Nintendo Fights Back Switch Game Pirates by Taking Them to Court

• Nintendo takes Switch modders to court, claiming they modified over 100 consoles in the US
• Modders were selling SD cards with pirated Switch games, as well as a modified version of the NES Classic
• All mods based on the “Team Xecuter” solution that remains reliable for pirates and unresolved for Nintendo

Nintendo has decided to take things to the next level, filling a lawsuit against several people who sold pirated games for the Switch console in the US. Based on numerous trademark and copyright infringements, Nintendo is asking for the enforcement of a sales injunction to these people, hoping that this will prevent others from trying the same in the future.

The problems for Nintendo started quite a while back (in January) when modding legends “Team-Xecuter” developed a solution to circumvent the in-built protection of Switch, allowing the owners of the console to essentially run any pirated game on it. The awesomeness of the solution lies in the fact that it works on any firmware version of the console, while it is guaranteed to be future-proof. From then on, the usual avalanche of developing modded chips that were built upon the Xecuter solution took form, and many tried to sell these mods to Switch owners with great success.

All that said, it was about time for Nintendo to take action, and so they did through “Nintendo of America”, targeting several defendants and taking them to court. One of them named Mikel Euskaldunak, a resident of California, was selling “Team Xecuter” mod chips on OfferUp.com, promising a successful bypassing of the existing anti-piracy protections on the Switch. Euskaldunak offered the chipping process with a “free game of the user’s choice”, while he also sold 64GB SD cards that contained a set of 4-6 Switch games (depending on their size). This SD card cost buyers less than what they would have to pay for a single genuine Switch game, so the people who reverted to the pirated solution where quite a lot lately.

Screenshot of the Euskaldunak sales page

Nintendo believes that the defendants have modified more than 100 Switch consoles, while they are also suspected of having gained access to a library of Switch games that have not even been released to the US market yet. In addition to their Switch-related activities, the same defendants were also accused of selling a modified version of the NES Classic Edition console, containing more than 800 games. The amount of damage requests that the company is about to ask as compensation has not been defined yet.

Where do you stand on the matter of “chipped” consoles? Do you find that pirating games is less unethical than selling them at high prices? Let us know of your comments below, and don’t forget to also visit our socials on Facebook and Twitter for an additional dose of daily tech news.