Yuzu Announced - The First Nintendo Switch Emulator for PC, a Potential Piracy Threat

The first Nintendo Switch emulator has been revealed. Dubbed ‘Yuzu’, it’s from many of the same team members who’ve been working on the Citra 3DS emulator. They’ve managed to cobble together the first Switch emulator within just a year of the console’s launch, although there’s a long way to go until the Switch game library will be playable.

“Announcing yuzu, the first Nintendo Switch emulator that does all of the things you didn't need it to do! Stay tuned for more from the yuzu team!” announced the Yuzu team in a Tweet. As it currently stands the project is still in the very early stages of development, able to boot a handful of Nintendo Switch games but failing to render 3D graphics.

Considering how long it took the Citra team to get games up and running on its 3DS emulator, it’ll be a while yet until you can play Super Mario Odyssey on PC. First released in 2014, some three years after the Nintendo 3DS’s launch, it can currently emulate 37 games perfectly, with a further 63 only having minor graphical or audio glitches. The rest is currently unplayable.

For Nintendo, Yuzu represents somewhat of a ticking clock before the Nintendo Switch is blown wide open. Historically it’s been difficult to determine just what sort of impact this would have on hardware and software sales, although Nintendo’s probably got a good two to three years on the market before it’s likely to become an issue.