Nintendo Of America Files Two New Lawsuits Against Switch Hack Resellers

Man they can't seems to give NIN money fast enough....

I'm aware of how large pirating has become on the switch (I'm convinced everybody just does it now), but i never heard of team xecutor.

most of the pirating comes from free software installed on older versions of the console, the software then emulates whatever files they put on the switch.

If nintendo wants to target pirating (they should), they need to properly do something about the installed software (which ironically, the software itself gets pirated so sueing potential sources selling it doesnt do much lmao)

I don't like the wording, massive theft and infringement shouldn't apply to any homebrew apps that aren't piracy related yet it seems as though all of the non piracy homebrew apps makers are getting hit with these charges as well. I don't use said apps, but hitting people with theft charges who stole absolutely nothing doesn't sit right with me. 🙄

I love this! F U Team Xecutor

@TowaHerschel7 "But your honor, I didn't steal anything! I just made a copy of the key to the safe. I'm not responsible for what people do with it."

Does that argument sit well with you?

I'm glad Nintendo is always trying to take this stuff down.

ARRR!! WE BE PIRATIN' YER SOFTWARE WHETHER YE LIKE IT OR NOT, SWABBIES! OR MY NAME ISN'T PEGLEG DICK!

Down with the hackers!

Being a part of nintendos legal team is a full time job. They spend more on legal than they do games at this point lol

It's very unfortunate that homebrew, hacking and piracy are so interconnected but that simply is the case.

I don't disagree with Nintendo doing this but they could go a long way to making piracy less attractive. A lot of people I know of who partake in this do so to play games that are either no longer on store shelves or to play games that are simply not available on Switch. Nintendo and other companies could both profit from, and reduce the desire to hack and pirate games by simply making more games easily accessible through legal means.

Be it a subscription service like NSO or individual purchases like Virtual console or collections of retro titles on retail cartridges, by making these games easily obtainable legally, you will reduce the number of people who want to hack and pirate roms and they'd make money while they are at it.

There are always going to be people pirating the latest games, no system is unbreakable, but they can do more than they are to reduce that number.

is it supposed to say Knock and not Known

This is why hacking gets a bad name, I still haven't even cfw my 3DS. The Vita I cfw about two years ago.

@Araquanid It's still pretty minimal how many people actually hack their Switch like this, but Xecutor was one of the first hacking groups to get that initial Switch hack down to a sell-able product.

@Heavyarms55 I agree 100%. Make your games available with no stupid flaws and profits should go up and some of the interest in/need for homebrew down.

Also the Switch should have been harder to break had it not been for the flaws in Nvidias hardware, which is a shame because Nintendo had fixed a lot of loopholes from the Wii U and 3DS in the Switch's system.

Also the Xbox and PS see a lot less hacking and homebrewing for some reason. Albeit Sony seems to spend more time and money on pushing updates to their system than hunting pirates and websites. Also it might be because they have good online services and a lot more and better sales for their games.

@Bomberman64 I mean, not all homebrew is hacking. That much is perfectly true. There are hobbyists who just enjoy making their own games and applications and I see no reason to curb that. The problem is that the same tech that goes into getting homemade apps onto a system can easily be used to just pirating official releases.

But by making official releases more available then the need/want to pirate them goes down.

good anyone but hurt over a hacked switch doesnt deserve one its not your You dont own it stop the nonsense

sighs....all I want is to mod Smash Ultimate, have my anime music back in while having chaotic fights. But these pirates are pretty much ruining this...I'm too afraid to mod my Switch because of this...T.T

@Joeynator3000 You give people an inch, they take a mile.

@Heavyarms55 The problem with your argument is that it's not true. Even discounting the fact that if it were in Nintendo's interests they'd offer those games for sale and take the profits you seem to think they're missing out on, I once saw a list of the most downloaded games from a rom hosting site. Of the top 20, 19 were Pokémon. Many of them were still in print and readily playable on the 3DS. The primary purpose of hacking is stealing games. The romantic narrative that hackers are preservationists is a lie.

@Heavyarms55 Yeah hopefully Nintendo's next console, be it a Seitch revision or a new one, has better security. I'm glad they seem to have been able to combat online gaming hacking quite well as that is harming consumers the most. Not sure what state Splatoon 2 is in rn w/r to cheating.

@TowaHerschel7 You didn't read the part where it says that the people who they want to charge here sell that stuff? This is no classic homebrew but hacking consoles and making the exploit available via payment. This is a different level than some free software exploit for homebrew.

