How strong is Nintendo’s legal case against Switch emulator Yuzu?

Enlarge / Chopping Yuzu into three parts is not a proposed legal remedy, for now… (credit: Yuzu)

Nintendo has filed a lawsuit against Tropic Haze LLC, the makers of the popular Yuzu emulator that the Switch-maker says is “facilitating piracy at a colossal scale.”

The federal lawsuit—filed Monday in the District Court of Rhode Island and first reported on by Stephen Totilo—is the company’s most expansive and significant argument yet against emulation technology that it argues “turns general computing devices into tools for massive intellectual property infringement of Nintendo and others’ copyrighted works.” Nintendo is asking the court to prevent the developers from working on, promoting, or distributing the Yuzu emulator, and requesting significant financial damages under the DMCA.

If successful, the arguments in the case could help overturn years of legal precedent that has protected emulator software itself, even as using those emulators for software piracy has remained illegal.