Gary Bowser
Canadian hacker Gary Bowser has agreed to pay $10 million to settle a Nintendo lawsuit against him on allegations of piracy. Bowser is a member of the Team Xecuter group that creates mod chips and has jailbroken the Nintendo Switch, 3DS, NES Classic Edition, and other consoles.
Team Xecuter’s best-known product is a USB device called the SX Pro. With this, the Nintendo Switch can easily run pirated games. Nintendo has been chasing the Switch hackers for years. Bowser was arrested and charged on another trial last year.
Accusation
Bowser also pleaded guilty and accepted that he knowingly committed the crime. This is said to have been quite profitable for everyone involved on the illegal side. It is alleged that Team Xecuter made “at least ten million dollars” as a direct result of its illegal activities. It is also alleged that Bowser made about $ 320,000 a year from the company.
He was fined $ 4.5 million on charges related to Nintendo Switch hacks. In total, according to the latest reports, Bowser pays Nintendo at least $ 14.5 million in compensation.
Bowser turned the sale of console mods into a million dollar business. A controversial decision in a modding and emulation community that typically focuses on open source applications that typically bypass federal agencies.
Nintendo has always been aggressive against the unauthorized use of its intellectual property and has regularly taken crackdown on ROM sites that host game files. With Bowser and his “Team Xecuter” the whole thing has taken on even larger proportions.