Nintendo reserves the right to brick the console if it violates the User Agreement.
If you have a Nintendo account, you will receive an email immediately (or you have already received it). Or maybe you’ve seen a notification pop up when you try to launch a game on Switch today.
People may not have thought of reading these contracts as they usually tend to read these contracts, but this has made some important changes to impose harsh penalties on what Nintendo considers to be misuse.
This mainly involves hacking and modifying consoles and games. Something that circumvents Nintendo’s account system and rights management.
Currently, potential penalties include “permanently or partially unavailable” accounts or consoles, at least in the United States.
Nintendo’s battle against copyright infringement
User contract renewals (discovered by game files) are extensive. The new versions copied below are much more intense than before, with new additions including the entire sections B, C, D, and the final statement.
“I agree that without restrictions, (a) it may not be the publication, copying, modification, modification, modification, rental, deletion, distributed, sales, or creating derivative work of any part of the Nintendo Account Service. Nintendo Account Service is intended for its documentation and use, and if you fail to comply with the foregoing restrictions, you acknowledge that Nintendo Account Service and/or applicable Nintendo devices may not be fully or partially permanently used.”
In other words, if you pirated or modify a console or game to avoid Nintendo’s account system and enforcement, they reserve the right to brick your console.
Please note that according to Eurogamer, the part about bricking the entire console is specific to the US version of the agreement, and the UK version threatens to disable the “digital product” in question.
This change will prepare GameChat on Switch 2 shortly after a recent update to Nintendo’s Account Privacy Policy.
Nintendo is notorious for its vicious defense of the legal realm, and the latest example is the ongoing Palworld lawsuit, which recently forced Pocket Pair to make some mechanical changes to the game.
Publishers are also chasing emulators like Yuzu and French file sharing sites.
This renewal of your Nintendo account user agreement may not affect most Switches or future Switch 2 owners, but it goes without saying that there is little interest in saving the game, as hackers and modders they consider to be the root of copyright infringement.
