Every Major Nintendo Switch Piracy Lawsuit Explained

Since 2020, Nintendo has pursued an aggressive series of Nintendo Switch piracy lawsuits and criminal referrals against modchip sellers, emulator developers, ROM distributors, streamers, and file-hosting sites. The results range from a 40-month federal prison sentence to civil judgments as high as $14.5 million and as low as $17,500, along with permanent injunctions that have shut down some of the most-used Switch emulators and piracy storefronts on the internet.

What follows is a case-by-case account of the major actions, what Nintendo alleged, and how each one ended.

Gary Bowser and Team Xecuter

This is the only Switch-era piracy case to send anyone to prison. Gary Bowser, a Canadian national, was the public spokesperson and principal salesperson for Team Xecuter, a group that manufactured and sold hardware devices letting users run pirated games on the Switch, 3DS, and NES Classic Edition. He was arrested in September 2020 after being deported from the Dominican Republic and stayed in federal custody from then on.¹

Originally charged with 11 felony counts, Bowser pleaded guilty in October 2021 to two: conspiracy to circumvent technological measures and to traffic in circumvention devices, and trafficking in circumvention devices.² In February 2022, U.S. District Judge Robert S. Lasnik sentenced him to 40 months in federal prison and ordered $4.5 million in restitution to Nintendo of America.¹ A separate civil case added $10 million, bringing his total obligation to Nintendo to $14.5 million. The government estimated Team Xecuter generated tens of millions of dollars in sales and caused up to $150 million in losses across the industry.

Bowser was released in April 2023 after serving 14 months. His plea agreement requires him to pay Nintendo between 20 and 30 percent of any income remaining after basic living expenses. As of early 2024, he was relying on friends and a GoFundMe page while looking for work, and he is legally barred from working with modern gaming hardware.³

Yuzu Emulator

On February 26, 2024, Nintendo of America filed a copyright infringement suit in the U.S. District Court for the District of Rhode Island against Tropic Haze LLC, developer of Yuzu, one of the most widely used Switch emulators.⁴ Nintendo alleged that Yuzu violated the anti-circumvention and anti-trafficking provisions of the Digital Millennium Copyright Act by decrypting Switch game files with unlawfully obtained cryptographic keys, providing hacking instructions, and verifying compatibility for thousands of official Nintendo games.⁵ Nintendo claimed more than one million copies of The Legend of Zelda: Tears of the Kingdom had been played through Yuzu before the game’s official release.

The case moved fast. On March 4, 2024, days after filing, the parties settled. Tropic Haze agreed to pay $2.4 million, was permanently enjoined from developing, hosting, or distributing Yuzu or its source code, turned over the yuzu-emu.org domain to Nintendo, and agreed to destroy all copies of the software and surrender any physical circumvention devices in its possession.⁵ The settlement also ended Citra, Tropic Haze’s Nintendo 3DS emulator. In a Discord message, the developer conceded that the projects “can circumvent Nintendo’s technological protection measures and allow users to play games outside of authorized hardware” and that “they have led to extensive piracy.”⁴

Ryujinx and Dolphin

Not every emulator was taken down through litigation. In early October 2024, the lead developer of Ryujinx, another popular Switch emulator, was contacted directly by Nintendo and offered an agreement to stop work on the project. The developer accepted. The official GitHub repository was deleted, the Patreon was shut down, and an announcement went up on Ryujinx’s social account. No public lawsuit or DMCA takedown was filed.⁶

A year earlier, in May 2023, Nintendo had sent a letter to Valve’s legal department citing the DMCA’s anti-circumvention provisions to block the Dolphin Emulator’s planned Steam release. Valve pulled the Steam store page in response.⁷ The Dolphin team abandoned the Steam release in July 2023, saying that obtaining Nintendo’s approval was impossible, though they maintained the broader project had a strong defense under the DMCA’s reverse engineering exemption.⁸

Ryan Daly and Modded Hardware

In September 2025, the U.S. District Court for the Western District of Washington entered a $2 million stipulated judgment and permanent injunction against Ryan Daly, a Michigan resident who ran an online storefront called Modded Hardware.⁹ Nintendo accused Daly of selling modified Switch consoles, modchips, and MIG Switch flash cartridges that let users play pirated games. The court found his conduct caused “significant and irreparable harm” and enabled pirate copies to be “created, distributed, and played on a massive scale.”¹⁰

