#41: And Nintendo won

In today's overkill digest newsletter, we look at Nintendo's case versus the emulation community.

Hello, and welcome to a new edition of the overkill digest newsletter.

I feel sick today, so this issue is shorter (and later) than usual. Thanks for bearing with me. But with that said, let's get to it:

Big this week

Nintendo Switch emulator Yuzu is dead. In the end, it happened faster than I expected. After reporting last week that Nintendo had sued Yuzu, it didn't take long for Yuzu to settle, agree to pay $2.4 million to Nintendo, and kill both Yuzu and the 3DS emulator Citra (one of the devs of Yuzu also worked on Citra, so the 3DS emulator died due to collateral damage). It's unclear why Yuzu folded as quickly as it did, but one of the theories is that the dev team was more involved in piracy than first anticipated. But it doesn't end there: this win for Nintendo has affected the emulation scene even more (and I'm expecting more to come):
- A popular dev of Game Boy Color and Game Boy Advance emulators has decided to remove their emulation apps from Android (the dev didn't mention this case in their reasoning, but still).
- Nintendo DS emulator Drastic is now free (4.99 USD previously), and the app might disappear from the Play Store soon.
- And finally, EmuDeck, while releasing a massive update, had to remove Yuzu for new installs.
Chris is holding his State of Switch Survey. Chris's yearly Nintendo Switch survey is taking place right now, so help the man by participating.

Quick Links

Sony and Nixxes have released Horizon Forbidden West specs for PC. In their release, they said, "To ensure the game runs on a wide variety of PC hardware, including portable gaming devices, we've included graphics presets ranging from very low to very high." The emphasis is my own, but it sounds like they are targeting the Steam Deck. Talking of Sony:
Ghost of Tsushima is coming to PC in May. After Horizon Forbidden West, the samurai game is coming next to PC!
Netflix is bringing Hades to iOS. And I have no clue how this game is supposed to work with a touchscreen. But hey, if you have a Netflix subscription, you can get the game for free.
Everything shown at Xbox's Partner Preview Stream, including Final Fantasy XIV, Persona 3 Reload, and Frostpunk 2, among others.
Dbrand's Carnage series brings Arachnoplates to the Steam Deck. I have some of the skins lying here, and they look great if you're into that red-and-black aesthetic.
I reviewed the AYANEO AM02 Mini-PC. To spoil my review a little: little beefy Mini-PC, with a familiar chip, that could potentially replace my Gaming PC.
We got the first look at the Fallout TV show. And it doesn't look too shabby. I might actually give it a chance, even though I'm not that much into Fallout.
Happy Mar10 Day. Today is Mar10 day (get it? March 10th, Mario, Mar10), and Nintendo dropped a bunch of announcements: Luigi's Mansion 2 HD will be available on June 26th, Paper Mario The Thousand-Year Door will release on May 23rd, and we're getting a new Mario movie in 2026.