Long before Nintendo started packaging classic games on miniature versions of its old consoles, the easiest way to play those games was with an emulator. Despite their questionable legality, emulators for virtually every console ever made have been released on PC, Android and even other video game consoles over the years.
As you might expect, it often takes years after a console launches for an emulator to be developed, but this weekend, the team behind the Citra emulator for the 3DS announced that a Switch emulator is already in the works.
“Announcing yuzu, the first Nintendo Switch emulator that does all of the things you didn’t need it to do!” revealed the team on a new Twitter account on Sunday. “Stay tuned for more from the yuzu team!”
Switch emulation from team citra! World, meet yuzu! pic.twitter.com/iJHYZ2F2tS
— bunnei (@notfunnei) January 14, 2018
While a Switch emulator was all but inevitable, it’s more than a little surprising to see significant progress being made on one so early in the console’s life cycle. The Switch launched last March, which means that even if we’re months out from seeing the first signs of life from the Yuzu emulator, the team is still ahead of schedule.
No further information was provided by the team, but late last month, homebrew and hacking site Wololo covered a presentation from hacking conference 34C3 where a group of hackers discussed a kernel exploit that could lead to a homebrew launcher being made available for the Switch. This exploit was made possible in part by the fact that Nintendo used an “off the shelf” Nvida Tegra X1 GPU, a chip which has already been well documented.
Whether or not these two incidents are related is unclear, but be on the lookout for more news regarding a Switch emulator in the coming weeks and months. But don’t expect to play Super Mario Odyssey on PC any time soon.
