While there is no Nintendo Switch emulator, developers have been working on emulators for Nintendo’s previous console, the Wii-U. In this case, it is unclear how much each affiliate is making for each conversion. For each successful conversion (a completed survey, offer, or download) the affiliate would collect a commission from the advertising network. The affiliate would be responsible for delivering a user to the website to fill out a survey, complete an offer, or download a file.
Whether it’s survey scams or potentially unwanted applications, the YouTube videos and websites are likely driven by affiliate programs. We detect the Mac installer as OSX.Malcol and the Windows installer as PUA.Downloader, which will download a potentially unwanted application called PUA.OneSystemCare.
Outside of the surveys, we found a YouTube video that didn’t lead to a survey, but instead resulted in software downloads for “Switch_Emulator_0.6.1.dmg” on Mac and “Switch_Emulator_061.iso” on Windows. Another Switch emulator download offers users a chance at a free Nintendo Switch Some surveys even offer the user a chance to get a free Nintendo Switch as well as other consoles and prizes.
Switch emulator requires users to fill out a survey in order to receive an unlock code If a user tries to download one of these fake Nintendo Switch emulators, they will be directed to a website that claims they need to fill out a survey to receive an unlock code or to unlock the download itself. Examples of fake Nintendo Switch emulator sites Survey scams and potentially unwanted applications Most sites feature some Nintendo branding, including screenshots of Breath of the Wild. Most of these bogus Switch emulator videos contain links to external websites in the description field, but in one case the website was promoted within the video itself. Other videos feature a person talking about “free tools” but never explicitly referring to the Switch Emulator, indicating that these videos were designed to be generic so they could be repurposed for other trending search terms.
Some videos contain a step-by-step process showing how to visit a website, download a file, and play Nintendo’s The Legend of Zelda: Breath of the Wild on a PC. The content of the videos vary significantly. YouTube video claiming to show users how to download Nintendo Switch emulatorĪ search for “Nintendo Switch emulator” on YouTube yields a variety of results, racking up tens of thousands of views (the most having over 76,000), while others have several hundred views. Switch emulator videos on YouTube Figure 1. Over the last few weeks, scammers have been trying to dupe users into believing that a software emulator exists for the Nintendo Switch, the company’s newest console that was released on March 3, 2017.