Valve edits Steam Deck trailer to remove Nintendo Switch emulator icon

Steam Deck with Yuzu icon — (Image credit: Nibellion / Valve)

Valve published an upbeat Steam Deck video on Thursday, announcing that its handheld gaming PC was finally available to order without a reservation. The video also celebrated the arrival of the Steam Deck dock and OS improvements that make the Deck work better with external displays. But gaming Twitter newshound Nibellion also spotted something surprising in the Steam Deck library in Valve's video: an icon for Nintendo Switch emulator Yuzu. You can see it above, hanging out next to Hades on the home screen's recent games list.

After Nibellion's tweet got a couple thousand retweets Friday morning, Valve delisted the video and uploaded a new version without Yuzu visible. The original video is now set to private.

Valve has long maintained that the Steam Deck is a PC, and thus yours to customize and use for whatever software you see fit. But it understandably hasn't promoted the Deck as an emulation device (even though it's a really, really good one). Yuzu is a legal, open source piece of software, but not one that Nintendo is exactly thrilled exists.

Back in March, when Steam Deck reviews first landed, Nintendo started issuing DMCA takedowns on YouTube videos that showed Nintendo Switch games running on Valve's handheld. You can find more of those videos on YouTube now, so Nintendo may have eased up on the takedowns. Still, considering Valve and Nintendo have a friendly enough relationship to put Portal on the Switch, the safe political move here is probably not tacitly endorsing Switch emulation on the Steam Deck.

I've reached out to Valve for comment on the video and will update this story if I receive a reply.

Wes has been covering games and hardware for more than 10 years, first at tech sites like The Wirecutter and Tested before joining the PC Gamer team in 2014. Wes plays a little bit of everything, but he'll always jump at the chance to cover emulation and Japanese games.

When he's not obsessively optimizing and re-optimizing a tangle of conveyor belts in Satisfactory (it's really becoming a problem), he's probably playing a 20-year-old Final Fantasy or some opaque ASCII roguelike. With a focus on writing and editing features, he seeks out personal stories and in-depth histories from the corners of PC gaming and its niche communities. 50% pizza by volume (deep dish, to be specific).