Summary
Nintendois arguably the most protective publisher out there when it comes to its copyright. Over the past few years,promising fan-made games have been shut down,various emulators have received cease and desists, and even bigger companies have been the target of Nintendo’s ire, as Palworld developer Pocketpair now finds itselfembroiled in a legal battle with the platform holder over patent infringement.
However, Nintendo appears to have somehow upped its game in recent months, cracking down much harder on emulation. To prove this point, it appears as though the publisher is now targeting YouTubers that show off emulated game footage in their videos. First reported byTime Extension, popular YouTuber Retro Game Corps - who reviews retro systems designed to emulate old games - has claimed he’s being “specifically targeted” by Nintendo.
According to Retro Game Corps in a statementposted to the channel’s Community page-and on the creator’s Twitter account- Nintendo has issued two copyright strikes to his videos recently, the latest being a video showcasing emulated Wii U footage. Retro Game Corps explains that he’s mulling over the possibility of filing a counter-claim, but is “reluctant” to go up against a company as big as Nintendo.
With two copyright strikes to his name - and a third one potentially having the ability to shut down his channel - Retro Game Corps is now going through all of his old videos and blurring out Nintendo game footage, and refusing to showcase the company’s games in future videos. It’s an extremely baffling set of circumstances, especially since almost all of his content focuses on games Nintendo is no longer actively selling.
Nintendo Has Also Shut Down Popular Emulator Ryujinx
To really drive home how hard Nintendo is cracking down on emulation recently, it was also recently announced that a popular emulator for Nintendo Switch games called Ryujinx was shut down after being pressured by the company. This was announced on the emulator’s Discord server,and shared on Twitter by a user called OatmealDome.
In the statement, it was claimed that Nintendo reached an agreement with the emulator’s creator to halt development, as well as shut down the organization and relinquish all material and related assets that he is in possession of. While not confirmed, it’s very likely that Nintendo was offering the creator the chance to take things down, or get hit by a lawsuit.
Those are just two recent examples of Nintendo trying to tackle emulation recently, though it’s yet to be determined whether any other YouTubers are being targeted. It seems like that would be a very difficult thing to police, given how much coverage older Nintendo titles get on YouTube, though it’s still possible that things may start getting a little difficult for Nintendo content creators in the future.
