As many gamers are aware, Nintendo appears strongly opposed to emulation of their games, having even gone as far as to take legal action against certain emulators to cease their distribution.

Recently the Tokyo eSports Festa 2025 hosted a panel from Japan’s Association of Copyright for Computer Software titled, “The Importance of Intellectual Property Rights in the Game Industry.”. There, patent attorney and deputy general manager of Nintendo’s intellectual property department Koji Nishiura shared some insight into why Nintendo is so harsh on emulation.

Nishiura: “To begin with, are emulators illegal or not? This is a point often debated. While you can’t immediately claim that an emulator is illegal in itself, it can become illegal depending on how it’s used.”

Nishiura comments on the grey legality of emulation, outlining that it can become illegal when used for purposes such as:

• Copying a program belonging to the game device
• Possessing functions that disable security mechanisms such as encryption
• Containing links to sources where you can download pirated games

According to Nishiura, Nintendo is mostly concerned with the “disabling encryption” aspect of emulators, as well as situations where they can be used to play illegal roms. Nishiura asserts that playing pirated games negatively impacts all developers who make games for Nintendo consoles, fueling the company’s legal efforts to discourage their use.

What do you think? Let us know in the comments.