Switch Hacker Released from Jail, Likely to Pay Nintendo 25-30% of Income for Rest of Life - News
by William D'Angelo , posted on 02 May 2023 / 7,309 Views
Nintendo Switch hacker Gary Bowser has been released from prison early after he was sentenced in February 2022 to 40 months in prison. He was part of hacking group Team-Xecuter, which in 2013 began to create and sell devices to play illegal ROMs on consoles, including the Switch and 3DS.
Bowser in an interview with Nick Moses and reported by TorrentFreak stated was he released from federal prison in late March and is now at the Northwest Detention Center in Tacoma, Washington. He is currently undergoing processing and afterwards will return to Canada.
He must now fulfil the rest of his sentence, which was to pay $14.5 million damages. $10 million of the payment will go to Nintendo. Bowser claims he has paid $175 of the total to date, which came from a job he worked while in prison.
Once he is back in Canada he will have up to six months to start paying between 25 percent and 30 percent of his monthly gross income.
"The agreement with them is that the maximum they can take is 25 to 30 percent of your gross monthly income," said Bowser. "And I have up to six months before I have to start making payments."
Bowser is 53 years old and likely will never earn enough to pay off the full amount he owes. This means he will most likely be paying Nintendo for the rest of his life. He will have to earn at least $40 million before taxes in order to pay off what he owes.
A life-long and avid gamer, William D'Angelo was first introduced to VGChartz in 2007. After years of supporting the site, he was brought on in 2010 as a junior analyst, working his way up to lead analyst in 2012 and taking over the hardware estimates in 2017. He has expanded his involvement in the gaming community by producing content on his own YouTube channel and Twitch channel. You can contact the author on Twitter @TrunksWD.
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This is excessive and a horrible way to destroy someone's life. As much as I like Nintendo, no one should face such sentences. It's because of things like this that companies and company products deserve to be hacked as much as possible.
I didn't follow this case closely, so I can't speak to this specific case. But sometimes there are mandatory minimum sentences, etc., so there are times when there actually is no alternative in the case of someone being found guilty. No idea if that applies in this case, as I haven't followed it closely.
I must admit, I don't have a lot of sympathy for someone selling devices that they know will be used for piracy. It's pretty distasteful to make money by helping people steal. This probably did cost Nintendo millions of dollars, so why should he be punished less severely than he was?
Even if that were the case it would only apply to the jail sentence. I've never heard of a minimum fine being 14.5m before.
In % terms it would've barely cost Nintendo a thing, that's a pretty good reason his punishment should be less than that.
Plus how come massive corporations so rarely have to pay out when they break the law but individuals do? Not to mention when companies pay out it's usually a pittance for them but for regular people it's enough to financially destroy them for the rest of their life. Seems a bit unfair, no?
Your reference to massive corporations is a "whataboutism". If they get off too easy, then let's nail them harder when they break the law. That's neither here nor there in what should happen to this individual.
I don't know the laws in every jurisdiction with regard to sentencing. I have heard of both minimum and maximum fines in the past, though.
It's not about what it costs Nintendo in % terms, it's about what it costs them in raw dollars. Should someone get a worse sentence for breaking-and-entering into a rich person's place than a poor person's place?
The harshness of the penalty comes from him selling those tools. If he's a capable security researcher, he'll probably find well paid job anyway.
Agreed. He was profiting from helping people steal. I'd have more sympathy if he was a hobbyist trying to help people run homebrew, but he was trying to make money off of it and must have known that piracy would be the most common use of his tools.
Their livelihoods hasn't been affected in any way. God, Nintendo has been setting profit records year after year even with the hack available. I've even read that Nintendo has increased their employes salaries in the previous years due to the good results. This guy hasn't damaged no one with his actions except for a multinational corporation that, even if he's taken a small chunk of his bussiness away, is still swimming in billions.
What he did was illegal, he knew it was illegal... And yet, he still set out to do the illegal thing anyway.
I agree that the punishment needs to fit the crime and it's extremely excessive, you can do much more severe crimes and receive a far far less punishment...
But because this was essentially a crime against a large white collar company, they had the push to set an example to dissuade others.
Even exemplary punishments shouldn't be this excessive. He's been in prison for what he did, he's been condemned (that sets a stain in your expedient and prevents you for accesing certain jobs), and even if it could be OK to make him pay Nintendo, the fine is absolutely excessive. Hes already marked for his actions and that, with a rational fine, should be enough for this tipe of conduct. No persona but him has been damaged by his actions.
he totally deserve it, stop defending people who do illegal stuff, this should serve as a warning to people to stop doing this stupid shit.
If this was the result for ALL people/things that break laws you might have a point. But that isn't the case.
you should blame the legal system for letting people get away with illegal thing, it's nice to see justice served for once, and that guy totally deserve what he got because he was selling hacking tools.
it's not Nintendo's fault that other judges take money and let people get a way with illegal stuff that's totally the legal systems fault
It still undermines your whole point though. It doesn't serve as a warning when a whole bunch of people know that they can get away with much worse stuff.
it's not Nintendo's job to enforce the law in other cases, but it's their job to protect what they own, and that's exactly what they are doing.
if you are disappointed that some killer is getting away with murder than go complain to the judge and the police, because that has nothing to do with a gaming company doing their job
So long Gary Bowser!
That;s messed up. Mean while other people get off much easily for more serious crimes. Just shows how important money is for "justice"
Disgusting. Jail time and having to pay $14.5 million for... video game piracy? WTF?
You can literally kill somebody and get a less harsh punishment than that. It's just insane.
I can't believe that they released Bowser from jail! Who in the Mushroom Kingdom thought that was a good idea? :P
Guy's name is Gary Bowser. Fitting.
i have no sympathy for someone who tries to profit from piracy
Super Mario Courtroom
The 14.5 million seems excessive. He did his time in prison, and it makes sense to pay a fine as well, but I feel like 1 million and 20% max would have been enough to set a precedent of making sure people don't do this in the future.
Nice, now people should think more before they start doing this stupid illegal stuff
nice to see a little law and order
