Case 1:24-cv-00082-JJM-LDADocument 1Filed 02/26/24Page 15 of 41 PageID #: 15
Defendant has given them the tools to find—and an encrypted Nintendo Switch game ROM.
41. As discussed in more detail below, Yuzu’s website provides detailed instructions on how to unlawfully acquire the requisite cryptographic keys and unauthorized and encrypted copies of Nintendo Switch games for Yuzu to run. But all of that is only to make Yuzu function as intended; but for Yuzu, a user could have keys, and they could have encrypted game ROMs, but they couldn’t play games.
- Defendant Instructs Users How to Circumvent Their Nintendo Switch Consoles and Make Unlawful Copies of Encrypted Games So Yuzu Can Circumvent and Play Those Games.
42. Yuzu’s website provides a “Quickstart Guide” with step-by-step instructions and links to set up Yuzu by using unlawful methods to hack one’s own Nintendo Switch and create unauthorized copies of Nintendo Switch games. As discussed below, Yuzu’s lead developer Bunnei has also acknowledged that the Quickstart Guide can be confusing and “users probably just pirate a yuzu folder with everything.”
43. Regarding the Quickstart Guide, most steps pertain to instructing users to hack a Nintendo Switch console to obtain prod.keys from the hacked Nintendo Switch, and to “dump” (or unlawfully copy) Nintendo Switch games, so that the games can be decrypted by Yuzu, accessed, and played. The Guide reads: “[t]o start playing commercial games, yuzu needs a couple of system files from a HACKABLE Nintendo Switch console in order to play them properly.” “Hackable” is in all-caps and bold to indicate that Yuzu will work only for Nintendo Switch models released prior to June 2018, because of a hardware update Nintendo introduced at that time patching a particular hack.[1] In other words, the Yuzu developers brazenly acknowledge that using Yuzu necessitates hacking or breaking into a Nintendo Switch.
- ↑ Over 110 million of the 139 million Nintendo Switch consoles currently in circulation were manufactured after this time. Yuzu notes that “[w]hile there are possible ways to jailbreaking [sic] patched [Nintendo] Switch models, instructions for booting into custom firmware may differ from this guide…”
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