Nintendo’s New User Agreement Strengthens Anti-Piracy and Anti-Hacking Rules

As far as piracy and hacking are concerned, it is known that Nintendo is notoriously hard on pirates and hackers. The company has been fighting them intensively for years now and many users know that they could get in serious trouble if they tamper with Nintendo’s products.

The company does not shy away from filing lawsuits against pirates and hackers, some of which have resulted in serious problems for the people sued, despite the fact that the company, in general, suffered little to no damage at all.

But, it is what it is and based on the recent information, we can confirm that Nintendo is seemingly taking an even stricter stance against pirates and hackers.

Recently, as you might have noticed, Nintendo has released its new updates to Nintendo Account User Agreement and Nintendo Privacy Policy. And while most people skip through this as they either don’t understand all the legal text or they simply don’t care for the changes since they think they are not affected, this one is not something one should be skipping.

Well, at least if you’re planning on modifying your console in any way, that is.

Namely, Nintendo’s stance is that any unauthorized tampering with the console is illegal, despite some actions done by users are a legal grey area and there is no firm legislation that claims Nintendo’s interpretations of piracy and hacking are correct. Be that as it may, the company is not giving up and they have recently published an expanded set of rules related to these unauthorized modifications:

Without limitation, you agree that you may not (a) publish, copy, modify, reverse engineer, lease, rent, decompile, disassemble, distribute, offer for sale, or create derivative works of any portion of the Nintendo Account Services; (b) bypass, modify, decrypt, defeat, tamper with, or otherwise circumvent any of the functions or protections of the Nintendo Account Services, including through the use of any hardware or software that would cause the Nintendo Account Services to operate other than in accordance with its documentation and intended use; (c) obtain, install or use any unauthorized copies of Nintendo Account Services; or (d) exploit the Nintendo Account Services in any manner other than to use them in accordance with the applicable documentation and intended use, in each case, without Nintendo’s written consent or express authorization, or unless otherwise expressly permitted by applicable law. You acknowledge that if you fail to comply with the foregoing restrictions Nintendo may render the Nintendo Account Services and/or the applicable Nintendo device permanently unusable in whole or in part.

A big chunk of text yes, especially when you compare it to the previous version, which was essentially the same but not as extensive:

You are not allowed to lease, rent, sublicense, publish, copy, modify, adapt, translate, reverse engineer, decompile or disassemble all or any portion of the Nintendo Account Services without Nintendo’s written consent, or unless otherwise expressly permitted by applicable law.

If you’re wondering what’s going on, well, in short, Nintendo has expanded its definitions of unauthorized tampering with the console, adding a more detailed set of rules, as well as sanctions for potential moders.

So, if you actually do anything Nintendo doesn’t want you to do, you might lose access to some features and services permanently. Nintendo is also able to keep track of online chats to get the information they want, and then use that information to sanction you.

We don’t know how this will function when actually put to the test in terms of detection and enforcement, but this is definitely stricter than ever before. It also remains to be seen how these new rules will hold up in court if Nintendo files new lawsuits, which is likely to happen.

The gist of it is – if you’re using your console legally, there’s nothing to worry about; if you tamper with it in any way, Nintendo will do everything it can to stop you from doing that again.

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