Nintendo Switch Modchip and MigSwitch Reseller Responds To Nintendo Lawsuit

After over a month of waiting, Nintendo Switch modchipper, and reseller of MigSwitch cards Ryan Daly, AKA ModdedHardware has submitted his first major response to the lawsuit filed against him by Nintendo. This lawsuit alleges, among other things, that Daly sold and distributed illegally modchipped Switch systems, and a send-in service to get systems chipped. These systems would return to their owners not just with a shiny new modchip, but a pack of pirated games provided by Daly. This suit also came after Nintendo, in a rare move, provided Daly with a chance to shut down his business before Nintendo took further action. Daly proceeded to agree to this, and… not actually shut down his website.

At least, that’s if we believe Nintendo’s side. In his response which was recently brought to light by TorrentFreak, Daly not only denies that his conduct was illegal, but that he even was the owner of ModdedHardware!

Image provided by TorrentFreak

Now you may be asking, “what lawyer would be willing to deny something so easily verifiable as ownership of a website?!” Well… it’s quite simple, no lawyer made this claim, Mr. Daly has decided to take on Nintendo’s crack team of lawyers all on his own. Now I could go on all day about why in the world someone would do this, but honestly, I don’t see any other way for Nintendo to actually make it to court. Nine times out of ten the lawyer will request to settle, and no jury actually sees the case. Now of course this is for a good reason, usually a lawyer will recognize defeating Nintendo’s lawyers in court is a suicide mission, but it seems Mr. Daly wants to finally hear a jury’s word on Nintendo’s copyright rampage.

I won’t hit on every piece of the document (it’s quite hilarious in my opinion so if you want to read the whole thing you can check it out here, once again thanks TorrentFreak!) but what I will hit on two key points. First, you may be asking “is it REALLY that easy to verify he owns the website?” Well… it kind of is because he said it himself here:

Now, again, this is why you need a lawyer. My guess is that he’s going to go for some kind of “yeah I own the domain but I’m not ACTUALLY the one selling the chips and getting the money!” Well… if I’m right, we’ll see how that goes for him.

The second point I want to hit on is more of a personal one. Please everyone for the love of all that is good, do not sell modded consoles with pirated games online, or like, ever. Time and time again the people who do this get sued into oblivion and it’s just super unethical. Outside of the raw piracy problem, this kind of behavior contributes to our whole community looking like nothing but pirates and directly ties homebrew lovers with piracy in the eyes of the law. It’s hard enough as it is, please don’t make it any harder for us.