Nintendo shuts down Switch & 3DS emulators

And pour one out for Pokemon GO

Author

Cooltrainer Ace
March 07, 2024 • Estimated Read Time: 8 minutes

Welcome back to another week of news from Victory Road. I, the unconquerable Cooltrainer Ace, am riding a win streak and bashing down every trainer that crosses my path.

Before you ask, Youngsters and Bug Catchers are tougher than they look, okay? I swear that last Kakuna could see into my soul.

But enough about my glorious victories.

This week’s rundown (estimated read time, 5 minutes):

Switch & DS emulators Yuzu and Citra close down

Well that didn’t take long.

After Nintendo filed a lawsuit against the popular Switch emulator Yuzu last week, it appeared a long legal battle was in store.

Instead, Nintendo and Yuzu settled outside of the courtroom earlier this week, before the fight ever started. Yuzu devs agreed to shut down and paid Nintendo $2.4 million in monetary relief.

In addition, the Yuzu website will be transferred into Nintendo’s control and all copies of Yuzu source code will be (officially, at least) removed from the internet. Later that day, the same team announced Citra, a 3DS emulator they managed, was shutting down as well.

They posted the following statement on their Discord and website:

We started the projects in good faith, out of passion for Nintendo and its consoles and games, and were not intending to cause harm. But we see now that because our projects can circumvent Nintendo’s technological protection measures and allow users to play games outside of authorized hardware, they have led to extensive piracy. In particular, we have been deeply disappointed when users have used our software to leak game content prior to its release and ruin the experience for legitimate purchasers and fans.

Technology advances in the last two decades make it harder for devs to emulate newer systems legally. Particularly for Wii, 3DS, and Switch, users have to find a way to circumvent Digital Rights Management blocks to acquire “product keys” or “encryption keys” in order for an emulator to run.

Some emulators provide these (which is illegal) and others require you to input your own (either from a device you own legally or through illegal methods online).

Yuzu vs. Nintendo would have marked the first lawsuit over emulators in 20 years. The tide may be turning but their are a number of unknowns.

  • Right now, these issues fall under laws written in the 90s that were intended to deal with VHS copying, not modern gaming tech.

  • Because this was settled out of court, legal precedent is murky.

  • Even without precedent, other emulators are certainly on watch.

As physical devices and games age and break, you can argue emulators and roms are the only way to preserve these experiences. But, as the Yuzu team itself pointed out, most people use these methods to pirate software for free rather than archiving.

Victory Road is ending Pokémon GO coverage

In the two-years I’ve written The Victory Road, Pokémon GO has been a large part of almost every email. I prided myself on giving you a one-stop shop for the latest in-game events and news.

With recent updates to the user interface, current events and happenings are now easier than ever to access while you’re in the app. Given that my coverage was for casual players to stay updated, it’s no longer needed.

Over the past several months, Victory Road’s GO coverage has become little more than copypasta lists.

More important, I, like many GO trainers, don’t like the direction the app is going. Lately, we’re flooded with paid events. As a rural player with little access to gyms and stops in walking distance of my home, new features like Routes and Party Challenges are more of a chore than a breath of fresh air.

I have only anecdotal proof, but spawn rates for 3-star Pokémon and the number of free Poké, Great and Ultra balls given as rewards and gifts all seem to have been nerfed in the past year, too. For example, I’ve caught 67 Quaxly and not one rated higher than 2-stars.

Given GO’s shrinking revenues, it’s not hard to imagine Niantic is squeezing players to buy boxes and additional Poke Balls in an effort to boost revenue. The decline has begun. I’m not sure if things will change for the better.

I’ll still play on occasion. This isn’t a vendetta or a boycott. I have a 2-year-old Cooltrainer-in-training that loves to play with me. We have fun.

But Victory Road is moving on. If you’re a GO player, I hope you continue to enjoy the game. Keep that index finger loose and happy GO-ing.

Side note: I’ve recently compiled high-quality PNGs of EVERY Pokémon GO load screen that you can download (for free, of course). These are great phone wallpapers. Moving forward, new Victory Road subscribers will get them when they sign up.

The Cooltrainer Chronicles, pt 1.

The Cooltrainer Chronicles is a new weekly section of Victory Road. Follow along as I (Cooltrainer Ace) recount my humble origins and daring adventures via an ongoing serial story.

I hate to break it to you, but not every Pokémon trainer has the cute, “golly-gee Professor Tree Name, which starter can I have?” experience. Most of us don’t even get the Ash Ketchum version.

No, for all the regular kids out there who didn’t grow up in a blue-blood, trust-fund family, becoming the very best like no one ever was looks a little bit different. The road is longer and the path is harder.

My name is Cooltrainer Ace, and this is my story.

I didn’t leave home when I was ten, like the rich kids do. Instead I had a paper route, chucking newspapers (we had ones made out of actual paper back then) onto people’s porches every morning before the Pidgeys started chirping.

(If you’re wondering how I developed my trademark PokeBall toss, it was from throwing papers).

It took until I was sixteen to put enough money aside for a half-dozen PokeBalls and a one-way ticket out Viridian City. Stepping into the PokeMart, that day, I still remember the smell of the Potion packages and the soft buzz of the glass coolers on the back wall.

After the purchase I turned the PokeBalls over in my hands, feeling the cool, shiny metal against my skin. I had six chances, a half-eaten PB&J and some rocks to catch my starter—the ghetto version of a Safari Zone expedition.

The only question was, which Pokémon would I go after?

Card of the Week

Farigiraf ex from the upcoming Temporal Forces expansion has got some serious Tera bling going on. Don’t mess with spike giraffe. Solid work from illustrator 5ban Graphics.

Random encounters around the internet

Obscure Pokémon Fact (from u/Mx_Toniy_4869)

Until next time,
Cooltrainer “hiding my rom hacks” Ace