Gary Bowser, of Team Xecuter infamy, is still serving his three-year prison sentence. The storied court battle may be over, but a new court transcript was released, and uploaded online, courtesy of Axios. In it, is further official comments from Nintendo's lawyers. According to the document, Nintendo's legal team wanted to use the TX case to send a message to other would-be hackers or those in the piracy business. During the proceedings, US district judge Robert Lasnik asked Nintendo's lawyers, "What do you think? What else can we do to convince people that there's no glory in this hacking/piracy?", with Nintendo's side responding, "There would be a large benefit to further education of the public."

Lasnik agreed with the sentiment, though he did not sentence Bowser to the full 5 years that Nintendo was seeking. "I always tell the jurors, 'Your role is not to send a message. Your role is to decide guilt or innocence on the facts'. But my role sometimes does entail sending a message." In response, Bowser said that giving him a longer sentence wouldn't be a deterrent to hackers, stating, “There’s so much money to be made from piracy that it’s insignificant.”

Additionally, the legal documents also reveal that Nintendo blamed hackers for the release of the new Nintendo Switch model, saying they had to design new hardware to circumvent the losses caused by TX. Nintendo's legal team also claimed that those using hacked systems could cheat, thus scaring off children who would lose to the cheaters and feel upset. “Parents should not be forced to explain to their children why people cheat and why sometimes games are not fair, just because one person wants an unfair advantage.”

2) According to the hacker Gary Bowser's lawyer, much of the time Bowser already served while awaiting sentencing was spent in de facto solitary confinement due to Covid and other health issues pic.twitter.com/BezqOq2oeZ

— Stephen Totilo (@stephentotilo) June 7, 2022

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Regarding the means of "sending a message", Bowser's lawyers sought a shorter 19-month sentence, to which Lasnik disagreed, and eventually sentenced Bowser to serve 40 months. The amount sentenced would have initially been 60 months, but was shortened due to the fact that Bowser suffered health issues as he awaited trial in jail, which caused him to be alone in solitary for 23 hours a day over the course of six months. As this also took place during the height of COVID, Bowser would only be allowed out of his cell to shower once every three days. He also had lost 90 pounds over those six months, and was confined to a wheelchair, as a result of his illness going untreated.

This was Bowser's statement regarding the above: "It has been a very traumatic experience for me getting arrested, coming here, going through this. This is my first time actually in a jail going through the court process and everything. And the amount of time I've spent already, 16 months in custody, a lot of that time - I spent six months, basically, locked up due to Covid. I went through all three of the Covid waves before there was even a vaccine available. I personally haven't got the vaccine [as] I am skeptical with my medical condition, how it will affect me, and I haven't been able to actually have proper medical treatment because I haven't been able to have a one-on-one with a doctor to see if the vaccine would be possible with my health conditions. When I first got arrested, I was 410 pounds. I had to use a wheelchair. I spent my life drinking, since I was age 15, after my mom died, and this is the longest time I have been sober in my life."

Source

 

[smf]

Edit: Also Nintendo won't give you devkits unless you have a history of releasing games on other platforms (Steam, App Store, etc)

That doesn't appear to be true at all.

 

[smf]

To add on top of that, not every developer wants to pay 450+ for a dev kit AND join their developer program.

Ok, in which case you can continue developing for switch homebrew.

Nintendo will leave you alone.

 

[mituzora]

Ok, in which case you can continue developing for switch homebrew.

Did we read the same article? They're using this case as a measure to prevent "hacking/piracy" which the hacking portion of that is the thing that enables homebrew in the first place. or are you just jumping to the end of the thread to argue?

 

[DoctorBagPhD]

If you don't want your health to be at risk in prison, don't willfully violate the law repeatedly. He's right where he should be, and is getting free healthcare.

Not just content with Chibi Robo starring in shit games you gotta post shit takes with his face on them too, I see.

 

[Dr_Faustus]

Jesus, 410 pounds. It's a miracle the man survived one bout with Covid, let alone multiple.

And LOL @ Nintendo bitching about a hardware exploit when they're the ones who went to the bargain bin to grab a bunch of old Nvidia chips that were well on their way to discontinuation. What would really send a message is utilizing both modern hardware and a modern online infrastructure in their next console. Otherwise we'll have it emulated within a year again, two tops.

