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

 

[Darth Meteos]

Hot take: Piracy is good, actually. It forces companies to become more consumer-friendly over time. I can't imagine the corporate hellscape we'd be navigating these days if it weren't for piracy. We sure as shit wouldn't have Steam, Spotify or streaming services.

The platform I pirate the least on is also the one with the least anti-piracy measures on it, PC. The one I pirate most on is Switch, because Nintendo refuses to give good value for money.

Us infighting isn't going to solve the problem. The real enemy isn't Gary, it's the corporations. It always has been.

 

[Legitendo]

If you want your Switch to be a Steam Deck so much, just sell your Switch, buy a Steam Deck, and leave Nintendo alone.

And you're fooling yourselves if you think the US government actually cares about copyright, even more if you think that Nintendo has any influence in them. They just punish this one guy to pretend they care and keep creators quiet. If the authorities actually cared, they would arrest as many pirates as possible and give them reasonable punishments instead of issuing an extreme punishment to 1 guy for show.

 

[Bladexdsl]

i cannot believe just how despicable nintendo are now they are litterally the new apple.

 

[hamohamo]

Can't believe someone was put in jail for years just because he made it more accessible for kids to play entertaining videogames. Ain't the fault of Nintendo but is the fault of a juridical system that supports pigs like Nintendo. Hope everyone responsible rots in hell.

 

[Legitendo]

Can't believe someone was put in jail for years just because he made it more accessible for kids to play entertaining videogames. Ain't the fault of Nintendo but is the fault of a juridical system that supports pigs like Nintendo. Hope everyone responsible rots in hell.

Making entertaining videogames is hard while you’re rotting in hell, or while you’re not getting paid for that matter.

 

[The Catboy]

Nazis were national socialists, so it's more to the left than right.

Tell me you don’t know anything about history or Socialism without telling me

 

[Dr_Faustus]

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.

The PS4 was mainly successful due to two reasons.

-The fact that they were putting their weight in pushing the development of Cinematic IP games
-The fact that Microsoft shit the bed super hard thanks to Don Mattrick's wild ride AKA the Xbox One's press release.

The latter scenario basically causing such a shitstorm in the gaming community that most people on both sides basically agreed that Sony already won that generation before it even started forward. It would take many years, revisions and genuine outreach to the fans for Microsoft to appeal to fans again, especially after they flushed Don "We have an offline version of the Xbox one, and its called the 360" Mattrick out of the company and put Phil Spencer in at the helm.

As for the PS3 itself, it was more than the fact that it was "advanced for its time" it was an architecture that was not usual in its implementation. The result of which made developing for it a real pain in the ass for game developers. The same kind of problems happened with the Sega Saturn and the Atari Jaguar which is why they were never popular with developers in the first place. N64 to a similar but lesser extent since the need for development hardware was within the 5-6 digit mark to acquire thanks to Silicon Graphics being the base hardware.

 

[Lather]

I don't care about this.
Fair? Teach your child there nothing is fair in the world.

 

[Elodain]

I don't care about this.

Then don't comment...?

 

[hamohamo]

Making entertaining videogames is hard while you’re rotting in hell, or while you’re not getting paid for that matter.

The people responsible for this aren't making videogames. They're just ruining lives, putting down fan projects made with love and making extremely customer unfriendly greedy decisions. The game studios with the great developers are the ones making the games Nintendo is well known for, not the atrocious decisions the corporate side makes.
As for the money, piracy isn't the reason Nintendo would be losing money. Most mid-tier pcs can pirate switch games and play them perfectly. DS was the most easily pirated console but the second most successful.

 

[smf]

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?

Yes, we are reading the same article. The problem Nintendo had with TX is they were making money & the products were being advertised and distributed far and wide.

Atmosphere doesn't advertise to normal games players & there is no money, so I don't think they'll go after them.

Things said in court, are for the court for the case in front of them, it doesn't mean Nintendo will actually try to stop either hacking or piracy. In the same way that just because you get caught speeding, means that everyone will be caught speeding.

 

[smf]

The platform I pirate the least on is also the one with the least anti-piracy measures on it, PC. The one I pirate most on is Switch, because Nintendo refuses to give good value for money.

I would say that it's more likely that you don't pirate PC much, because there is no challenge.
While switch feels kinda cool.

 

[Darth Meteos]

I would say that it's more likely that you don't pirate PC much, because there is no challenge.
While switch feels kinda cool.

i have access to a robust freeshop
piracy on switch is easy as hell
the reason i don't pirate on pc is that it's more trouble than paying a fair price on steam

it's not like i don't buy switch games, either
i bought miitopia just yesterday because it was 20% off
love that game, and the online features are attractive to me

 

[weatMod]

Healthcare in prison is not what it's cracked up to be. They offer that absolute bare minimum, which usually isn't enough, in order to say "Well, we ARE providing care"

Hell my state doesn't even offer routine teeth cleaning. You know, that thing that basically everyone universally agrees is required as a part of good and basic oral hygene...? The family member I discussed in a different thread took absolute IMPECCABLE care of his teeth while he was in and walked out with gum disease.

