Nintendo cares a lot about killing off emulation and ROM hosting wherever they can, actually. They send out cease and desist letters all the time and many projects and websites have been killed because of it. Thousands, I think, from single-person projects like “Another Metroid 2 Remake” all the way up to Team Xecuter. I think one of the Switch emulators that was in progress a couple years ago got killed off by the lawyers.
The catch is that reverse-engineered emulators being made without any Nintendo code, and made without the intention of profit, are not a violation of copyright law or Nintendo licensing and Nintendo has no grounds to sue the makers. But they’re always keeping an eye on such projects waiting for something actionable.
This is why any given Nintendo emulator website or Github repository you can find will have zero links to any ROMs or any sources for them – because anything like that will get an immediate letter and possible lawsuit.
Nintendo cares a lot about killing off emulation and ROM hosting wherever they can, actually. They send out cease and desist letters all the time and many projects and websites have been killed because of it. Thousands, I think, from single-person projects like “Another Metroid 2 Remake” all the way up to Team Xecuter. I think one of the Switch emulators that was in progress a couple years ago got killed off by the lawyers.
The catch is that reverse-engineered emulators being made without any Nintendo code, and made without the intention of profit, are not a violation of copyright law or Nintendo licensing and Nintendo has no grounds to sue the makers. But they’re always keeping an eye on such projects waiting for something actionable.
This is why any given Nintendo emulator website or Github repository you can find will have zero links to any ROMs or any sources for them – because anything like that will get an immediate letter and possible lawsuit.
Edit: I remembered right, Yuzu actually got sued and had to pay Nintendo 2.4 million USD. It’s also dead in the water. https://www.pcgamer.com/software/nintendo-v-yuzu-switch-emulator-shut-down-settlement/
Yuzu was accepting money for early access and also had compatibility specifically for leaked games before their release