I feel like everyone is missing the line that says "before it came out". However, I find that hard to believe that 1 million people played a pirated copy before the release date and i can't remember any leaked gameplay or screenshots.
They probably mean in regions it wasn't available in yet, which is a key reason people would pirate. If they just made the game available everywhere then they wouldn't have these problems.
Can't even blame emulation as the main culprits playing it either with first gen switches being able to be jailbroken and hardware mods existing for current ones.
I do think Yuzu should win. I'm in favor of emulation. I just read all the comments being like "I only emulated after I bought it for the 1080p 60fps". Which wasnt in line with what the article was asserting.