Having Nintendo on your back for legal reasons is a guaranteed defeat, and in order to come out unscathed, the accused will agree to anything. In the case of the controversial Yuzu emulator, the creators will not defend anyone but themselves, and as part of the settlement with the Japanese company, they shifted the blame for what happened onto the users.
Yuzu Creator Blames Users for the Emulator Shutdown
Through a message on Yuzus official Discord channel (via Stephen Totilo at X), the lead developer of the emulator, known on the internet as Bunnei, informed the community about the immediate shutdown of Yuzus operations, as well as its official communication and distribution channels as part of the agreement with Nintendo. However, he took the opportunity to criticize users who misused the software, believing that their acts of piracy ruined everything – Nintendo was alerted, and Yuzu ceased to exist.
[tweet]https://twitter.com/stephentotilo/status/1764738911933288687[/tweet]
[tweet]https://twitter.com/yuzuemu/status/1764733659444064671[/tweet]
Bunnei mentioned that both he and the entire Yuzu team have been against piracy and pointed fingers at those who pirated The Legend of Zelda: Tears of the Kingdom before its official release: "We were deeply disappointed when we learned that users used our software to leak game content before its release, ruining the experience for legitimate buyers and fans."
According to Nintendo, Zelda: Tears of the Kingdom was pirated over 1 million times, and those copies were running on Yuzu days before the official release.
Finally, on behalf of the Yuzu creators, Bunnei called for an end to piracy and reiterated that the creation of the emulator and its consequences were not intended for this criminal activity. In response, social media users consider that the Yuzu responsible parties are merely protecting themselves, and the message is nothing more than a legal strategy to distance themselves from piracy, which also had a presence in their Switch emulation scene.
A short while ago, it was confirmed that Nintendo and Tropic Haze reached an agreement, signifying the end of Yuzu and everything related to this controversial emulator.