If there’s one thing that everyone in the games industry knows very well, it’s how serious Nintendo is about protecting their intellectual properties. The Japanese game company is notorious for being very willing to get into a legal battle with any entity that steps into the realm of piracy and emulation. Most recently, Nintendo sued a YouTuber named Jesse Keighin for streaming Nintendo games on the platform before their official release, which led to a judge ruling that Jesse had to pay Nintendo $17,500. And it’s not the only time the world has seen Nintendo aggressively go after people for daring to mess around with their franchises.

In the past, Nintendo has sent cease-and-desist letters to people, and even actively went after websites that hosted files for emulating their games on various platforms. The results are usually the same, with some having to pay very hefty fines and websites being completely devastated or disappearing entirely. Whether it’s the work of the infamous Nintendo Ninjas or the powerhouse Nintendo legal department, messing too much with Nintendo’s games is a quick way to find out how they really don’t play around. Here are three times Nintendo showed how much it hates emulation and piracy.

Going after Gary Bowser

They eviscerated him financially

One of the biggest examples of Nintendo showing people they aren’t to be trifled with is the story about Gary Bowser. The 52-year-old Canadian man was part of a group of hackers named Team-Xecuter, which worked together to provide ROM software for various outlets since 2013. Gary had been part of the group for a long time, contributing to work on Nintendo 3DS and Nintendo Switch modification devices, which were often used in piracy of Nintendo games. After being arrested in 2020, Gary pleaded guilty to two counts of circumvention of devices and the trafficking of them, but he also faced a number of other charges at the time of his arrest. The punishment for the crime involving Nintendo games was up to 10 years in jail, and an additional $4.5 million fine.

But if that wasn’t bad enough, Nintendo applied even more pressure against Gary with a completely separate lawsuit filed by them. The civil lawsuit came with an additional $10 million in damages due to the impact of Gary’s work on the Nintendo 3DS and the Nintendo Switch. And while Gary did plead guilty to the charges, he still wasn’t getting off easy with any of the offers he gave Nintendo’s legal team. Even if he was willing to help find other members of Team-Xecuter, he was still going to have to pay a lot of money to the Japanese game company, which may take the duration of the rest of his life.

Credit: Nintendo

While working in prison during his sentence, Gary would have to pay around 30% of every payment he received to Nintendo. Although the amount is pretty insignificant for such a big company, the outcome was clearly to send a strong message to other people outside of Gary’s situation. It was more of a statement to everyone that if Nintendo found out you were involved with pirating their games, or involved with anything related to it, they were going to come after you viciously.

The Yuzu Emulator

Demolishing what it was

While Nintendo isn’t afraid to go after individual people, they have also made a habit out of going after companies. In a lawsuit filed in Rhode Island, Nintendo went after the developer of the Yuzu Emulator, Tropic Haze. The company claimed that the emulator allowed anyone to play Nintendo Switch games on other platforms like Windows PC, which was used to pirate Nintendo Switch games. Nintendo’s biggest example of this was the release of The Legend of Zelda: Tears of the Kingdom, which was illegally obtained by people over 1 million times through the use of the Yuzu emulator. What made Nintendo even more furious was how free updates and additional features for the emulator were being offered to users through platforms like Patreon, while their games were being obtained by people who did not pay anything for them.

The result of the lawsuit was the Yuzu website being taken down completely. Tropic Haze also had to pay Nintendo $2.4 million in damages, as well as hand over anything related to Yuzu in its entirety, including modified Switch consoles. In the settlement, Nintendo also had Tropic Haze agree to never be involved in any sort of emulation of Nintendo games from that point forward, in which violating could lead to even more severe punishments and fines. It was a definitive end to Yuzu in the most clear sense.

Credit: Nintendo

But the series of events had a ripple effect on other emulators that were found online. Multiple outlets were afraid that Nintendo would set their sights on them next, and continue to be hyper aggressive against other emulation hosting websites. While some people debated about how this would affect game preservation in the long run, it wouldn’t deter the company from continuing it’s ongoing battle with piracy and emulation.

Cracking down Nsw2u

The FBI got involved

Following the lawsuit against Yuzu and Tropic Haze, another major emulation platform was demolished by Nintendo. One of the biggest websites that hosted piracy for Nintendo Switch games was Nsw2u, which held numerous titles on the Nintendo Switch for users to download. But in July 2025, the FBI had seized the Nsw2u website, redirecting everyone to a different page when users tried to visit it. The seizure was done through a warrant issued by the US District Court of the Northern District of Georgia, citing a law enforcement operation and action by the FBI. In addition, the FIOD from the Netherlands was mentioned as being part of the operation.

In a press release statement that came later from the FBI, the agency said that the Nsw2u* website *was responsible for more than 3.2 million downloads online within a 3-month period. For any company, that’s a lot of games that were obtained and weren’t paid for, which is a colossal amount to think about. While Nintendo did not make a public statement about the takedown at the time, they did refer media outlets to a statement released by the ESA which highlighted the reasoning for the website’s takedown. The ESA stated that it was a major victory for the video game industry, and that Nsw2u had a significant global footprint.

Credit: Nintendo

Many of the affiliate websites of Nsw2u were also affected by the website going down. For Nintendo, this meant even more outlets that were pirating their games were being wiped out. As the release of the Nintendo Switch 2 drew closer, the company was even more vigilant against places that were involved with piracy of Nintendo games. Outlets like Nsw2u going under were enough to scare a lot of people off from developing new ways to circumvent any protections that Nintendo had for their upcoming console. Since the Switch 2 came out, there haven’t been many outlets for people to pirate games for it.

Don’t mess around, don’t find out

Most large companies in the video game industry are protective of their games against piracy and emulation. But Nintendo is the prime example of a major company being active against those who cross the line that forces them to act. They are the most aggressive video game company when protecting their intellectual property, and they’re very unapologetic about it. From lawsuits that cost people millions of dollars to full-on government agency operations, there doesn’t seem to be any lengths that Nintendo won’t go to in order to protect their brand and games. The Nintendo Ninjas are a force to be reckoned with, and nobody wants to mess around and find out about them.

Nintendo Switch 2

9*/10*

4K Capability Yes

4K Capabilities 4K 60Hz (TV mode only)

Top Games Mario Kart World, Donkey Kong Bananza, The Legend of Zelda: Breath of the Wild — Nintendo Switch 2 Edition

Power Source 60W USB-C power adapter

What’s Included 1x Nintendo Switch 2 system, 1x Left Joy-Con 2 (blue), 1x Right Joy-Con 2 (orange), 1x Joy-Con 2 strap (blue), 1x Joy-Con 2 strap (orange), 1x Joy-Con 2 Grip, 1x Nintendo Switch 2 Dock, 1x Ultra High Speed HDMI Cable, 1x power adapter, 1x USB-C power cable

Brand Nintendo