While many think of game piracy in the traditional sense —downloading cracked games free of chargeto yourPC— there is a widespread community of handheld piracy,namely finding and downloading ROMsfor theNintendo Switch, also free of charge.
It turns out, that community just took a major hit.
As first spotted by Kotaku, Nsw2u, one of the biggest Switch piracy sites around, has been seized by the FBI. Yes, that FBI. The website now has a disclaimer that says the site has been seized:
“In accordance with a seizure warrant issued pursuant to 18 U.S.C. 2323 issued by the United States District Court for the Northern District of Georgia as part of a law enforcement operation and action by the Federal Bureau of Investigation.”
For what it’s worth,as noted by Kotaku, back in May, the European Commission published its Counterfeit and Piracy Watch List, which details piracy-linked sites and services, and among the sites listed were Nsw2u and its proxy sites.
TorrentFreak, a site dedicated to covering piracy, copyright and more,noted in its reportthat this particular edition submitted by the EC was heavy on game piracy, making Nsw2u’s eventual shutdown all the more understandable.
Nintendo Has Constantly Fought Video Game Pirates
Beyond supplying fans with marquee first-party games,Nintendohas also dedicated itself to chasing down bad actors. In the past, the companyhas had a hand in shutting down ROM sites, as well asthose providing emulation software.
Late last year, things took a rather interesting turn,when it was revealed that Nintendo managed to track down a Switch piratethrough the use of Reddit posts that pinpointed the person’s location, along with their email that was registered for Switch-related services, resulting in a lawsuit.
All that is to say, if the government won’t come for your website, then Nintendo will.
