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Last March, a 58-year-old Japanese transportation worker from Ibaraki Prefecture named Fumihiro Otobe was taken into custody for suspicion of modding and selling modified Nintendo Switch consoles. A year later, a follow-up to the news surfaced, with the man being sentenced to prison with a fine. This is the first arrest in Japan due to selling modded Nintendo Switches.
According to an NTV News report (spotted by Automaton), the Kochi District Court confirmed his guilt of infringing on Nintendo’s trademark rights and other crimes and sentenced him to two years in prison, three years suspended, and a fine of 500,000, which is approximately $3,500.
According to the police, Fumihiro Otobe had collected second-hand Switch consoles and installed modified parts onto the circuit boards. He then pre-loaded pirated Nintendo games on them before selling them on a flea market app for 28,000 yen each (around $195), an action that violates the country's Trademark Act. When Otobe got arrested, his explanation for the motivation was that he "was curious to know whether people would think I was great if I sold modified consoles."
The Japanese gaming giant has been a pioneer in using legal weapons to protect its properties. In 2022, Gary Bowser, hacker and an alleged salesman at Team Xecuter, a group notorious for hacking Nintendo's Nintendo Switch consoles, was sentenced to 40 months in prison for the distribution of jailbroken devices. Last year, Nintendo filed two lawsuits in a Washington federal court. One targeted Modded Hardware for violating the Digital Millennium Copyright Act (DMCA) by selling mod chips. The second one was issued at Archbox, a moderator of the r/SwitchPirates subreddit, for promoting piracy and operating numerous "pirate shops," and these accusations were denied by the modder.
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