Nintendo had first threatened action in March 2024, and the parties initially agreed to a settlement, but Daly allegedly failed to comply. Nintendo filed suit in June 2025, and Daly represented himself, denying all charges.¹¹ The final judgment, signed September 5, 2025, bars him from selling, possessing, or promoting any device that defeats Switch protections, including the MIG Switch and MIG Dumper. It prohibits him from reverse engineering Nintendo systems, hosting tutorials, or linking to circumvention materials. The court authorized Nintendo to seize the Modded Hardware website and compel surrender of remaining inventory, and it invoked the All Writs Act to require web hosts and domain registrars to help shut the operation down.⁹

James Williams (“Archbox”) and the Reddit Piracy Network

Nintendo sued James C. Williams, an Arizona man who moderated the r/SwitchPirates subreddit under the username “Archbox,” in the Western District of Washington in case 2:24-cv-00960. Investigators from the law firm Mitchell Silberberg & Knupp linked the Reddit account to two Nintendo accounts and then matched those email addresses to repair orders shipped to Surprise, Arizona through Nintendo’s internal repair-tracking system.¹²

The complaint asserted seven causes of action: copyright infringement, contributory copyright infringement and inducement, three counts under DMCA Section 1201, breach of contract, and tortious interference with contract.¹³ It alleged Williams ran multiple “Pirate Shops,” including one called JITS, through which he distributed hundreds or thousands of copyrighted Switch games and facilitated the distribution of “thousands, if not hundreds of thousands” of unauthorized copies.¹⁴ Nintendo also alleged Williams ran “pro” subscription tiers, soliciting donations of Nintendo eShop gift cards in exchange for faster download speeds.¹⁵

Williams did not respond to the lawsuit. In early October 2025, Nintendo asked the court for a $4.5 million default judgment, identifying 30 specific pirated titles. As of the most recent reporting, the court had not yet ruled on the amount.¹⁴

Jesse Keighin and Pre-Release Streaming

In November 2024, Nintendo sued Jesse Keighin, a streamer known as “Every Game Guru,” in Colorado federal court for repeatedly broadcasting pirated, unreleased Switch games. The complaint alleged that since 2022, Keighin had streamed at least 10 unreleased leaked Nintendo titles more than 50 times, including Mario & Luigi: Brothership and The Legend of Zelda: Echoes of Wisdom, using modified consoles and emulators, and had shared links to the Yuzu and Ryujinx emulators with viewers.¹⁶

Keighin was defiant. After receiving dozens of takedown notices across YouTube, Twitch, and Kick, he told Nintendo he had “a thousand burner channels” and taunted the company’s outside counsel with profane threats on Facebook.¹⁷ Nintendo had trouble even serving him, filing a motion in April 2025 alleging he “evaded service.” He was eventually served through email and letters to family members.¹⁸

He never responded. A clerk entered default on March 26, 2025. In late October 2025, U.S. District Judge Gordon P. Gallagher ordered Keighin to pay Nintendo $17,500, far less than the more than $1 million Nintendo sought.¹⁷ The court issued a permanent injunction barring Keighin from infringing Nintendo copyrights, streaming pirated games, and trafficking in Switch emulators, cryptographic keys, or other circumvention tools. The judge denied two broader requests: an order to confiscate and destroy Keighin’s devices was rejected as “unclear” and “unreasonable” for lack of evidence about how he obtained the games, and an effort to extend the injunction to unnamed third parties was denied for lack of specificity.¹⁶

International Actions: 1fichier and NSw2u

In 2021, a Paris court ordered Dstorage, operator of the file-sharing site 1fichier.com, to pay Nintendo about $1.13 million in damages, finding that the platform hosted pirated games and failed to remove or block them despite warnings. In March 2025, France’s highest judiciary court upheld the ruling on appeal.¹⁹ A separate January 2025 decision found that a bank was justified in ending its payment processing agreement with 1fichier.com because of the site’s lack of anti-piracy controls.²⁰ Nintendo called the appellate outcome “significant for the entire games industry,” arguing it prevents file hosts from claiming they need a formal court order before removing copyrighted content.

