Nintendo Hacker Gary Bowser Is Out Of Prison, Still Owes $10 Million
Nintendo doesn't take kindly to people playing its games illegally. So much so that a hacker named Gary Bowser was sentenced to more than three years in prison for their part in an enterprise that allowed 3DS and Switch owners to hack their consoles and play pirated games. Bowser has been released from prison early for good behavior but is still required to pay $10 million in damages to Nintendo.
Nick Moses spoke with Bowser (thanks, Nintendo Life) who revealed he had been released from federal prison at the end of March and was talking to Moses from the Northwest Detention Center in Tacoma, Washington. Once processed, Bowser will be allowed to return to his home country of Canada. He will then have six months until he has to start paying Nintendo $10 million of the $14.5 million in fines he received when sentenced, a fee he will almost certainly be paying for the rest of his life.
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“The maximum [Nintendo] can take is between 25 percent and 30 percent of your monthly gross income, and I have up until, like, six months before I have to start making payments,” Bowser explained. That means Bowser will need to earn at least $40 million between now and the end of his life if that fine is ever going to be paid off in full. So far he has paid Nintendo $175 thanks to money he earned while working a job in prison.
Bowser was part of an outfit called Team Xecutor. Operating between 2013 and when Nintendo brought charges against them in 2020, the company created and sold modchips to owners of Nintendo consoles which allowed them to play pirated games. Nintendo naturally didn't take kindly to that since it allowed Xecutor customers to play its
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