Console Modder To Pay Nintendo $2 Million In Court Settlement

By Elijah Gonzalez  |  September 8, 2025 | 1:30pm
Video Games News nintendo
Console Modder To Pay Nintendo $2 Million In Court Settlement

After running afoul of the infamously litigious Nintendo, console modder and Michigan native Ryan “Homebrew Homie” Daly has settled in court with the company for a whopping $2 million.

Daly ran Modded Hardware, a site that sold modded Switches capable of running pirated versions of Switch alongside software that would let buyers mod their consoles themselves. Specifically, it sold Mod Chips, MIG Dumpers, MIG Switches, and more; Mod Chips are physical modifications that essentially allow the system to run software (like pirated games) that they wouldn’t be able to otherwise, while MIG Dumpers and MIG Switches are devices that can essentially emulate a Switch cartridge, allowing users to dump a game from elsewhere.

Nintendo didn’t care for this business enterprise and issued Daly a warning to cease and desist in March 2024. However, Daly ignored it, resulting in the company issuing a lawsuit against him in June 2024.

In October 2024, it came out that Daly had taken the deeply unusual move of waiving his right to a lawyer, opting to fight the case himself. In his legal statements, Daly repudiated all wrongdoing, including running Modded Hardware, mostly responding to the company’s accusations with the one-word answer “Denied.”

This weekend, the Seattle District Court offered the details of Daly’s settlement with Nintendo, which included a $2 million fine, handing over his Modded Hardware website to the company, and a permanent injunction forbidding Daly from any promotion or sale of devices like Mod chips, MIG Dumpers, MIG Switches, and hacked Nintendo consoles, among other restrictions that would keep him from ever infringing on “Nintendo’s copyright.”

It’s certainly not the first time the company has aggressively pursued modders and those who run piracy sites: a particularly brutal case was when a judge ordered hacker Gary Bowser to pay Nintendo a $10 million fine alongside a 40-month prison sentence. The most ghoulish detail is that Bowser said Nintendo can take 25-30% of his “monthly gross income” for the rest of his working life.

 
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