@JimmySpades A comparison I'd like to make is the prohibition period against alcohol in the United States. The attempt to ban booze simply drove people to getting it illegally and the more the government attempted to crack down the harder people tried to push back to get it leading to organized crime being built around it. But once legal booze was on the market again, the vast majority of people just bought that, and the illegal booze market shrank to a tiny fraction of what it was. Because why take the risks of making it yourself or buying it from some shady back ally dealer when you can just pay a little more to buy it legally with the confidence that it's being sold safely and legally?

I am convinced that the majority of gamers would prefer to obtain their games legitimately and legally than to risk penalties and damage to their hardware via hacking and sketchy "back ally" rom sites.

And besides, we all know emulation of basically everything up to N64 era was done, mostly successfully on older hardware than the Swtich. There is no reason they cannot provide those emulators and sell those games, on the platform. They just choose not to.

@Bomberman64 I couldn't tell you about Splatoon 2. Haven't played since Splatfests, new maps and new weapons stopped. The thing is, of course whatever device Nintendo releases next will have better security. No doubt.

But people will still break it. It always gets broken. They just need to make it hard to it takes longer.

@Araquanid I haven't hacked mine, I will eventually when the next Nintendo system releases as I do with all my softmodable systems after their lifespans. I like playing my stuff legit as much as possible.

@Bomberman64

"Also the Xbox and PS see a lot less hacking and homebrewing for some reason."

Its just a collective bunch of reasons that make xbox and PS users less willing to compromise their main accounts. With nintendo mostly everyone doesn't care as much, nintendo game replayability isn't as intriguing or polished as the other consoles, so a lot of replayability comes in the form of modding or making the game easier to play to speed up processes (ex; pokemon gets modded because any replayability in battling just takes too long to build teams for, making it boring instead of fun. if AR, gameshark, and pokegen never existed, i do believe the franchise would've never developed a competitive scene or had the monetary interest to continue supporting one.), but also its more funneled on that one console so its not like hackers have a "solution B" until an emulator on PC gets developed (and even then its harder to track down the roms online for the emulator than it is to just hack the console itself with the games installed.)

Xbox also ports a lot of their games to PC, halo is a pretty big one for microsoft modding, but halo is also on the PC so all the halo mods tend to stay off the console itself since PC modding is the most efficient. Unlike nintendo which funnels its games on 1 console, also funneling in all the hackers there, other companies are smarter to port to multiple consoles so modding isn't as common.. for example why would you ever mod borderlands 2 on xbox and risk your xbox account, when there's a steam version on an easier to crack device that won't affect your steam account?

@Incarna That's not true, Wii had every game you could ever think of, yet Wii was probably most hacked console ever. Reason people hack Nintendo so much is cause they love them so much. It's greatest company ever made, so of course everyone wants a piece of it.

You can buy every movie you've ever dreamed of, yet people take all they can get. You can buy any music ever dreamed kf, yet so many still want it for free. People will always want what's popular for free cause it so amazing.

People always want what they cant have, that be the pirates life.

@Incarna So because Nintendo won't sell it to you, it gives you the right to steal it from them????????

I really hope Nintendo wins this lawsuit and I hope they sue EVERYONE who buys these illegal devices.

@Bomberman64 You don't need to hack an XBOX for homebrew. With one simple setting you can turn any XBOX ONE into a development machine and run your own homebrew on it. However, this doesn't let you run hacked games in any form.

@mesome713
Actually you cant. Movies constantly go out of print and might go a decade or more before being printed again. Re-releases of old movies also often get released on just one region and studios are ***** enough to put region locking on them even though they might have no plans of releasing said movie on another region. Online video store also pretty much always have region locking too so let's say that obscure film is there but unless you live UK or American then it's middle finger to you. There's tons of other reasons that i'm not going into as to why people still pirate movies.

@sanderev to exploit and run an alternative firmware or OS is in no way illegal. Can you explain what the crime is upto this point?

Team Xecuter are now making mod chips (as they did with the 360) and these are the big problem for N as they can hack even the latest Switch hardware revisions.

N can bully the resellers into submission through costly litigation, but I don't think any crime is being committed as long as you don't play backups on your device.

@TowaHerschel7 I see a Falcom fan with good taste 👀👀

@X68000 If something allows you to play pirated games it's considered illegal in my book. If you could mod a Switch just to install homebrew (and not even emulators since those are illegal as well) I'd be okay with it. But unlike the XBOX ONE, the Switch does not have a developer mode.

