The visionaries behind Nintendo 3DS emulator ‘Citra’ have taken to Twitter to reveal their next project—Yuzu.
No, it’s not the Japanese citrus fruit, it’s an experimental piece of software that is being designed to simulate Nintendo Switch Games without a need for the console itself. This means that less than a year since its release, the Nintendo Switch is already having its hardware reinterpreted so that it functions on Windows, Mac and Linux.
The developers note that while Yuzu “does not run any commercial Switch games” at the moment, it is capable of booting up select titles. At such early stages, Yuzu lacks the GPU features required to render the Switch’s 3D graphics.
Yuzu Emulator Team said they can’t pinpoint a specific timeframe on when full games will be ready, because emulating on Switch is “very complex”.
Ethically speaking, emulation is a always controversial topic—and this largely stems from the ROMs associated with emulation software. While they’re certainly a good way to preserve older titles (just look at Internet Archive) the shadow of piracy and copyright violation lingers, and they are technically illegal even if you own the original copy of the game according to Nintendo.
Last year, Media Create sales charts showed Nintendo Switch had sold almost 3 million units in Japan. Worldwide figures indicate the console has already reached the 10 million milestone.