Developers of Nintendo Switch games now have the option to add Denuvo’s controversial anti-piracy software to their games.

The first part of the tool to roll out to developers is Emulation Protection to prevent Switch games running on unofficial hardware.

Irdeto, developers of Denuvo said in a statement,

”Even if a game is protected against piracy on its PC version, the version released on Nintendo Switch can be emulated from day one and played on PC, therefore bypassing the strong protections offered on the PC version. This can happen with any of the numerous games available on Nintendo Switch."

Emulation itself is not illegal if you’re playing backups of games you legally own but Nintendo has always been extremely against any sort of emulation. Not just for its current console but it actively tries (and fails) to stop people emulating all of their systems back to the NES.

I’m sure this won’t slow down the progress of development of the Nintendo Switch emulator Yuzu for very long.