Nintendo’s latest hacking lawsuit hits Switch modding company after it refuses to shut down

Nintendo’s series of lawsuits targeting alleged Nintendo Switch hackers continues, but the latest defendant doesn’t seem too concerned about the colossal corporation’s threats.

As reported by TorrentFreak, Nintendo has filed a lawsuit against modding company Modded Hardware, alleging that it “not only offers the 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 reportedly offered Modded Hardware owner Ryan Daly the opportunity to exit. The gaming giant contacted Daly in March 2024, according to the complaint, and the two sides agreed that Modded Hardware’s business would cease.

However, the company continued to operate normally, and a final warning in May 2024 would have had no effect. As a result, Nintendo filed a lawsuit in federal court in Seattle, Washington, seeking the immediate closure of Modded Hardware and damages.

“Typically, when a customer purchases a pirated console or circumvention services, Defendant pre-installs a portfolio of ready-to-play pirated games on the console, including some of Nintendo’s most popular titles such as its Super Mario, The Legend of Zelda, and Metroid games,” Nintendo’s lawsuit alleges.

“Indeed, since pirated Nintendo Switch games cannot be used or created without a pirated console and associated software and hardware, it is only through products and services such as those sold by Defendant that illegal markets distributing pirated games exist and thrive.”

Nintendo has also filed a lawsuit against James Williams, known online as Archbox, for alleged links to several online “pirate stores” that sell illegal copies of Nintendo games.

“Defendant is the operator, supervisor, and driving force behind multiple pirate stores, through which he has offered massive libraries of pirated Nintendo Switch games,” Nintendo alleged. It also referenced the SwitchPirates Reddit community and noted Williams’ presence as a moderator, saying they helped grow it to nearly 190,000 members and have posted thousands of comments since 2019.

“Defendant’s posts included, by way of example, messages directing users to the pirate stores; soliciting “donations” of Nintendo eShop gift cards for the purchase of games (or even soliciting copies of Nintendo Switch games themselves) to be copied and then distributed through the pirate stores; and offering technical advice and encouragement to other users on how to use the pirate stores, download and install circumvention software, and play pirated copies of Nintendo Switch games,” the lawsuit alleges.

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“Defendant is fully aware that his conduct is illegal and infringes Nintendo’s intellectual property rights. Indeed, Defendant has publicly bragged that he is a “pirate” who “won’t give Nintendo $50 for a game.”

Nintendo has a history of taking legal action to protect its copyrighted content. A takedown request in May 2024 saw it target 8,500 copies of Switch emulator Yuzu after the emulator itself was taken down two months prior. Its initial lawsuit against creator Tropic Haze claimed that the $70 The Legend of Zelda: Tears of the Kingdom, Nintendo’s first video game released in 2023, had been pirated a million times before it even came out.

Other successful lawsuits include one against game file-sharing site RomUniverse, which was ordered to pay Nintendo $2.1 million in damages in 2021, while a similar case saw it awarded over $12 million in damages in 2018. It also blocked the release of the GameCube and Wii emulator Dolphin on PC gaming platform Steam.

Ryan Dinsdale is a freelance journalist for IGN. He talks about The Witcher all day long.