Yuzu, the famous Switch emulator on PC, is coming to Android. You can already download it in a free and full version. The developers advise playing with a smartphone running a high-end Snapdragon processor, but a recent Exynos can also do the trick. This launch echoes the abandonment of Skyline, an excellent Switch emulator on Android. The developers of the latter were threatened by Nintendo.
Console emulation is a borderline topic. We are not talking here about the use of a game: Using a game ROM that you don’t own is illegal. Point. We are rather talking here about the development of an emulator. If you talk to experts in the field, you’ll find that creating an emulator is borderline legal, because emulators often rely on proprietary technology to run games. Until when does an emulator remain legal? And when is it no longer? Is it allowed to play with an emulator if you don’t own the console? These are questions whose legal answer is rather vague.
Read also – Nintendo forces Steam to remove a famous GameCube and Wii emulator from its platform
At the beginning of May 2023, we reported in our columns very sad news: the closure of Skyline, the excellent Nintendo Switch emulator for Android. In a message posted on the project’s GitHub page, its creators explain that they have been legally threatened. And that the game is obviously not worth the candle. They don’t explicitly cite Nintendo. But the Japanese firm has already tracked down many players in the emulation scene, from developers to creators of accessories and components, including ROM distribution sites. There’s no doubt that Nintendo’s lawyers have found the words to force them to drop Skyline (but you can still download the latest version on Github).
Yuzu, the Nintendo Switch emulator, is coming to Android
It is therefore with great surprise that we learn today of the arrival on the Play Store of Yuzu. We have already mentioned this Nintendo Switch emulator in our columns: it is one of the most advanced projects on PC (Windows and Linux), with excellent results in terms of compatibility and performance. And you can now download it to your smartphone from the Google app store. You will even discover two versions of the emulator: a free version and complete; And a paid version at 5.5 euros which allows access to certain improvements in advance and helps developers financially…
Yuzu works like Skyline. Installation is quick and easy. At launch, you must have a file called ” prod.keys thanks to which the emulator is able to identify the games. The newer the version of prod.keys, the better you will be able to identify new games. For the use to be “legal”, you must use a file from your Switch. However, to get it, you have to “hack” your console. And only the old series are compatible with this procedure, the loophole having been filled by Nintendo for a few years. This is complicated! Once the prod.keys file and the games are installed in the memory of your smartphone, you can launch Yuzu and tell it where to look for the resources. The icing on the cake, the emulator is already running Legend of Zelda: Tears of the Kingdom. Not very quickly, but still!
On the emulator’s official website, the developers explain that the experience is good only on high-end smartphones and recent (less than 3 years). They strongly advise smartphones with a Snapdragon processor (888, 888+, 8 Gen 1, 8+ Gen 1 or 8 Gen 2), because the Adreno GPU drivers are much better optimized. With the other processors, the developers propose to install alternative GPU drivers (in particular those used with the Citra emulator). And the experience turns out to be quite good with the Samsung Galaxy S22 (which runs with an Exynos 2200). If you try the emulator, feel free to share your experience and configuration in the comments.