In July 2025, the FBI seized NSw2u, one of the largest sources of pirated Switch game files, under a warrant issued pursuant to 18 U.S.C. § 2323 by the U.S. District Court for the Northern District of Georgia. The Dutch Fiscal Information and Investigation Service (FIOD) participated. According to the FBI, the seized sites were responsible for 3.2 million illegal downloads over a three-month period, an estimated $170 million in losses. The Entertainment Software Association said the NSw2u network had drawn over 36 million visits from 13 million unique visitors during a six-month period, and the sites had been added to the EU piracy watchlist in May 2025.²¹²²

The Legal Framework Nintendo Relies On

Two bodies of law do most of the work in these cases. Traditional copyright infringement under Title 17 of the U.S. Code allows copyright holders to elect statutory damages of $750 to $30,000 per infringed work, with up to $150,000 per work for willful infringement.²³ The DMCA’s Section 1201 prohibits both circumventing technological protection measures and trafficking in tools designed to bypass them. Under Section 1201, Nintendo has sought $2,500 per violation of the anti-circumvention and anti-trafficking provisions.⁵ Civil remedies under the DMCA include injunctive relief and monetary damages, and criminal sanctions are available for willful violations committed for commercial advantage or private financial gain.²⁴

Courts have generally sided with Nintendo, but outcomes vary widely. Bowser owes $14.5 million. Yuzu settled for $2.4 million. Daly’s case ended at $2 million. Keighin was ordered to pay just $17,500, and the judge pushed back on parts of Nintendo’s requested relief. A recurring pattern: defendants often fail to appear or represent themselves, and default judgments follow.

Policy Changes and the Switch 2

Nintendo has also tightened its user-facing rules. In May 2025, it updated the Nintendo Account User Agreement in the United States and United Kingdom with over 100 edits addressing piracy, emulation, and unauthorized modifications. The revised U.S. agreement states that users who bypass, modify, decrypt, or tamper with the functions or protections of Nintendo Account Services may have their devices “permanently” rendered “unusable in whole or in part.”²⁵ The UK version uses softer language, warning that unauthorized use “may result in the Digital Products becoming unusable.”²⁶ The updated policy applies to all existing and new accounts.

With the Switch 2 launching in 2026, the enforcement posture is not softening. Players have already reported being banned from online services for using unauthorized SD cards to store Switch ROMs on the new console.²² Nintendo’s official IP enforcement FAQ names specific devices, including the MIG Switch, R4 Switch, HWFLY, and PICOFLY, as illegal circumvention products, and the company says it maintains active enforcement programs in more than 40 countries. Its strategy has focused primarily on commercial actors — manufacturers, distributors, and operators of piracy networks — rather than individual end users, though Nintendo’s own legal materials note that personal use of circumvention devices is not exempt from potential enforcement.²⁷

1
U.S. Department of Justice. Public Voice and Principal Salesperson of Notorious Videogame Piracy Group Sentenced
2
VGC. Nintendo Hacker Gary Bowser Says Sentence Is a Warning to Others
3
The Guardian. The Man Who Owes Nintendo $14M
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GamesIndustry.biz. Nintendo and Yuzu Developer Settle Lawsuit for $2.4M
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The Verge. Nintendo Yuzu Emulator Lawsuit Settlement
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Boiling Steam. Nintendo Kills Ryujinx After Yuzu
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PC Gamer. Nintendo Sends Valve DMCA Notice to Block Steam Release of Wii Emulator Dolphin
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TechPowerUp. Dolphin Emulator Dev Comments on Steam Removal Controversy
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Tom’s Hardware. Nintendo Secures Settlement Against Switch Modder Who Represented Himself in Court
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IGN. Switch Modder Must Pay $2 Million for Enabling Piracy
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Kotaku. Nintendo Lawsuit Modding Switch Ryan Daly
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Gamefile. How Nintendo Found Archbox
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U.S. District Court, W.D. Wash. Nintendo of America v. Williams, Complaint
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Fast Company. Nintendo Reddit Piracy Lawsuit
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Tom’s Hardware. Nintendo Asks for $4.5 Million Default Judgment Against Ex-Reddit Mod
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GamesIndustry.biz. Nintendo Wins Lawsuit Against Streamer Who Livestreamed Pirated Games Before Release
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Kotaku. Nintendo Switch Piracy Lawsuit Streamer
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Retro Game Talk. Nintendo Wins Lawsuit Against Player Who Kept Streaming Pirated Switch Games
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The Verge. Nintendo Piracy Lawsuit 1fichier
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UBC Video Game Law. Nintendo Wins Piracy Lawsuit Against French File-Sharing Website
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GamesIndustry.biz. FBI Seizes Nintendo Switch Piracy Site NSw2u
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Kotaku. Switch 2 Piracy NSw2u
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U.S. Copyright Office. Copyright Law of the United States, Chapter 5
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Duke Law. DMCA Anti-Circumvention Provisions
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IGN. Nintendo Revises User Agreement
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TechRadar. Nintendo Now Says It Can Disable Your Switch
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Nintendo. Intellectual Property and Piracy FAQ