That's not the reason, you have been able to do so for a while. Even longer if you count Breath of the Wild (which ran with the Wii U emulator). The only reason they got their shit kicked in by Nintendo is greed. Patreon + extra money for early access + wanting to create their own paid copy of Nintendo's online service + timing their press releases with Nintendo releases..

Emulators are legal. Fully intending to profit from creating a competing product isn't. That's why they also gave in so quickly when the lawyers showed up, despite having plenty of money to afford defense.