Nintendo Switch piracy website NSw2u has been taken offline following a mid-July seizure by the Federal Bureau of Investigation. The FBI has thus taken out one of the largest hosts of illegal Switch ROMs on the internet, which has been operational for nearly five years.
While most modern consoles tend to resist piracy for years after release, the Switch was hacked unusually quickly. Its first public jailbreak became possible due to a hardware vulnerability in the Nvidia Tegra X1 chip, discovered within less than a year of its March 2017 release. After the flaw was publicized in April 2018, groups like Team Xecuter began releasing custom firmware that allowed users to rip ROMs and play pirated games. The fact that the Tegra X1 was a widely documented chip even before the Switch's release also accelerated the development of emulators, further contributing to the rapid development of Switch piracy efforts. As the scene matured in the years that followed, countless websites dedicated to illegally distributing Switch ROMs have emerged.
This is How Nintendo Tracked Down Switch Pirate
New information has come to light on how Nintendo hunted down one particular Switch pirate that had allegedly been selling numerous pirated games.
One of the largest such websites on the internet, NSw2u, has recently been taken down by the FBI, Kotaku reports. Based on social media chatter and cached site history, the site was taken offline in the early morning hours (ET) on Thursday, July 10. As is typical for piracy site crackdowns of this sort, the NSw2u domain now displays an FBI takedown notice, which reveals that the website was seized pursuant to 18 U.S. Code 2323, based on a warrant issued by the U.S. District Court for the Northern District of Georgia. NSw2u was operational since at least December 2020, according to cached site data reviewed by The Best War Games.
FBI Cooperated with Dutch Authorities on NSw2u Takedown
The takedown notice reveals that the FBI cooperated with the FIOD, a Dutch fiscal information and investigation agency, as part of the NSw2u seizure. While the extent of this collaboration is unclear, the mere mention of FIOD suggests the site’s operators may have been based in the Netherlands. As of July 11, neither the FBI nor the U.S. Department of Justice has acknowledged the seizure via any official channels.
This development follows a series of moves by Nintendo to strengthen its anti-piracy policies in the run-up to the recent release of its Switch successor. While the new console has so far resisted hacking attempts, Nintendo's tightened policies have already resulted in some bricked Switch 2 units, which are now floating on the secondhand market.
In court filings and appearances, Nintendo's attorneys have consistently argued that Switch piracy had a significant material impact on the company's bottom line. The Japanese gaming giant reiterated this position in early 2024, when it filed a lawsuit against Tropic Haze, the developer of the Switch emulator Yuzu, alleging intellectual property violations and material losses.
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