@sanderev I understand your personal thoughts, but from a legal point of view, emulation isn't illegal nor is hacking your own console. What is illegal is the distribution and use of Intellectual Property that doesn't belong to you.

I will probably mod my switch when it is near or at the end of its lifespan mainly for playing my own backed up games especially any digital only games i have and may loose when the servers are shut down

@TowaHerschel7 Even if your sole purpose for buying said products (or even selling these products) is for homebrew, you're still indirectly supporting piracy. It might not be the homebrewers but someone will use these exploits for piracy one way or another. That's how I see it.

@JimmySpades I don't understand why the Pokémon games aren't available on Switch. I still emulate them because of several reasons. They are not available on current hardware. Pokémon doesn't offer multiple save files (on older hardware), and sometimes I want to play a quick challenge without deleting a previous save file. I own those games in physical form as well, so I don't see the harm in it.

Additionally, modded versions allow you to play the games without trade evolutions for example.

@Araquanid

"'I'm aware of how large pirating has become on the switch (I'm convinced everybody just does it now"

I wasn't aware pirating was a thing on Switch until just now. And no I personally would never pirate either. So your wrong , sorry.

and nintendo while at it should endeavor to fix their useless joycons as well.. ''fast with lawsuits, slow with quality fixing''.
also once an item is purchased from a manufacturer or sellers what the consumer does with it is none of your business. Nintendo should fight on stopping their softwares distributed illegally and not to stop modding and custom firmwares. we do have people purchasing cars and doing modifications to it. yet they're not sued. as i can tell Modding is up to the owner of the item and not the manufacturers. not supporting illegal software distribution but nintendo should get down from their high horses.. even playstation 4 is being hacked but you don't hear them making noises like Nintendo does all the time.

@sanderev Stealing implies a loss. A copy of ones and zeros isn't theft.

I pirate music all the time. Stuff I like gets purchased on vinyl.

My SNES classic has every 2d Nintendo game I care about on it. (NES, SNES, GB, GBC, GBA)

Nothing was taken from anyone.

@sanderev Emulators allows you to play pirated games. and they arent illegal. just like guns allows you to kill people but they arent illegal (in some places). it is something like a grey area.

@Araquanid
You are throwing around a lot of claims that are just not likely.
In fact, i would say that stuff like
"I'm aware of how large pirating has become on the switch (I'm convinced everybody just does it now)"
and
"nintendo game replayability isn't as intriguing or polished as the other consoles"

are quite far fetched things to say, especially the former line.

Although I do agree, that games like Pokemon can get a lot of replayability through mods. You could say, Nintendo games tend to offer a lot of possibilities for hacking.
That doesn't mean that Nintendo games have that much less replayability then games from other companies though. All systems are pretty similar in that regard, I would say. At least they are not so far apart that this would noticably increase the amount of hacks.

@Araquanid Nintendo games not replayability lol wow u must be a young kid and know nothing about gaming.there is a reason people steal Nintendo games.lol

@JimmySpades
So when will the yanks be holding their gun manufacturers responsible for murders committed with their weapons?

@SuperJoeUK and your wrong not every one does it.i dont have one modded system and never will

@Darkyoshi98

Er... The statement in the quote marks wasn't mine, I was quoting a statement by @Araquanid.. Hence the quote marks and his name above them.

I was replying to Araquanid and agreeing with you that not everyone does it and I also never will .... So I'm not wrong

@sanderev so a PC is illegal in your book? It can easily run pirated stuff.

@SuperJoeUK I was talking about the same person.if I replayed to yours and not his my bad

@Darkyoshi98

No problem

Don’t do the crime if you can’t do the time

How is this even going through? Modding a console is not and have never been illegal, download roms and playing roms is.

Nintendo should focus more on games then these lawsuits and maybe we would see a good line up for this year.

@Araquanid if you didnt know emulators are NOT illegal so they cant do anything about it

@TAndvig I believe they are selling the illegal consoles that's why they are going after them

@JimmySpades you are obviously someone who knows nothing about homebrew.

@shaneoh dear god why are Europeans so hateful towards americans. You act like every american is like this dear god this site. Still butthurt fro. The revolutionary war or something

@Joeynator3000 Look up RCM Jig, and buy a banned hackable switch on Ebay.

@JimmySpades Thats a flawed analogy. In your analogy, the only thing the key is good for is stealing loot from a safe.

In real life, the hacks are used for people to do many things which are legal, but some people choose to use it for illegal things.

A crowbar would be a far better analogy. Many people use them to break in and steal things. But other people just use them as a legal tool.

