News: Nintendo Awarded 4.5 Million Dollars in Nintendo Switch Piracy Judgment
A federal court in Washington has ordered James C. Williams, known online as Archbox, to pay Nintendo of America 4.5 million dollars after a default judgment in a Nintendo Switch piracy case. Williams did not respond to the 2024 lawsuit, so the judge granted Nintendo’s request in full this week. The award is statutory damages of 150,000 dollars for each of 30 copyrighted titles, among them Animal Crossing: New Horizons, Luigi’s Mansion 3, Pikmin 4, The Legend of Zelda: Tears of the Kingdom, Mario Kart 8 Deluxe, and Super Smash Bros. Ultimate. Nintendo has said the actual library he helped spread was far larger—hundreds or thousands of unauthorized Switch copies since about 2019—but the court used the 30-game sample to set the dollar figure. The same order requires him to shut off access to online shops that offered those files, close social accounts used to push them, and stop distributing Nintendo software, hardware, or tools meant to bypass copy protection.
Nintendo’s complaint described Williams as a leading moderator of a large Switch piracy community and as an operator of storefronts that hosted decrypted game files. It alleged he asked for eShop gift-card “donations” so more retail copies could be bought, dumped, and added to those shops, and that he pointed users toward circumvention software. The judge wrote that Nintendo showed he promoted the shops, encouraged others to contribute dumps, and helped distribute Switch games while knowing the activity broke copyright law. Because he never appeared, none of those claims were tested at trial. A permanent injunction now bars him from advertising, uploading, downloading, or otherwise spreading Nintendo games or the means to run unauthorized copies. For publishers watching Switch 2 and the remaining Switch catalog, the case is another public marker that the company will take piracy networks into U.S. court and ask for maximum statutory numbers when a defendant stays silent.
The judgment does not by itself remove every pirate archive from the internet, and collecting 4.5 million dollars from an individual is a separate problem from winning the paper. What it does do is create a clean legal record: a named moderator, a list of first-party and big third-party Switch games, shops ordered dark, and a dollar amount tied to 30 willful violations. Animal Crossing: New Horizons and Tears of the Kingdom sitting on that list underlines that the claim was not limited to obscure ROM sets. Players who buy Switch software through official stores are not affected. Anyone running or stocking unauthorized Switch libraries now has a fresh example of what defaulting in a Nintendo suit can cost. The company filed in 2024, asked for the default last autumn, and this week received both the money figure and the shutdown language it wanted. Until an appeal or a collection fight appears, that is the outcome: 4.5 million dollars, thirty titles, and an order to take the shops offline.