Funding is an important issue for developers developing new technology; and PC Wii U emulator, which is being developed by Team Cemu, was faced with a massive boost in their donations recently. The PC Wii U emulator that will enable porting of Zelda: Breath of the Wild to the PC got a donation of $15,000 on Patreon when they started a few months back. Now, after it has caught momentum, it has become the highest funded projects on Patreon with almost doubling its amount of donation at $30,000 per month. The project is being funded by almost 6,800 people, although questions pertaining to its legality are being put forward.
The courts have ruled that console emulators are legally justified, which was put to the forefront in the Sony Computer Entertainment America vs. Bleem 214 F.3d 1022 case. But, the dicey factor remains that although emulating a console is legal, the distribution of the copyrighted code remains illegal till date. Also, the fact that the emulated console is only legal when the user owns a copy of the original game also makes the rule difficult to process and implement.
Zelda: Breath of the Wild is one of the most popular and biggest games in the industry right now, for which The Cemu Project emulates consoles from Wii U on PC. The game has attracted further backers and users after its latest update which has made it compatible with PC without any disruption. The amount of fund that Team Cemu is raising right now is enough to attract the eyes of the Nintendo lawyers, who can drag them to the court with the legal aspects at hand regarding console emulators.
