation on Discord, stating, “Our release repository received the notice, so future releases and nightlies will need to be downloaded directly from us. Most of these are forks, so it was only a matter of time before they got hit with a DMCA notice on GitHub. This is why we (and other emulators) don’t host the source on GitHub.”

While emulation itself isn’t illegal, it occupies a murky grey area alongside piracy. For instance, Nintendo’s lawsuit against Yuzu was partly due to the emulator allegedly facilitating a million illegal downloads of The Legend of Zelda: Tears of the Kingdom before its official launch.

In a surprising twist, the Switch 2 now boasts a better PS1 emulator than the PS5 has had for years, as the new Console Archives series demonstrates how retro gaming should be done.