These are not good days for emulation.
In February, Nintendo sued the makers of the Switch emulator Yuzu, saying it “unlawfully circumvents the technological measures” that help deter piracy of Switch games. Just a couple weeks later, Yuzu settled, agreeing to halt development and pay $2.4 million to the company, a decisive win for Nintendo that led us to wonder whether it would pursue similar action against other emulators, particularly the Yuzu competitor Ryujinx. Now we have our answer.
“Yesterday, [Ryujinx creator] 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,” developer and moderator rip in peri peri posted on the Ryujinx Discord. “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.”
It certainly seems to be. The download page at ryujinx.org is now blank, and the direct link to the emulator at Github leads to a 404 error. Gdkchan has not yet commented on the matter, but the Discord message was also shared on the Ryujinx feed on X.
pic.twitter.com/2Ggt9SWoDIOctober 1, 2024
Rip in peri peri said Ryujinx developers had a lot going on behind the scenes that will now never see the light of day, including an iOS port “that ran really well,” an Android version that wasn’t quite ready for prime time, and other work-in-progress improvements to performance, compatibility, and “the overall user experience.”
“This would be the true evolution of the emulator going forward, but changes were stuck in limbo and never got released,” they wrote.
“I feel that this desire for perfection over getting there as fast as possible set us apart as an emulator, but unfortunately it means you didn’t get to see some of our best work in action. Just keep it in your heart as a vision of what is possible.”
While they won’t be remaining on the Switch scene after this, rip in peri peri said they still believe in the value of emulation and hope other developers won’t be dissuaded by the shutdown of Ryujinx: “The future of game preservation does depend on individuals, and maybe one day it’ll be properly recognized.”
I think it’s very likely that other emulator developers will be dissuaded, though, not by the fate of Ryujinx specifically but by Nintendo’s enthusiastic pursuit of anyone stepping foot on its turf. As we noted when Nintendo filed a lawsuit against survival game Palworld, its legal strategy might be most aptly described as “vengeful,” although even that doesn’t always convey the extent to which the company is willing to wage total war over small potatoes.
Recall, for instance, how Nintendo infamously destroyed the life of Gary Bowser, who spent more than a year in prison for selling “circumvention devices”—considerably less than he was originally sentenced to, for the record—and now owes the company more than $14 million, which Nintendo is determinedly collecting. “The sentence was like a message to other people,” Bowser said in a recent interview, and it’s very likely one that’s been heard far and wide.
Interestingly, some redditors believe the shutdown came not because of legal threats but because gdkchan “sold out” to Nintendo for an undisclosed but presumably large sum of cash. I’m not sure where that comes from, although it may arise from the “offered an agreement” wording in the shutdown message. I’ve reached out to ask but for now that doesn’t seem likely to me, particularly given Nintendo’s history as noted above; I feel like any deal involving Nintendo and an emulator would be less “big fat check” and more “wake up beside a horse’s head.”
Whatever the case, it’s yet another big blow to the emulation scene, and game preservation more generally. As with Yuzu, it’ll be hard to stamp Ryujinx out completely: The source code is gone from Github but it’s already being shared on Reddit and quite possibly elsewhere. But even if other developers are willing to pick up the project, it seems inevitable that Nintendo will come down hard on any effort to get it back out there.
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