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After shutting down several popular emulators, Nintendo admits emulation is legal
(www.androidauthority.com)
this post was submitted on 16 Jan 2025
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Nintendo went even further than that:
https://tech4gamers.com/nintendo-linking-emulator-trafficking/
And they absolutely have said that emulation is illegal in the past:
https://www.slashgear.com/1572585/are-video-game-emulators-illegal-answer/
On their website, they name emulators in a list of "illegal activities" they want people to snitch on:
https://en-americas-support.nintendo.com/app/answers/detail/a_id/50131/~/how-to-report-potential-infringements-of-nintendo-products
Those articles are wrong. Nintendo says Switch emulation is illegal, not all emulation is illegal.
They have always argued that emulating a current system is illegal, which makes no legal sense. Either every kind of emulation is or none.
It makes sense from argumentation standpoint, because Nintendo argues that there are protection mechanisms in the Switch that is illegal to ignore, in emulators. I don't know if this is true and you don't know either, because this was not tested in court. Nintendo never ever said that ALL emulation is illegal, which i stated in my initial reply. Otherwise Nintendo would go and take down ALL emulators. Not every kind of emulation is the same.
In example the Dolphin emulator ships with keys extracted from the console. Some say its illegal to distribute these keys, others argue keys are not copyrighted and its not illegal to share, but it was never tested in court either. If Nintendo had a case, they would definitely go against that emulator, as the keys are in the source code in the open public. Nintendo never said that Dolphin or Wii and Gamecube emulation is illegal. Or any other prior console and emulator of Nintendo systems. Nintendo console emulators exist in the public since the 90s.
Its much more nuanced than people are making or understanding. And lot of articles, like the one stated before, are plain and simple wrong and cite without context. And people who don't understand the situation take this and believe it.