Yuzu Telemetry Proved How It Was Used to Play Pirated Games; Nintendo Is Now in Possession of Users’ Data

The Yuzu Switch emulator telemetry feature was used by Nintendo to prove how the emulator was used to play pirated games, often before their official release.

As reported by Hikiko on X/Twitter, the Yuzu developers decided to settle to avoid discovery, as they would be hit with multiple infringements, including dumping games and sharing them between themselves, a claim that was not verified due to the out-of-court settlement. In addition, the emulator's telemetry feature, which is a standard feature in most modern software, was used by Nintendo to prove how the emulator was used to play pirated games, citing the massive number of players who played Zelda: Tears of the Kingdom on the emulator.

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The fact that the Yuzu Nintendo Switch emulator developers logged a lot of information on their users, however, is a much bigger issue in light of the recent developments. All members of the LLC will be safe as long as they comply with the terms of the settlement, but the fact that they turned over all devices, hard drives, and domains owned by it means that Nintendo is now in possession of this information, including details on the emulator's developers, payment information of Patreon supporters and so on. What the Japanese company will do with this data remains to be seen, but it definitely sounds like the end of development for the Yuzu emulator is only the beginning.

As Yuzu is no longer in the works, the only working emulator that is being actively developed is Ryujinx. New projects were also launched to continue the development of the popular emulator, although one was already canceled. No matter what, we can be sure Nintendo will be keeping a keen eye on them, as the Japanese company proved once again that it does not tolerate piracy.