Video game piracy has entered a new era, with the Japanese police making a historic arrest of a 58-year-old man accused of modifying Nintendo Switch hardware. On January 15, as reported by NTV News and translated by Automaton, the man was arrested for allegedly violating the Trademark Act. He is suspected of altering Switch consoles to enable them to run pirated games and then selling these modified units.
The suspect reportedly welded modified parts onto the circuit boards of second-hand consoles, allowing them to play pirated games. He is accused of loading each console with 27 illegally accessed games and selling them for ¥28,000 (approximately $180) each. The man has confessed to the charges and is under further investigation for potential additional violations.
Nintendo, along with other video game companies, has been actively combating piracy. In May 2024, Nintendo issued a takedown request targeting 8,500 copies of the Switch emulator Yuzu, following the emulator's shutdown two months earlier. This action came after a lawsuit against Yuzu's creator, Tropic Haze, where it was revealed that Nintendo's flagship title, The Legend of Zelda: Tears of the Kingdom, was pirated over one million times before its official release in 2023.
Legal efforts to curb piracy are intensifying. Nintendo's successful lawsuits include one against the game file sharing website RomUniverse, resulting in a $2.1 million damages award in 2021, and another case in 2018 that led to over $12 million in damages. Additionally, Nintendo blocked the GameCube and Wii emulator Dolphin from being released on the PC gaming platform Steam.
This week, a patent lawyer representing Nintendo shed light on the company's stance on piracy and emulation. Koji Nishiura, Assistant Manager of Nintendo's Intellectual Property Division, discussed the legal ambiguity surrounding emulators. He stated, "To begin with, are emulators illegal or not? This is a point often debated. While you can’t immediately claim that an emulator is illegal in itself, it can become illegal depending on how it’s used."
