We’re not going to judge you for playing Nintendo Switch games through other methods, but we all know that Ryujinx was the slickest way to do it on handhelds like the Steam Deck. However, the days of booting up Switch titles this way ceased to exist last month following an alleged agreement between Nintendo and the emulator’s creators. Now, Nintendo appears to have added Ryujinx to its arsenal.
In a message sent to Ryujinx Discord members in October, a moderator explained that the project’s lead developer ‘gdkchan’ was in contact with Nintendo and had been “offered an agreement to stop working in the project, remove the organization and all related assets he’s in control of.” Ryujinx quickly became an essential download for Switch fans getting their hands on Valve’s console or the best Steam Deck alternatives, despite the gray area of acquiring many of the best Switch games around.
While we previously didn’t know what the result was, it seems that the outcome is Nintendo assuming ownership of the project and its online domain. The exact date of when Nintendo gained control of Ryujinx is yet to be determined, but an update for the emulator’s website on WHOIS lists Nintendo of America Inc. as the primary controlling organization. Ryujinx’s domain update occurred on Thursday, November 7, 2024.
Ryujinx joins the now-defunct Nintendo Switch emulator Yuzu in regard to closure after the creators of the latter agreed to pay Nintendo a settlement of $2.4 million.
Despite gaining control of these emulators, or causing them to cease operations, it doesn’t look like Nintendo plans to do anything with them – even with the Nintendo Switch 2 on the horizon.
Whereas Sony has sought to improve its PlayStation 2 and PlayStation 3 emulation capabilities by working with companies like Implicit Conversions, the confirmation of native Nintendo Switch 2 backwards compatibility makes this kind of thinking from Nintendo unlikely.
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