Nintendo’s stream of lawsuits targeting alleged Nintendo Switch pirates has continued, but the latest defendant doesn’t seem too concerned about the colossal company’s threats.
As reported by TorrentFreak, Nintendo filed a lawsuit against modding company Modded Hardware, claiming that it “not only offers hardware and firmware to create and play pirated games,” but also provides “customers with copies of pirated Nintendo games.”
But the lawsuit comes after Nintendo claims it offered Modded Hardware owner Ryan Daly the option to leave. The gaming giant contacted Daly in March 2024, according to the lawsuit, and both parties agreed that Modded Hardware’s business would cease.
However, it continued to operate normally and the last warning in May 2024 also went nowhere. As a result, Nintendo filed a lawsuit in federal court in Seattle, Washington demanding the immediate shutdown of Modded Hardware and damages.
“Typically, when a customer purchases the hacked console or circumvention services, the defendant pre-installs on the console a portfolio of ready-to-play pirated games, including some of Nintendo’s most popular titles such as Super Mario, The Legend of Zelda and Metroid games,” it said. claims in Nintendo’s lawsuit.
“Indeed, since pirated Nintendo Switch games cannot be used or created without the hacked console and associated software and hardware, illegal markets distributing pirated games exist and thrive only because of products and services such as those sold by the defendant.”
Nintendo has also filed a lawsuit against James Williams, known online as Archbox, for alleged ties to several online “pirate shops” that see illegal copies of Nintendo games sold.
“Defendant is the operator, supervisor, and driving force behind several pirate stores through which Defendant has offered massive libraries of pirated Nintendo Switch games,” Nintendo claims. He also refers to the SwitchPirates Reddit community and notes Williams’ presence there as a moderator, claiming they’ve helped grow it to nearly 190,000 members and posted thousands of comments since 2019.
“Defendant’s postings include, for example, messages directing users to pirated stores; soliciting “donations” of Nintendo eShop gift cards to purchase games (or even soliciting copies of Nintendo Switch games themselves) to be copied and then distributed to pirate shops; offering technical advice and encouraging other users on how to use pirated stores, how to download and install workaround software, and how to play pirated copies of Nintendo Switch games,” the lawsuit alleges.
“The defendant is aware that its conduct is illegal and infringes Nintendo’s intellectual property rights. Indeed, Defendant publicly boasts that he is a “pirate” who “[isn’t] I’ll give Nintendo $50 for a game.”
Nintendo has consistently taken legal action to protect its copyrighted content. A takedown request in May 2024 targeted 8,500 copies of the Switch Yuzu emulator after the emulator itself was taken down two months ago. His original lawsuit against creator Tropic Haze said the $70 The Legend of Zelda: Tears of the Kingdom, Nintendo’s 2023 video game premiere, was pirated one million times before it was even released.
Other successful lawsuits include those against game file-sharing website RomUniverse, which was ordered to pay $2.1 million in damages to Nintendo in 2021, while a similar case was awarded over $12 million in damages in 2018. It also blocked the GameCube and Wii emulator Dolphin from being released on the Steam PC gaming platform.
Ryan Dinsdale is a freelance reporter for IGN. He’ll be talking about The Witcher all day.
