Nintendo is not relenting on its crackdown on developers who infringe on its patent or intellectual property. The latest to feel the legal might of the Japanese company is the Ryujinx emulator which has now been shuttered.
“Yesterday, gdkchan 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,” wrote rip in peri peri on the developer’s Discord server. Ryujinx shared the screenshot of the post on X.
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“While awaiting confirmation on whether he would take this agreement, the organization has been removed, so I think it’s safe to say what the outcome is.”
After reporting about the deal between Nintendo and Ryujinx, Rip in peri peri who appears to be among the Ryujinx team wrote a message saying they don’t speak for anyone else.
“Thank you to @everyone who has contributed code, documentation or issue reports to the project. Thank you all following us throughout the development. I was able to learn a lot of really neat things about games that I love, enjoy them with renewed qualities and in unique circumstances, and I’m sure you all have experiences that are similarly special. I’m extending my own massive thanks to our moderation team, who have been here through some rough circumstances and always found ways to make light of it.”
Ryujinx ‘confirmed’ the shuttering of the project
While there was no official message from Ryujinx expressly confirming the shutting down of the project, the developers behind the project indirectly confirmed the message through their advice to its Patreon subscribers.
“As one final message, we ask all Patreon subscribers to cancel their subscriptions and everyone else not to donate, since we do not have access to the Patreon account anymore and the money is not going to any of us,” the Ryujinx team announced on X.
According to a series of screenshots posted on the developer’s X account, they had several other projects that they were on the verge of releasing before Nintendo forced them to shut down the projects.
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“There were over 100 unmerged PRs at the time before release,” the developers said. “Unfortunately, that work is homeless now… but it should still go appreciated. Again, thank you to anyone who contributed to the project, or even just gave it a shot.”
“Finally, we had some work to run native applets, improving compatibility and the overall user experience. This would be the true evolution of the emulator going forward, but changes were stuck in limbo and never got released.”
The strings of tweets alluding to the shutting down of the emulator project were the first the company had made on their X handle since March 2, 2024, when they announced the rolling out of the Avalonia frontend. All Ryujinx’s GitHub repositories have been removed.
Earlier this year, Nintendo dragged Tropic Haze, the developers of the Yuzu emulator to court. The case ended with the shutdown of the Yuzu emulator. The company was also asked to pay Nintendo $2.4 million.
Do you think shutting down emulators will help end the piracy of Switch games? Share your thoughts in the comment box below.