Mind you, you aren't wrong about the "Don't violate the law" bit but that doesn't excuse the prison system's tendency to not care about providing adequate health care to the people it is basically responsible for keeping alive...

Especially when they tossed this dude away for three years for basically being the PR guy for a group making modchips for game consoles. THREE YEARS for advertising, to put things simply. Yet the guy that did absolutely heinous (I think you know what I mean) things to a four year old only gets a year and a half in my state.... the "Justice" system is a fucking joke.

My cousin wet to jail for drugs (possession) , he said that while he was in there inmates with diabetes were being denied their medicine and were going into diabetic comas all the time and having to be taken out to go to hospital , also he contracted both hep C and TB while in there and he was not even in that long, this was in Maine BTW

 

[weatMod]

Punish people for letting us use our legally purchased hardware as we see fit while letting Hollywood pedophiles and rapists run free for decades. This is the world we live in.

The DMCA was literally paid for by Hollywood pedophile child rapists and enacted by Epstein/maxwell pedo blackmailed politicians .
Remember if you support the existence of or enforcement of the DMCA you are literally supporting child rapists and the rape of children
same goes for if you actually pay for any of their content

 

[Thescrewremover]

The DMCA was literally paid for by Hollywood pedophile child rapists and enacted by Epstein/maxwell pedo blackmailed politicians .
Remember if you support the existence of or enforcement of the DMCA you are literally supporting child rapists and the rape of children
same goes for if you actually pay for any of their content

Is there any evidence for your claim?

 

[ChiefReginod]

Is there any evidence for your claim?

They're probably referring to the fact that Bill Clinton signed the DMCA bill and he was friends with Epstein. You're probably not going to find any direct evidence that this was why Clinton signed it, though. I mean he could have been paid off by some totally different scumbag.

 

[LightBeam]

If you want your Switch to be a Steam Deck so much, just sell your Switch, buy a Steam Deck, and leave Nintendo alone.

And you're fooling yourselves if you think the US government actually cares about copyright, even more if you think that Nintendo has any influence in them. They just punish this one guy to pretend they care and keep creators quiet. If the authorities actually cared, they would arrest as many pirates as possible and give them reasonable punishments instead of issuing an extreme punishment to 1 guy for show.

Why would they spend so much time, effort and ressources on punishing every hacker ever ? It wouldn't be worth at all, it would cost a ton of ressources for little to no benefits. Also, pretty sure it wouldn't work in the court. Gary Bowser got caught because he sold SX stuff but I don't really think you could go to jail for hacking your Switch.

Where you're right is that Nintendo doesn't have any influence. They could put their best lawyers, they would still loose just like they lost against emulators back in the day. They just won this case because TX actually sold stuff, they made people pay money for chips and licences and advertised piracy as a feature.

We know Nintendo does use every legal advantage they could have to defend anything they could defend. Just like they take down fangames every time they hear about one, they would put down atmosphere if they could. The only reason besides that for them not going after them right now would be if they never heard of it, which would be very surprising.

So yeah, they do care, it's just not only about copyright this time, it's about SX making money and advertising piracy.

 

[EnigmaExodus]

The last time Sony try to send a message like this, it work quite well. There is no more hack on Sony console after that and no emulator of their newest console PS4 on PC.

Forgot to reply to this.

Have you been sleeping under a rock?

Some may have gotten scared after the legal fiasco involving Sony being butthurt over past exploits for the PS3 but given the various exploits enabling homebrew of the Vita and PS4 I would say there's still some individuals that are not deterred by the past and still want to procreate a homebrew ecosystem for modern consoles. (if developing homebrew for x86 consoles not dissimilar to a mid-range PC is worth it is a different discussion).

Take one cockroach down a thousand more will scurry around.

 

[EnigmaExodus]

Why would they spend so much time, effort and ressources on punishing every hacker ever ? It wouldn't be worth at all, it would cost a ton of ressources for little to no benefits. Also, pretty sure it wouldn't work in the court. Gary Bowser got caught because he sold SX stuff but I don't really think you could go to jail for hacking your Switch.

Where you're right is that Nintendo doesn't have any influence. They could put their best lawyers, they would still loose just like they lost against emulators back in the day. They just won this case because TX actually sold stuff, they made people pay money for chips and licences and advertised piracy as a feature.

We know Nintendo does use every legal advantage they could have to defend anything they could defend. Just like they take down fangames every time they hear about one, they would put down atmosphere if they could. The only reason besides that for them not going after them right now would be if they never heard of it, which would be very surprising.

So yeah, they do care, it's just not only about copyright this time, it's about SX making money and advertising piracy.

A product not containing copyrighted material by Nintendo and not being intertwined with piracy could still hypothetically by sold and it would probably be less illegal. IMO TX broke every unwritten rule in the book of past legal homebrew or modchip ventures.