GitHub link to Nintendo's claim - all the details you need are here
The emulator forks which are being taken down are as follows:
Despite this, the one fork that continues, and will continue without takedown is Ryubing - by Greemdev. This is created by an original member of the Ryujinx team. It's safe, the code is beyond reproach (and violates zero laws or Nintendo code) and actually brings helpful updates.
Still...shitty news. And more indication that the Switch 2's architecture will be damn similar to that of this current Switch. Them taking emulators down means the upcoming games have a solid chance of being emulatable on release. But...that's my own (and others') conjecture, so we'll see when the time comes.
What gives them the right to take down emulators? It's just code someone wrote that happens to be able to interpret bytes from a switch cartridge?
Why wouldn't they take down a company like analogue for example for making a hardware level gameboy emulator?
Just legal bullying. Good luck fighting an army of lawyers that are also lobbying the system. That being said all of that would be civil suits so if emulator creators don't earn money they don't have much to lose but the ability to continue the work.
Nintendo got one guy's paychecks garnished for the rest of his life. So even if you have no money there is a lot to lose.
IIRC, part of the argument is that Switch games are encrypted, and the emulator uses real Switch keys to read the games. So Nintendo claims that by using official Nintendo Switch keys, it is violating Nintendo’s copyright and is subject to DMCA claims.
The argument is shaky at best. But the problem with DMCA is that combating it actually requires taking the claimant to court. So that’s a prohibitively long and difficult process, just to be able to go “hey Nintendo doesn’t actually have any claim here. Restore my repo.” Especially when Nintendo has a known history of drawing out long legal battles to exhaust defendants’ time+resources.
From my understanding the repos wouldn't include the keys (or if they did then they definitely shouldn't). But yeah I understand the long legal battle thing.
Right, Dolphin had an encryption key in there for the Wii that was hardcoded in. That is apparently the one bit of legal leverage Nintendo has to keep it off Steam, though being Nintendo, they would likely fight it, anyway.
In any case, the key could be a user provided configuration option, or tools for ripping games could do the decryption on their own. Either should keep the code safe from Nintendo being able to win a case. Though again, doesn't stop Nintendo from trying and exhausting your ability to fight it.
Repos wouldn't include the keys, but they'd include instructions on how to obtain them. Those instructions (according to Nintendo's legal team) are enough to say that Yuzu violates the DMCA.
The patents on the Game Boy hardware expired years ago, so that's what gives Analogue the right to do what they do. As for these Switch emulators, I have no idea, but I'll guess it's just Nintendo trying to scare people without their own legal departments into complying.