Nintendo hits GitHub with DMCA notices over Yuzu and Switch modchips

What are Switch modchips?

Chips such as Picofly, SX Core and HWFLY are soldered onto the Switch motherboard. Firmware is then installed on them to get around Nintendo's copy protection. According to TorrentFreak, some of that firmware is still available on GitHub and elsewhere.

Not Nintendo's first try at Yuzu

This isn't new ground. In 2024 Nintendo had around 8,500 copies of Yuzu removed after DMCA requests covering 12 mirrors of the emulator.

The timing is interesting. The notices went out a few days after emulators managed to run the recent remake of The Legend of Zelda: Ocarina of Time on PC. That may mean Nintendo is lining up its lawyers for another round of tightening.

AI is part of the backdrop. Developers analyse the executable code of original games, convert it into C++ source code and adapt it to run on Windows, Linux and other platforms. That approach has been used on Mario Kart: Double Dash, Super Mario Odyssey, Mario Tennis Fever and The Legend of Zelda: Skyward Sword HD. Nintendo has already had repositories for those four projects taken down. Anthropic, for its part, has blocked direct copying of games with Claude.

In September, Nintendo also won $4.5 million from a Reddit moderator who spread pirated copies of 30 Switch games. The court ordered the defendant to shut down online stores that could hold libraries of pirated Switch games.