Nintendo has sued members of one of the most notorious console hacking groups. An accomplice got it the worst. He was jailed for 40 months but is now getting out for good behavior. You’d think the nightmare was over, but Nintendo is showing they’re not done with it yet.
Who is Gary Bowser? Team Xecuter is a hacker group that specializes primarily in consoles. They have been selling jailbreaks and mods that allow users to manipulate their consoles.
Gary Bowser is a member of this group and has made more than $300,000 in profits from Team Xecuter’s illegal activities in seven years. To his detriment, Nintendo’s lawyers went after this group.
Gary got caught and went to jail for it. Now he’s coming out for good behavior, but Nintendo isn’t done with him yet.
Nintendo was awarded a large amount of compensation
What punishment did Gary Bowser get? Defendant Gary Bowser was sentenced in the United States to 40 months in prison and $14.5 million in damages (via torrentfreak.com). He was able to have his sentence reduced for good behavior, but now he’s facing a fine that he’ll probably never get rid of.
Podcaster NickMoses05 interviewed Gary Bowser in time for his imminent release and asked him numerous questions regarding his sentence and the process between him and Nintendo.
You can find the entire interview embedded here:
Gary Bowser reports that he behaved well in prison. He used his time to help other inmates and even got a job to earn money on the side.
From that money, however, $25 a month was siphoned off while he was in prison to pay off Nintendo’s fine. The convict reports that Nintendo can still grab 25-30% of his gross monthly income to pay the outstanding fine.
So if Gary Bowser is soon to be deported to his home country of Canada to find a job and continue living there, it will be quite expensive for him. So it is very likely that he will never get rid of this punishment.
Bungie, the developer of Destiny 2, is still mercilessly pursuing and accusing hackers: