Nintendo hacker Gary Bowser sentenced to over three years in jail

eurogamer.net:

Nintendo hacker Gary Bowser has been sentenced to serve 40 months in prison — so, three years and four months total — for the distribution and sale of piracy-enabling devices.

The ruling comes after both Bowser and US prosecutors respectively petitioned for both more lenient and heavier jail stretches.

Bowser's lawyers had suggested 19 months, while the US government wanted five years. The end result is somewhere in the middle.

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Bowser had already accepted his guilt and agreed to a $4.5m fine. Separately, Bowser has accepted an additional $10m fine to settle Nintendo's own civil lawsuit against him.

The US government had argued Bowser should serve a lengthier sentence as the case had been so high profile — essentially, as a warning to others.

Bowser had worked as part of a larger hacking group, Team Xecuter, which made millions from the sale of devices which enabled pirated video games to be played on various Nintendo consoles.

The US government is still seeking to prosecute Bowser's two Team Xecuter accomplices, Max Louarn and Yuanning Chen, who remain at large.