{"id":63569,"date":"2026-03-19T18:24:16","date_gmt":"2026-03-19T09:24:16","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/automaton-media.com\/en\/?p=63569"},"modified":"2026-03-19T18:24:18","modified_gmt":"2026-03-19T09:24:18","slug":"four-men-referred-to-prosecution-for-selling-modified-nintendo-switch-consoles-in-japan","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/automaton-media.com\/en\/news\/four-men-referred-to-prosecution-for-selling-modified-nintendo-switch-consoles-in-japan\/","title":{"rendered":"Four men referred to prosecution for selling modified Nintendo Switch consoles in Japan\u00a0"},"content":{"rendered":"\n<p>Kyoto Shimbun&nbsp;<a href=\"https:\/\/www.kyoto-np.co.jp\/articles\/-\/1679695\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noreferrer noopener\">reported<\/a>&nbsp;on March 19 that four men have been referred to the prosecution by Kyoto Police on suspicion of violating Japan&#8217;s Trademark Act.&nbsp;The individuals allegedly sold Nintendo Switch consoles that were&nbsp;modified&nbsp;to run pirated games and \u201cshow improved&nbsp;performance.\u201d&nbsp;<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>According to investigators&nbsp;quoted by&nbsp;<a href=\"https:\/\/news.ntv.co.jp\/n\/ytv\/category\/society\/yt1bb83f104f9b40d4914734f3c493060b\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noreferrer noopener\">NTV<\/a>, the&nbsp;group&nbsp;modified&nbsp;about 45 consoles, with about 15 units&nbsp;actually being&nbsp;sold through social media.&nbsp;They\u2019re&nbsp;estimated to have generated between 600,000 and 900,000 yen&nbsp;in revenue (between $3,700 and $5,600 USD).&nbsp;The act&nbsp;constitutes&nbsp;infringement&nbsp;of&nbsp;Nintendo\u2019s trademark rights, and all members of the group have since&nbsp;admitted&nbsp;to the charges.&nbsp;<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>Japanese media&nbsp;seems to be&nbsp;paying attention to the group\u2019s&nbsp;young ages, with two members&nbsp;being 18&nbsp;and 19&nbsp;years&nbsp;old&nbsp;respectively, another&nbsp;being&nbsp;in&nbsp;his&nbsp;20s, and a&nbsp;supposed ringleader&nbsp;in his 30s.&nbsp;&nbsp;<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>This is not the first&nbsp;such case&nbsp;in Japan. In January 2025, a&nbsp;<a href=\"https:\/\/automaton-media.com\/en\/news\/japanese-man-arrested-for-selling-modded-nintendo-switch-consoles-setting-a-new-precedent\/\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noreferrer noopener\">man&nbsp;in his 50s&nbsp;was likewise arrested<\/a>&nbsp;after selling Nintendo Switches&nbsp;modified&nbsp;to&nbsp;run pirated games, which domestic media called \u201ca new precedent\u201d at the time.&nbsp;<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p><strong>Related:\u00a0<a href=\"https:\/\/automaton-media.com\/en\/news\/japanese-police-arrest-man-for-hacking-and-selling-pokemon-save-data-for-the-nintendo-3ds\/\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noreferrer noopener\">Japanese police arrest man for hacking and selling Pok\u00e9mon save data for the Nintendo 3DS<\/a>\u00a0<\/strong><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>The individuals allegedly sold Nintendo Switch consoles that were modified to run pirated games and \u201cshow improved performance.\u201d <\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":55,"featured_media":63573,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_gspb_post_css":"","footnotes":""},"categories":[3],"tags":[17,33],"class_list":["post-63569","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-news","tag-japan-related-news","tag-nintendo"],"blocksy_meta":[],"yoast_head":"<!-- This site is optimized with the Yoast SEO plugin v27.2 - https:\/\/yoast.com\/product\/yoast-seo-wordpress\/ -->\n<title>Four men referred to prosecution for selling modified Nintendo Switch consoles in Japan\u00a0 - AUTOMATON WEST<\/title>\n<meta name=\"description\" content=\"The individuals allegedly sold Nintendo Switch consoles that were modified to run pirated games and \u201cshow improved performance.\u201d\" \/>\n<meta name=\"robots\" content=\"index, follow, max-snippet:-1, max-image-preview:large, max-video-preview:-1\" \/>\n<link rel=\"canonical\" href=\"https:\/\/automaton-media.com\/en\/news\/four-men-referred-to-prosecution-for-selling-modified-nintendo-switch-consoles-in-japan\/\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:locale\" content=\"en_US\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:type\" content=\"article\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:title\" content=\"Four men referred to prosecution for selling modified Nintendo Switch consoles in Japan\u00a0 - AUTOMATON WEST\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:description\" content=\"The individuals allegedly sold Nintendo Switch consoles that were modified to run pirated games and \u201cshow improved performance.\u201d\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:url\" content=\"https:\/\/automaton-media.com\/en\/news\/four-men-referred-to-prosecution-for-selling-modified-nintendo-switch-consoles-in-japan\/\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:site_name\" content=\"AUTOMATON WEST\" \/>\n<meta property=\"article:published_time\" content=\"2026-03-19T09:24:16+00:00\" \/>\n<meta property=\"article:modified_time\" content=\"2026-03-19T09:24:18+00:00\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:image\" content=\"https:\/\/automaton-media.com\/en\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/03\/20240418-63569-header.jpg\" \/>\n\t<meta property=\"og:image:width\" content=\"1399\" \/>\n\t<meta property=\"og:image:height\" content=\"849\" \/>\n\t<meta property=\"og:image:type\" content=\"image\/jpeg\" \/>\n<meta name=\"author\" content=\"Amber V\" \/>\n<meta name=\"twitter:card\" content=\"summary_large_image\" \/>\n<meta name=\"twitter:creator\" content=\"@AUTOMATON_ENG\" \/>\n<meta name=\"twitter:site\" content=\"@AUTOMATON_ENG\" \/>\n<meta name=\"twitter:label1\" content=\"Written by\" \/>\n\t<meta name=\"twitter:data1\" content=\"Amber V\" \/>\n\t<meta name=\"twitter:label2\" content=\"Est. reading time\" \/>\n\t<meta name=\"twitter:data2\" content=\"1 minute\" \/>\n<!-- \/ Yoast SEO plugin. -->","yoast_head_json":{"title":"Four men referred to prosecution for selling modified Nintendo Switch consoles in Japan\u00a0 - 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Currently devoted to growing Automaton West to the size of its Japanese sister-site, while making sure to keep news concise and developer stories deep and stimulating.","url":"https:\/\/automaton-media.com\/en\/author\/amber-vjestica\/"}]}},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/automaton-media.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/63569","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/automaton-media.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/automaton-media.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/automaton-media.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/55"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/automaton-media.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=63569"}],"version-history":[{"count":2,"href":"https:\/\/automaton-media.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/63569\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":63572,"href":"https:\/\/automaton-media.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/63569\/revisions\/63572"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/automaton-media.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/63573"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/automaton-media.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=63569"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/automaton-media.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=63569"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/automaton-media.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=63569"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}