The Japanese giant Nintendo clarified his position on emulators during an eSports event in Tokyo, speaking for the first time about an issue that has been going on for months. Koji Nishiura, Nintendo’s patent attorney, has explained in particular why the company considers copycats problematic and fights them legally.
During Tokyo eSports Festa 2025, Nintendo participated in a conference on the importance of intellectual property rights in the video game industry. Nishiura addressed the controversial topic of emulation, explaining that copycats are not illegal per sebut they can become so depending on how they are used – and up until now we all knew it -.
According to Nintendo’s lawyer, an emulator may violate copyright if it copies programs from the original device. Furthermore, it may break unfair competition laws if it disables security mechanisms such as encryption. Nishiura pointed out that Nintendo’s legal actions against emulators like Yuzu and Ryujinx were motivated by this last point.
The lawyer highlighted that the problem of emulators does not only concern Nintendo, but negatively impacts all developers who create software for the company’s platforms. For this reason, Nintendo is strengthening measures against illegal tools such as emulators.
Nishiura cited as an example a cause from 2009 against the distributors of a device that allowed you to play pirated versions of Nintendo DS games. At that time, over 50 software developers joined Nintendo as plaintiffs, winning the case.
Obviously the company always tries to put the protection of its own interests and those of the developers first. It must be said that the lawyer did not say anything that was not already more than explicit or well known, but this is still the first time that Nintendo actually comments on its fight against piracy and emulation, which has intensified to starting from Yuzu’s story.
Source: www.tomshw.it
