Nintendo hacker settles Switch piracy lawsuit for $10 mn in restitution

Gary Bowser, a member of a group of hackers called Team-Xecuter, has been ordered to pay $10 million to settle a Nintendo lawsuit against him over piracy charges.

Nintendo has been chasing Switch hackers for years. In a separate federal case Bowser was ordered to pay $4.5 million for charges related to Nintendo Switch hacks. In total, he is now paying Nintendo $14.5 million in restitution, reports The Verge.

The most well-known product of Team Xecuter is the SX Pro, a USB device that allows users to bypass Nintendo Switch security measures and run pirated games.

Bowser was arrested in the Dominican Republic in 2020 and extradited to the US to face 11 felony counts, including wire fraud and conspiracy to commit money laundering.

Bowser has agreed to pay Nintendo the $10 million. The Team Xecuter associate also agreed to hand over any and all online registries or domain names linked to the jailbreaking group.

"This permanent injunction is binding against Defendant worldwide, without regard to the territorial scope of the specific intellectual property rights asserted in the Complaint of the above-captioned case, and may be enforced in any court of competent jurisdiction wherever Defendant or his assets may be found," the settlement reads.

Meanwhile, Nintendo revealed that the global chip shortage, which had already forced the company to downscale its expected sales for the much-loved Switch device, is also hindering hardware development.

Nintendo executive Ko Shiota said that the semiconductor situation is having some effect on hardware development.

"We are looking at substituting components and tweaking designs to try and reduce the impact," said Shiota.

The chip shortage has affected various tech-reliant industries across the globe including the automobile, consumer electronics, including smartphones, laptops, gaming consoles, televisions, home appliances and more.

--IANS

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