Switch Emulator Ryujinx goes offline after its lead was contacted by Nintendo
The Ryujinx Switch emulator has been pulled offline, and we can blame Nintendo
Nintendo has successfully killed off another Switch emulator. First, the company killed the Yuzu emulator with legal action; now, Ryujinx has been taken offline.
This time, Nintendo didn’t take down this emulator with legal action. To take down Ryujinx, Nintendo contacted the lead developer of the open-source emulator. Nintendo reportedly offered the developer an agreement to stop working on the project and take it offline. Now, it seems clear that they have agreed to Nintendo’s terms. Right now, Ryujinx’s Github page reports a 404 error, and the emulator’s official download page has become inaccessible. Given what Nintendo did to Tropical Haze, the developer of Yuzu, it isn’t surprising that Ryujinx’s creator has opted to take the emulator offline.
Earlier this year, we reported that Ryujinx could play over 83% of the Nintendo Switch’s game library. The emulator could even play Switch games at higher resolutions and refresh rates than Nintendo’s Switch hardware. In a sense, this made PC the best place to play Switch games.
— Ryujinx (@RyujinxEmu) October 1, 2024
Nintendo is likely to reveal its next-generation Switch handheld in the near term future. Since this system is almost guaranteed to be backwards compatible with the original Switch, it makes sense for Nintendo to specifically target Switch emulators. After all, much of the work on Switch game emulation is likely to transfer to a hypothetical Switch 2 emulator. In any case, Nintendo is maintaining its anti-emulation stance, unless they are the ones doing it, of course.
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