Nintendo’s Latest Piracy Lawsuit Hits Switch Mod Company After It Refuses to Shut Down

Nintendo continues to file lawsuits against alleged Nintendo Switch pirates, but the latest defendant doesn’t seem particularly concerned about the threats from the colossal company.

As reported by TorrentFreak, Nintendo has filed a lawsuit against modding company Modded Hardware, alleging that it “not only offers hardware and firmware to create and play pirated games” but also provides “customers with copies of pirated Nintendo games.”

But the lawsuit was filed after Nintendo allegedly offered Modded Hardware owner Ryan Daly the opportunity to leave. The gaming giant contacted Daly in March 2024, according to the lawsuit, and both sides agreed that Modded Hardware would cease operations.

However, it continued to operate normally, and a final warning in May 2024 allegedly also 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 hacked console or uses a bypass service, the defendant pre-installs a range of ready-to-run pirated games on the console, including some of Nintendo’s most popular titles such as Super Mario, The Legend of Zelda, and Metroid games,” Nintendo’s lawsuit alleges.

“Indeed, because pirated Nintendo Switch games cannot be used or created without a hacked console and associated software and hardware, it is only through products and services such as those sold by Defendants that illegal markets for the distribution of pirated games exist and thrive.”

Nintendo also filed a lawsuit against James Williams, known online by his pseudonym Archbox, accusing him of alleged ties to several online “piracy stores” that sold illegal copies of Nintendo games.

“Defendant is the operator, overseer, and driving force behind several pirate stores through which Defendant has offered massive libraries of pirated Nintendo Switch games,” Nintendo claims. 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 posted thousands of comments since 2019.

“Defendants’ posts included, for example, messages directing users to pirate stores; requests for ‘donations’ in the form of Nintendo eShop gift cards to purchase games (or even requests for copies of the Nintendo Switch games themselves) that would be copied and then distributed in pirate stores; and offering technical advice and incentives to other users on how to use pirate stores, download and install software that bypasses security protections, and play pirated copies of Nintendo Switch games,” the lawsuit alleged.

25 Best Switch Games

25 Best Nintendo Switch Games

"Heading into 2024 with the potential arrival of the Nintendo Switch 2, the Nintendo Switch already has an incredible lineup of games. The hybrid handheld console surpassed the PlayStation 4 and Game Boy to become the third best-selling console of all time with over 132.46 million units sold, Nintendo Switch Online added Game Boy and Game Boy Advance games, and Nintendo struck a 10-year deal with Microsoft to bring Call of Duty to future Nintendo consoles. While Call of Duty fans wait for the first wave of ports, here are the 25 best Switch games you can play to keep you going.

But what do we mean by “best”? To be clear, this is not an attempt to create an “objective” ranking that will unquestionably appeal to the tastes of all types of gamers. That, unfortunately, can never exist; when one person’s epic RPG masterpiece is another person’s boring and impenetrable drudgery, they will never agree on where that game should rank in relation to other games in a variety of genres.

Instead, this is a list of games that the Switch gaming crew at IGN recommend as a group, ranked using our Face-Off tool so that everyone — including the hosts of our NVC podcast — can equally weigh in on which games they think should be ranked higher than others. This is done in the spirit of recognizing the games we love and encouraging others to try them out if you haven’t already.

With only 25 spots to fill, there are a ton of amazing recent games that didn’t make it to the top – but that doesn’t mean we don’t think they’re amazing too! Everyone who took part in the vote has a ton of personal favorites that didn’t gain enough traction in the group to qualify, which is inevitable when there are so many games and so many different perspectives.

Most importantly, remember that this list is just a group of us, and is no more “good” or “bad” than a list you create yourself. Speaking of which, if you have your own rankings that you’d like to share with the world, we’d like to invite you to create your own list of the 25 best (or 100 best!) Switch games using our Playlist tool and share them in the comments.

So without further ado, here are our picks for the 25 best Nintendo Switch games. You can also check out our list of the best free Switch games for additional picks."” src=”https://assets-prd.ignimgs.com/2022/01/31/thumbnail-nintendobest-1643663727060.jpg?width=888&crop=16%3A9&quality=20&dpr=0.05″ class=”jsx-2920405963 progressive-image jsx-1049729975 image aspect-ratio aspect-ratio-16-9 jsx-3398679358 hover-opacity loading”/>