In 2024, after years of seemingly turning a blind eye, Nintendo brought the DMCA takedown hammer hard on Switch emulators like Yuzu and Ryujinx. Despite the significant blow, however, it was far from the end of the Nintendo Switch emulator scene. Ryujinx and Yuzu forks are still available, and brand new emulators like Eden and Citron, just to name two, have emerged over time. Nintendo's latest big release, Metroid Prime 4, was immediately playable on those Switch emulators.
On Friday, though, the Switch emulator scene suffered another scare as Nintendo sent a new DMCA takedown notice targeting the GitHub pages of most remaining emulators, including:
- Citron
- Eden
- Kenji-NX
- MeloNX
- Pine
- Pomelo
- Ryubing
- Ryujinx
- Skyline
- Sudachi
- Sumi
- Suyu
- Yuzu
The Citron website appears to be dead, and the same goes for MeloNX. However, many of the other Switch emulators are still normally available, including Eden, currently the most popular one. In Eden's Discord, one of the project managers sent the following message on Friday:
Nintendo issued a DMCA takedown request against our Releases repository, hosted at https://github.com/eden-emulator/Releases. At the time we're unsure what exactly will happen to that repository (or when anything will happen), but the most likely scenario is that it's removed and you won't be able to access our stable releases on GitHub anymore. Our source code is unaffected, as it isn't hosted on GitHub. The only thing targeted was our GitHub releases page. Not the source code, not our Actions workflow, nothing on our self-hosted Git instance, not even our development PR/Master/Nightly builds. The source code is always available at https://git.eden-emu.dev/eden-emu/eden, and releases are also mirrored at https://git.eden-emu.dev/eden-emu/eden/releases. Our development will continue as always!
Interestingly, a new build (v0.2.0-rc1) was uploaded yesterday to the GitHub Releases page, where downloads are still available. So, I reached out to the project managers to find out what was going on, and they told me they're fighting the takedown notice with a proper argument that Eden's repository does not infringe any laws or GitHub's hosting policies.
I then asked Eden founder Camille LaVey whether the goal was to continue even if the DMCA takedown succeeded and removed their GitHub Releases page. Here's his reply:
Effectively, as founder of Eden, I can say that we want to keep continuing the work in the preservation of videogames, allowing game owners to benefit from this beyond their original hardware. Since this is a community-driven project, we always look to provide the best result possible for all; yet, we're never sure of what the future can bring, so we're always trying to ask the community to help us in any way they can, so Eden can still be alive for the years to come.
We'll keep you posted on what happens to Switch emulators after the latest Nintendo crackdown. Stay tuned.
About the author: With over two decades of experience in gaming journalism, Alessio Palumbo has led the gaming vertical at Wccftech since August 2015. He started working at a young age for Italian websites like Everyeye.it, Gamestar.it, Nextgame.it, and Multiplayer.it before kickstarting the indie English-language publication Worlds Factory as its founder and Editor in Chief. In the last decade, he has coordinated the overall output of Wccftech's gaming section, managed PR relations, assigned reviews, produced daily news coverage, edited gaming content as needed, and delivered game reviews. Arguably, his trademark content is the long series of exclusive developer interviews that have been cited by Wikipedia and by the biggest news media and gaming publications. His passion for technology also makes him knowledgeable when it comes to gaming hardware and tech. His favorite genres include RPGs, MMORPGs, and action/adventure games.
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