@JimmySpades hmm. So I’m a digital only person, and at some point nintendo is going to shut down the servers at some point. How will I download games? If I could copy what I have now and back it up on my NAS then this would protect my legal purchase of these games. Now likely I will have moved onto Nintendo’s next system by then, but this is the first valid use case.

Second use case, I’m a programmer and would like to correct the auto syncing issue. I have two switches and I want the same save data on both consoles such that I pick up one and go. If Nintendo can’t give me this I can, and will happily.

Third use case, indie dev. While it’s easier these day, getting a switch dev unit is costly and if you’re starting from nothing you have to make 3ds games first or present a game idea to Nintendo prior to being given access to buy dev units. After you have access they cost around $450 iirc which, while not a huge amount, is still a significant amount for many.

Also you’re using the wrong word. A hacker is a programmer. It means someone hacking at a keyboard. A cracker is one breaking programs and operating system protections.

@Araquanid Team Xecutor has been around for a while, I had one for the original xbox so I could install a larger HDD, install games to the HDD and play halo online before xbox live was a thing.

The problem with defending homebrew is that the system is locked against any uninvited entry for any purpose, designed to keep pirates out, but by nature also keeps homebrewers out. To homebrew you have to break the locks to get in. While homebreweing may not be wrong itself, breaking the locks is.

It's like busting the locks on Macy's doors because you want to do some legitimate shopping while they're closed. Maybe you want to pay for whatever you buy, but it doesn't make it right or legal to bust the locks to do so when they locked them and decided nobody may do so right now.

It does open up a whole fair use, possessed property conundrum, and get back into DMCA era debates that never happened. But those questions need to be properly legally solved so people have an actual awareness of actual rights and where they begin, end, and begin treading on the rights of others rather than just busting locks open because they're in the way of what you want.

@PickledKong64
If you read the comment I was replying to, you'd see that I was pointing out the flawed logic in blaming console hackers for piracy

Does sx os use Nintendo’s code in the custom firmware?

I don't wanna run pirated games. I would like to install Android on the switch as a second operating system tho.

@Heavyarms55 Nintendo choose to make it that way.
Homebrew could be separate from piracy, but Nintendo decided against that. For an example see how apples iphone dev program works.

@Kirgo

Fair about the farfetch'd one, imo tho I still believe a large portion of nintendo gaming communities do emulate or pirate at some point. Perhaps saying most pirate is too much of a claim when i probably meant to say emulate with homebrew or do save edits. Personally i don't emulate on my switch but i do know a couple who homebrew and there's a ton of romhacking communities out there for switch games that have to upload the roms online for others to try their hacks.

As for nintendo games offer possibilities, kinda? I do agree nintendo games are more fun to crack because of their innovative mechanics and often they're filling with more stuff to mess around with (every mario is a mario maker when hacking which is fun, and randomizers never get old.) but when it comes to multiplayer i think smash is the peak while MOBA's and microsoft FPS's often give better incentive to grind for improvement and rewards compare to single player games nintendo is more frequently releasing. Its why somebody is more willing to spend $60 on overwatch than on a nintendo title they can download free, enjoy the ride, then move on back to overwatch grinding cause even the largest nintendo games often have peaks with pokemon, smash, and animal crossing being the main exceptions.

Scumbags who deserve the book thrown at them and no you can’t justify their actions by saying Nintendo should release their older games. These are Nintendo’s IPs, therefore their property. Therefore whatever they choose to do with them is their business and theirs only.

@shaneoh then why blame americans? Also with that logic we should ban alchohol and cars because those kill people and cause crimes

I have to disagree with anyone who tries to defend the purpose of this modchip. The fact that the vast majority of people who buy the modchip will end up pirating their games is a huge blow for Nintendo. Before only models below a certain serial number can be hacked. Nintendo has since patched out every model produced after July 2018 and even launched a new revision last year that fixed all the loopholes of the OG Switch. Now all Nintendo's work in the last two years was all for nothing, because Team Xecuter just screwed them over. If they want to launch homebrew on the new Switches, then find a security flaw in the software and exploit it. Making a modchip that bypasses all security is cheap, unethical and only encourages piracy.

Every single Switch will be vulnerable because of this modchip. You can't go after every person who buys one. So suing the creators is only logical thing to do, even if piracy isn't their intent. Nintendo must protect their IPs and all their 3rd party IPs.

