Nintendo notched a win in its war on piracy this week as the FBI seized and shut down one of the biggest Switch piracy sites online. As spotted by Kotaku, the FBI says it took down NSW2U on Thursday “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.” Additionally, the FBI has shuttered a few other similar sites, such as NSWDL and Game-2u.
The notices on each website reveal that in addition to the Federal Bureau of Investigation in the U.S., the Fiscal Information and Investigation Service (FIOD) in the Netherlands was involved in the case. Neither party has shared any additional information yet.
The sites in question featured links to stolen Nintendo Switch games that users could download for free to play on emulators or hacked Switch consoles. Needless to say, it’s not a legal means of acquiring Switch games, which explains why NSW2U ended up on the EU’s Counterfeit and Piracy Watch List earlier this year (via TorrentFreak).
“Stakeholders in the video game industry have reported nsw2u.xyz/nsw2u.com/nsw2u.net for inclusion in the Watch List,” the European Commission explained in the Counterfeit and Piracy Watch List released in May. “The websites are reported to index, manage and organise links to unauthorised copies of games hosted on third-party platforms.”
Nintendo’s pirate hunt continues
In recent years, Nintendo has ramped up its efforts to subdue the stealing and distribution of its software online. These are just the latest ROM sites to face Nintendo’s wrath, following the likes of Vimm’s Lair, LoveRoms, and EmuParadise.
Emulators have been targeted by the company as well, with Nintendo suing the Switch emulator Yuzu into oblivion and then convincing the team behind rival emulator Ryujinx to kill its project as well a few months later. Building an emulator isn’t illegal, but as The Verge noted at the time, the developers can’t afford to fight Nintendo’s legal team.
