Video game piracy has taken a significant turn as Japanese authorities have made a groundbreaking arrest related to the modification of Nintendo Switch hardware. On January 15, a 58-year-old man was apprehended on suspicion of breaching the Trademark Act. According to NTV News and translations by Automaton, he is accused of altering second-hand Switch consoles to run pirated games, a process that involved welding modified parts onto the consoles' circuit boards. These modified units, loaded with 27 illegally obtained games, were sold for approximately ¥28,000 ($180) each. The suspect has confessed to the charges and is under further investigation for potential additional violations.
Nintendo has been at the forefront of combating piracy, with a notable example being their takedown request in May 2024 targeting 8,500 copies of the Switch emulator Yuzu. This action followed the emulator's removal two months earlier, spurred by a lawsuit against its creator, Tropic Haze. The lawsuit highlighted that Nintendo's flagship title, The Legend of Zelda: Tears of the Kingdom, had been pirated over a million times before its official release in 2023. Such legal actions are increasingly common as companies strive to curb piracy. Nintendo's successful lawsuits against the game file-sharing site RomUniverse resulted in damages of $2.1 million in 2021 and over $12 million in 2018, and also led to the blocking of the GameCube and Wii emulator Dolphin from being released on the PC gaming platform Steam.
This week, insights into Nintendo's stance on piracy and emulation were shared by a patent lawyer representing the company. Koji Nishiura, Assistant Manager of Nintendo's Intellectual Property Division, addressed the legality of emulators, stating, "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." This underscores the complex nature of the issue and Nintendo's ongoing efforts to protect its intellectual property.
