Nintendo just went nuclear on Switch emulators (again)

Curtis Joe / Android AuthorityTL;DR Nintendo has filed seven new DMCA notices taking down over 400 GitHub repositories related to Switch emulators. The notice took down repos for emulators such as Suyu, Skyline, and several others. It’s no secret that Nintendo has historically taken an extremely strict stance against emulators and people using its IP without permission. A few months ago, the company sent DMCA notices to take down several Switch emulators whose code was hosted on GitHub. Now, the company has thrown another proverbial Donkey Kong barrel at more such GitHub repositories.Nintendo has filed seven DMCA complaints with GitHub to take down over 400 repositories related to Switch emulators in a single day (via TorrentFreak). This includes emulators like Suyu, which gained popularity after the Yuzu emulator shut down in 2024. According to the DMCA notice displayed publicly on the Suyu repository, GitHub took down all 311 repositories in the network due to Nintendo’s DMCA notice.The crackdown also removed several repositories that were forks of the Yuzu emulator, as well as a repository for the Skyline emulator. It’s worth noting that the Skyline emulator shut down in 2023 to avoid legal battles with Nintendo, but its open-source code was available in a repository that’s now offline.Nintendo’s DMCA report states that Switch emulators illegally circumvent Nintendo’s protection measures, allowing users to run illegal copies of Switch games. It also used two cases Nintendo had filed in the past as precedent for the takedown. One was the much-talked-about lawsuit the company filed against Yuzu developer Tropic Haze, and another was a lawsuit Nintendo filed against a streamer for streaming pirated copies of Nintendo games.There are still Switch emulators out there, including the Eden emulator, which got booted off GitHub back in March but is still available to download or compile from its Git backup. As for any other Switch emulators that show up, it’s almost certain that Nintendo will keep throwing DMCA notices and lawsuits at them.Thank you for being part of our community. Read our Comment Policy before posting.