Problem with Nintendo is that they tried to be ahead of the curve a long ass time ago and the result typically ended in them selling far fewer consoles than the competition at the time. Both the N64 and the GC were ahead of their time in terms of hardware power but because of the competition being far more better, flexible with developers and cheaper to make/produce games on with media that was much larger for storage and again, cheaper to print on it basically shot their chances at success for that generation. The mentality switched up to them just making good games over making state-of-the-art hardware that would probably be sold at a loss.

Also Nintendo's foray into network gaming will probably take a decade before we see any improvements. It took them this long to actually give a damn about it enough to charge money for it, but they still are back in the early 00's mindset as to how it works.

My 2 cents:

Look, Piracy is not great, we all know that. It causes a lot of problems. However, the way Nintendo is handling this whole debacle is, for a lack of better words, totally fucked.

Let's take a case study of the Steam Deck. It provides to a similar market (Handheld on-the-go console with the ability to be docked up and used when you're not on the go). However, if you choose to install third-party games on it, or god forbid, pirating a game on it, that's on you, and Steam isn't going out of their way to stop users from modifying the software on the console in any capacity (just look at how many videos there are of people installing windows on the damn thing). Hell, they even let you run flatpaks on the system without installing or modifying firmware in any capacity.

The real truth is Nintendo is suing Bowser as a power play to tell consumers and hobbyist/security analyst developers that they have to play in their walled garden, otherwise, they're gonna get screwed. This is very reminiscent of the whole "Apple suing Epic" debacle that happened not too long ago. To put it quite simply, they don't want anything running outside of their walled garden because it takes profit out of their hands; control away from Nintendo and back into the people's hands.

Think about it; Nintendo doesn't want anyone modifying their systems, not for piracy, but for control. and monetary gain. plain and simple. This puts fear into anyone who would even consider developing a game for the switch and not going through the proper channels. The piracy ploy is just Nintendo's "exploit" to kill the homebrew community.

Again, this is all subjective, and opinionated, not really based off of factual evidence, but it's not hard to see that these massive companies want as much control as humanly possible, so they can charge an arm and a leg for licensing fees, and content control and censorship.

Piracy would probably not be such a rampant issue if the means for playing or accessing media is not something that is hard for some or many people to do. Whether it be old, out of print games being re-released as a means to own and play them on modern means (such as VC which Nintendo for whatever reason axed) or to be able to play them when it could be banned/unreleased in your territory (such as Mother 3 never getting a release outside Japan, or hell you know, Russia pirating things now because of sanctions).

I think Gabe Newell Said it best.

Ball is in your court, Nintendo.

 

[CompSciOrBust]

That doesn't appear to be true at all.

I know that's true from friends who are in the program. Besides, they aren't going to just give out devkits to anyone who has a registered business because it's trivially to turn a devkit in to a piracy machine by resigning NSPs with dev keys. They want to make sure you're credible before letting you in.

 

[digipimp75]

410 lbs?? Wow, didn't know Bowser is a fatty

 

[Deleted member 586536]

I fear they'll go after SciresM and co next even though they released fusee-geelee at no cost they still broke copyright law (namely the DMCA's anti circumvention provision) like it or not they did do something illegal by releasing the unpatched exploit to the public

I don't think we have to worry too much about that, I don't think SciresM has ever really shown any indication of who or where he lives. He didn't 't even show anything super personal to my knowledge. So I don't think Nintendo knows who he actually is. As long as it stays that way, it's searching for a needle in a haystack

 

[smf]

I know that's true from friends who are in the program. Besides, they aren't going to just give out devkits to anyone who has a registered business because it's trivially to turn a devkit in to a piracy machine by resigning NSPs with dev keys. They want to make sure you're credible before letting you in.

Being credible is different to "a history of releasing games on other platforms (Steam, App Store, etc)".

I know people too.

 

[CompSciOrBust]

I don't think we have to worry too much about that, I don't think SciresM has ever really shown any indication of who or where he lives. He didn't 't even show anything super personal to my knowledge. So I don't think Nintendo knows who he actually is. As long as it stays that way, it's searching for a needle in a haystack

His name is Michael Scires and he's pretty open about his occupation so it shouldn't be too hard for Nintendo to find him, besides, they can always just get the FBI to serve Discord / Twitter / wherever with a warrant.

Being credible is different to "a history of releasing games on other platforms (Steam, App Store, etc)".

I know people too.

Maybe so but having a history of releases is a better indicator that you're not going to use your slightly-more-expensive-than-retail hardware to pirate games than politely asking and showing them some business info that you obtained last week.