@PickledKong64
"then why blame americans?"
It's right there in the title: Nintendo of America Files Two New Lawsuits Against Switch Hack Resellers

"Also with that logic we should ban alchohol and cars because those kill people and cause crimes"

That is exactly the point I'm making

@X68000 what nintendo kids dont understand is nintendo is strict about this because IDK if someone stems popularity off of ROMS and hacking nintendo Idk, CAN lose the IP? you people dont understand IP protocols at all and how they work.

@Linux7055 thank you lots of nintendo kids dont understand at all how serious it can be if Nintendo loses IDK Zelda and Mario?

@sanderev Yeah and I personally haven't heard many say that they want their xbox to be able to be hacked for piracy. There probably are people who would want that, but it seems when homebrew can be done in that way then most of the devs who would hack it has no incentive to break security completely on the system.

@Araquanid Good points! I didn't think of them either. Not sure how nintedo could avoid this except publishing their games on PC. Imagine what a world that would be..

@Heavyarms55 Yes, it definetely will get broken since the same incentive to do so will be there, but the switch got hacked way too early which was saddening to see.

Right, because the "sole and only purpose" of their chip can oNly be for piracy...

Let me just start by saying, I'm not condoning piracy, but there are many honest homebrew developers apart of various hacking communities, including this one, that aren't doing this for piracy, but for less limitations on their own devices.

You didn't even bother mentioning that this chip also allows those with ipatched units to run Linux, Android, as well as Emulators (and although, emulation could make for easy piracy, there are also people who are willing to transfer their own personal games to play actual backups).

Its not just about the piracy though, am I right?

I'll remind all those homebrew users...Read this

EULA/TOS you agreed to when you bought and used the Switch. You can cry blue to the face but you agree to it there is no Exception to this. So if you can't agree to this then STOP using the Switch. Even if you block updates your are in Direct Violation of EULA/TOS. So stop tryijng to make Pathetic Excuses that hackers did this and that-YOU choose to do or use that software and NIN will find out and Ban your account so don't blame hackers when you yourself went and used the software. Take a look at a mirror and point and say looked a Stupid Idiot.

Since all my purchases are digital, switching between an OG Switch and a Switch Lite is unnecessarily complicated.
Having one of those consoles chipped would alleviate that pain!

@CurryPowderKeg79 I actually knew a lawyer that worked for both Nintendo and Atari Games during their legal wars in the late 80's. He was quite wealthy.

@tekknik you can copy digital games onto multiple microSD cards like I have for long term protection. Ok they are linked to only the one console but when the servers go down I will be ready incase a card fails. My digital games could last longer than my physical copies!

@Haunting_Shad0w The number one reason people hack consoles is for piracy. Although there are a few lawful homebrew hobbyists that actually buys all their games. It's not about being fair or not, you have to doing everything you can to protect your products and corporate image. This modchip will expose over 30 million Switches to potential piracy. Nintendo will not only lose millions of sales, but potentially lose some 3rd party support.

To answer your question, YES you are right, this is not only a piracy tool, but its a tool that enables piracy. Do you expect Nintendo to do nothing? If not, how can you expect Nintendo to go after every person that pirates? How can you tell who's doing it when they're using Nintendo server blocking tools? You can't. The only way to protect the future of the Switch is to sue Team Xecuter and ban all sales of the modchip. Nintendo knows piracy better than anyone, they will not take any chances.

@beazlen1 Digital games also require a cert, which expires. So at some point your games will stop working without a mod. Further if you have multiple systems the non-primary consoles must “phone home” every few hours while playing. None of this will work when the servers are killed without mods.

“ban” of accounts of kids who owned modified Switches wasn’t really the best sanction in my opinion but it was certainly a great income for Nintendo so users can buy new Switch. Next saving is denial of service for these products. Now after both fortunate events that happened to Nintendo, I talk about extra sales income and service savings Nintendo decided to go after individuals who supposedly share games in communities. In my opinion this is just a diversion to justify denial of support and service to customers that they have damaged.

This needs to be considered in a different context - has this situation originated from Nintendo itself to increase media presence and advertising?

If you don’t see my point, just observe who has the most financial benefits from this situation: extra sales, reduce support. Certainly not users and not the game makers. As for game makers, if a game gets copied the situation is already under control, they can’t play online games.

But I might be all wrong, fortunately these kinds of events are positively reflected on the stock market, it's an interesting topic to follow and I certainly recommend it.

To simplify: would you purchase a microwave where the manufacturer shuts down your owen remotely you after warm up something they don't aprove? Would you buy a microwave from a manufacturer who records every dish you prepare in it?