Another Nintendo emulator is shutting down, following high-profile lawsuit


Another popular Nintendo emulator has shut down, following the settlement of a high-profile lawsuit earlier this week.

Pizza Emulators, apps which allowed users to play Game Boy Advance and Game Boy Color games on Android, were pulled from the Google Play Store on Friday.

In a Discord message republished by The Verge, developer Davide Berra claimed he was shutting down the emulators “to prioritize my family over the development of my apps.”

He made no mention of the recent Nintendo lawsuit settlement, which saw the creators of a popular Nintendo Switch emulator pay $2.4 million and pull its software.

The shutdown of Switch emulator Yuzu has also led to the shutdown of 3DS emulator Citra, in a move upsetting some advocates of game preservation.

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They argue that while Yuzu is morally and ethically dubious because it allows users to play backups of current commercially available software, Citra is somewhat less egregious because the games it plays are by and large considered archive titles that are no longer being sold by Nintendo.

Indeed, Nintendo’s closure of the 3DS eShop in March 2023 means the handheld’s entire library of digital games, many of which were eShop exclusives, have been impossible to legally acquire for nearly a year now.