Nintendo Lawyer Explains Why The Company Believes Some Emulators Are Illegal

Few gaming publishers are more fiercely protective of their IP than Nintendo. In the past year alone, Nintendo has reportedly cracked down on YouTube emulator channels that featured the company's games and played detective to locate and identify an alleged Switch pirate. During a recent appearance at an event run by Japan’s Association of Copyright for Computer Software, Nintendo's patent attorney Koji Nishiura took the time to walk through the company's stance on emulation.

As reported by Denfaminicogamer and translated by Automaton, Nishiura suggested that the emulators by themselves may not be illegal, but the way they are used can determine if they are breaking the law. To illustrate his point, Nishiura noted that emulators may copy proprietary programs or disable security encryptions, both of which are activities that Nintendo frowns upon. He also said that emulators can be used to play pirated copies of Nintendo's games, which the company still considers to be illegal.

Nintendo has emulated several of its own games for its modern systems, which clearly falls within the company's rights. However, many classic games released on the oldest systems--including NES, SNES, Nintendo 64, and GameCube--aren't readily available to legally play from Nintendo itself. Some emulator hosts have argued that by maintaining a library of these games, they are preserving a piece of video game history.