 

[Nincompoopdo]

The Switch was hacked one year after it was launched, it was a bad thing - it prompted Nintendo to release a revision of the processor to circumvent the hack.

Usually Nintendo's hardware was hacked in the final years of the console lifespan, they were already working on the next gen console and won't bothered to release a revision.

I think they revealed the exploit too soon for the Switch.

 

[Elodain]

The Switch was hacked one year after it was launched, it was a bad thing - it prompted Nintendo to release a revision of the processor to circumvent the hack.

Usually Nintendo's hardware was hacked in the final years of the console lifespan, they were already working on the next gen console and won't bothered to release a revision.

I think they revealed the exploit too soon for the Switch.

Nintendo's consoles have been painfully easy to hack since the NES.

Honestly until the Patched Switches, the hardest consoles they've had to hack were the 3DS and Wii U, which took what? 2-3 years each to hack? That's hardly the end of the console's life.

 

[64bitmodels]

Problem with Nintendo is that they tried to be ahead of the curve a long ass time ago and the result typically ended in them selling far fewer consoles than the competition at the time.

Playstation tried (and failed) to be ahead of the curve when they released the PS3 back in 2006. You know what they did though? They kept trying and trying until eventually they got the PS4 which was their big break. and they didn't have to make their hardware godawful in the process.

 

[Nincompoopdo]

Nintendo's consoles have been painfully easy to hack since the NES.

Honestly until the Patched Switches, the hardest consoles they've had to hack were the 3DS and Wii U, which took what? 2-3 years each to hack? That's hardly the end of the console's life.

This is the 6th year of Switch's life and Nintendo plans on extending it - due to chip shortages they are reluctant to release the next gen. I think Switch will have the longest console life compared to all Nintendo's hardware. Being hacked after the 1st year is equivalent to a few months for other consoles.

 

[Nincompoopdo]

Nintendo sending a message on piracy by punishing Bowser doesn't work at all.

Look at Youtube, people are already playing the new (yet to release) Mario Striker game. You can play it in 4K with the emulators. People don't even need to buy Nintendo's hardware, people will pirate even without TX.

 

[Elodain]

Nintendo sending a message on piracy by punishing Bowser doesn't work at all.

Look at Youtube, people are already playing the new (yet to release) Mario Striker game. You can play it in 4K with the emulators. People don't even need to buy Nintendo's hardware, people will pirate even without TX.

Exactly. Like I get it they want all the money, but to show such aggression toward people that are STILL financially supporting them in other avenues is insane.

Hell I own two switches, patched and unpatched. The Unpatched of course I got on ebay but the Patched one I bought BRAND NEW from a brick and mortar store.

Ninty got some money from me regardless because I like having the hardware regardless of weather I'm going to buy or pirate the games.

 

[hatredg0d]

Atmosphere didn't exist when SXOS came out, you have it backwards.

It's not because atmosphere wasn't completed at the time that they couldn't take anything from it, I'm pretty sure they couldn't have sold a finished solution if atmosphere wasn't already around.

Atmosphere existed, there was just not a public precompiled version of it, the code he stole and claimed was his own was taken from github. One version of SXOS literally showed an atmosphere logo on boot because bowser forgot to remove it.

 

[godreborn]

This is the 6th year of Switch's life and Nintendo plans on extending it - due to chip shortages they are reluctant to release the next gen. I think Switch will have the longest console life compared to all Nintendo's hardware. Being hacked after the 1st year is equivalent to a few months for other consoles.

That's what I think as well.

 

[Cris1997XX]

Wow, the thread has finally calmed down. Uhh...what should I say...ah yes! "Piracy bad!1!!11"

 

[LightBeam]

It is incredible how much GBAtemp hates TX despite being a piracy site with a layer of hypocrisy to hide this fact.

Oh well, time to use my "backup loader" to play my totally legit "leak" of Pokémon.

It's always pretty funny to see people saying it's hypocritical when really ... it's not, it's actually pretty straight-forward.
Idk, one of the reasons I hack my stuff is to avoid DRMs, it would actually be hypocritical to accept DRMs in my hacks tho, especially if they can brick my console.
Also paying a licence to steal is stupid.
And again, people are right to be mad about code theft. If you aren't ... Good for you I guess.

If you're good with all that, that's fine. But people not accepting that aren't hypocrites. Just say that you would pay to steal games and be okay with that, let people like TX take advantage of that, everything else seems like reassurance to me.