After nearly ten months since Nintendo filed their lawsuit against the now infamous Nintendo hacker, his sentencing has come to pass. The U.S. District Court for the Western District of Washington has officially sentenced Gary Bowser to 40 months in prison for his involvement with Team Xecuter, a group that was creating and selling hacking software and devices for a plethora of Nintendo systems over several years. Bowser, with no relation to actual Mario villain Bower or Nintendo of America President Doug Bowser, was one of the leaders of this group and pleaded guilty to these charges back in October 2021.
On top of his prison sentence, Bowser will also have to pay $4.5 million to Nintendo as part of his guilty plea back in 2021. Bowser was initially arrested in 2020 and also agreed to pay roughly $10 million in fines for the hacks, perhaps in order to lessen his inevitable sentencing. According to the Justice Department, the actual Team Xecuer is made up of more than a dozen people from all over the world. They have been creating devices and hacks for Nintendo systems in order to circumvent security measure put in place which allowed users to access unauthorized areas as well as free titles.
According to a press release, Nintendo was pleased with this outcome adding that hackers in general “cause serious harm to Nintendo and the video game industry.” The Justice Department has also filed suits against two other members of Team Xecuter, Max Louran and Yuanning Chen both of whom are based out of France and China respectively. As of this writing, neither person is incarcerated as Homeland Security and the Federal Bureau of Investigations are both currently investigating.