Switch modder arrested in Japan as Nintendo admits emulation is technically legal
A Switch modder in Japan was arrested as Nintendo asserts emulation legality but piracy remains unlawful.
In Japan, a 58-year-old man named Fumihiro Otobe was arrested for selling modified Nintendo Switch consoles filled with pirated games, the first arrest of its kind in the country. Otobe implemented hardware modifications to bypass copyright protections and sold these for 28,000 yen with 27 pre-installed illegal games.
Nintendo, known for its tough anti-piracy stance, usually handles such infringements with civil actions instead of criminal charges. Koji Nishiura, Nintendo's head of intellectual property, acknowledged emulation's legality but maintained that distributing copyrighted software through emulators is illegal, likely influencing Otobe's arrest.
Amidst this, Nintendo is preparing to launch the Switch 2, with concerns over similar piracy issues threatening this new release. Historically, emulators like Yuzu operated shortly after the original Switch's release in 2017, raising the question of whether Nintendo can prevent the same outcome with the new console.