Dread it. Run from it. Nintendo arrives all the same. And arrive it has, with a single agenda: terminate the Switch emulator Ryujinx, which it has now done. The site’s download page now leads to a dead-end, the GitHub page has been disappeared, and the lead developer took some sort of deal from Nintendo to ensure it remains that way.
No, really. According to a post from Ryujinx’s X account, ‘GDKCchan’, the lead developer behind the massive emulator 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,” said ripinperiperi, a moderator on the Discord.
Not like the Emulations
The “agreement” hasn’t been disclosed, but it was certainly strong enough to get GDKChan to cooperate with Nintendo’s ninjas. Not long after the developer was contacted by the big boys in red, Ryujinx was officially dead and buried – leading us to think Nintendo flashed a few zeroes in the developer’s face to force it back in line.
For one thing, it was often thought that Ryujinx was one of the so-called ‘immune’ emulators, avoiding the scrutiny of Nintendo’s watchful eye by hiding out in wild-west Brazil (though The Verge mentioned that solid evidence for this theory was lacking). Whatever the case, it had managed to outrun the lawyers for this long.
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For another, Nintendo is not known for its generosity. If it reckons someone is diving into Tears of the Kingdom (at 60fps, no less) without the necessary R8,000 hardware, they’ll be sued into oblivion, just like what happened to Ryujinx’s biggest competitor – Yuzu – earlier this year, ultimately netting Nintendo $2.4 million.
Nintendo’s decorum in the matter is certainly telling. While Yuzu was forced to comply, Ryujinx was offered an ‘agreement’ – whatever that means – a rare loss for the bid red N. It is, however, possible that some form of Ryujinx may eventually rise from the ashes as a new entity (with the formerly open-source code behind it all).
Fingers crossed.