The FBI has seized a major Nintendo Switch piracy site

Nintendo’s war on piracy has escalated as the US Federal Bureau of Investigation seized a popular Nintendo Switch piracy site.

The site, which hosted thousands of pirated versions of Nintendo Switch games, was seized this week, in accordance with a seizure warrant issued by the United States District Court for the Northern District of Georgia, according to Kotaku.

The site was already part of the EU’s piracy watchlist as of earlier this year. The Nintendo Switch faced piracy issues throughout its life.

While revisions of the system have been issued in an attempt to curb the widespread pirating of Nintendo‘s games, it remains the mainstream console with the biggest piracy problem.

In the weeks leading up to many of Nintendo’s biggest releases on the system, hundreds of players regularly livestream themselves on TikTok and YouTube playing pirated versions of the games, often obtained via an early retail copy being uploaded online, and widely shared.

While so far, Nintendo hasn’t faced the same influx of issues with the Nintendo Switch 2, Nintendo is still in the middle of several legal battles against groups that engaged in Switch piracy, and emulator makers.

Last year, Nintendo claimed that Yuzu was “facilitating piracy at a colossal scale.” Weeks later, Yuzu developer Tropic Haze agreed to settle the lawsuit, agreeing to pay $2.4 million in damages.

Following this, the popular 3DS emulator Citra was also shut down.