Nintendo Will Now Brick Your Switch If It Detects Piracy

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 ...