Nintendo has one message for everyone complaining about its newest games’ $80 price tag: Piracy isn’t an option. While the brand certainly never encouraged the unlawful making or distribution of game copies, a quick change to its Nintendo Account User Agreement introduces a new consequence for creating, using, or sharing “derivative works” instead of its original IPs: Break the rules, and Nintendo will brick your Switch.
The Nintendo Account User Agreement covers any web-connected Nintendo service, including eShop, digital games, and the Nintendo Switch Online subscription service. Until this week, the agreement had stayed the same for more than four years and had merely advised that users were “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.”
Nintendo’s changes to the agreement, which were first spotted by Game File’s Stephen Totilo, expand on what isn’t tolerated. The contract now explicitly warns users not to “distribute, offer for sale, or create derivative works” of covered services; “bypass, modify, decrypt, defeat, tamper with, or otherwise circumvent any of the functions or protections” of the services; “obtain, install, or use any unauthorized copies” of digital games; or “exploit the Nintendo Account Services in any manner other than to use them in accordance with the applicable documentation and intended use.”
Credit: Nintendo
Nintendo’s decision to update its user agreement now isn’t surprising: The Switch 2 will hit shelves in less than a month, and the console’s new online features, GameShare and GameChat, demand a refresh. Nintendo has also always had a zero-tolerance policy for anything that even remotely smells like IP theft, from actually emulating its games to merely talking about emulation.
But now, Nintendo isn’t just threatening to get its lawyers involved—it’s also putting gameplay on the line. Per another update to its online user agreement, violations of the above terms might lead Nintendo to “render the Nintendo Account Services and/or the applicable Nintendo device permanently unusable in whole or in part.” Translation: Running stolen games on your Switch could bring about the end of said Switch.
The threat could make the Switch 2 less attractive to emulation enthusiasts, whether they’re actually peeved about the new game price increase or simply enjoy revisiting old classics. And that’s not something Nintendo can afford, based on president Shuntaro Furukawa’s comments during Thursday’s FY2025 earnings conference. President Trump’s tariffs will already cost Nintendo “tens of billions of yen,” according to Furukawa, and recouping that loss isn’t as easy as simply upping the price of the new console.
“If prices of daily necessities like food increase, then people will have less money to spend on game consoles,” Furukawa said. “If we were to adjust the price of the Switch 2, this could decrease demand.”