Nintendo Switch hardware modder hit with a fine and 3-year suspended sentence after allegedly modifying and selling consoles that could run pirated games

A 58-year-old man previously arrested in Japan under suspicion of violating trademark law by modifying and selling Nintendo Switch consoles has been given a fine and a two-year prison sentence, suspended for three years.

Reported by Japanese outlet NTV News (and spotted and translated by Automaton), the man was suspected of taking preowned Nintendo Switch consoles and soldering modified parts onto their circuit boards. Allegedly, these modded consoles were able to run pirated games, and Automaton previously reported that the man also offered a bundle of 27 pirated games to go with the devices.

The devices themselves were apparently sold for 28,000 yen each (the equivalent of roughly $195), which is cheaper than a new one from Nintendo. For reference, it currently costs 32,978 yen (around $229) to order a standard Switch (with customizable Joy-Con colors) from the Japanese My Nintendo Store, so these modded devices were a comparatively affordable option.

It was previously reported that this was the first man to be arrested in Japan over allegedly modding and selling Switch consoles. Now, he’s been dealt a three-year suspended sentence, as well as a fine of 500,000 yen (around $3,487).

That’s a significantly smaller amount of money than we’ve seen in the past with certain other Nintendo cases. In 2023, a man named Gary Bowser was released from prison after 14 months of a 40-month sentence, after he previously pleaded guilty to piracy charges (specifically, “conspiracy to circumvent technological measures and to traffic in circumvention devices,” and “trafficking in circumvention”). In total, he was ordered to pay $14.5 million to Nintendo (thanks, The Guardian).

Last year, the developers of the Switch emulator Yuzu reportedly agreed to pay a $2.4 million settlement to Nintendo. Shortly after, the devs released a statement saying that the team had “always been against piracy,” but acknowledged that “because our projects can circumvent Nintendo’s technological protection measures and allow users to play games outside of authorized hardware, they have led to extensive piracy.”

Nintendo’s IP manager admits “you can’t immediately claim that an emulator is illegal in itself,” but “it can become illegal depending on how it’s used.”

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