Nintendo’s $4.5 Million Switch Piracy Judgment Against “Archbox,” Explained

Nintendo of America won a $4.5 million judgment against James C. Williams, known online as “Archbox,” after he did not respond to its lawsuit over alleged Nintendo Switch game piracy. The September 23, 2026 ruling was a default judgment, not the result of a contested trial. The court also issued a permanent injunction. 1218

Why the court awarded $4.5 million

Nintendo accused Williams of operating and promoting online shops that offered pirated Switch games. Williams was also reported to be a former moderator of the r/SwitchPirates subreddit. 35

The award totals $150,000 for each of 30 games named in Nintendo’s damages request. That per-game figure is the statutory maximum cited for willful copyright infringement in the court-order summary. 1218

The judgment followed Williams’s failure to respond to the suit, which Nintendo filed in June 2024. A default judgment resolves the case without a contested trial; it does not mean the allegations were tested through a full adversarial presentation of evidence. 15

What the injunction requires

Alongside the damages award, the court granted Nintendo a permanent injunction. Coverage of the order says Williams must disable online shops he operates or controls that offered pirated Switch games. 58

Reports also describe the injunction as barring further infringement and distribution of piracy-enabling tools. Because the provided excerpts do not reproduce the injunction’s full text, its precise scope should not be expanded beyond those reported terms. 221

How Nintendo reportedly identified Williams

Reports about the case say Nintendo hired investigators to look into online game-piracy shops. They describe investigators connecting the “Archbox” online identity to public Reddit posts that offered clues about the account holder’s location, then using Nintendo repair records and account information to help link that identity to James Williams. 293033

Those details come from reporting on the investigation and lawsuit filings, rather than from the brief judgment summary. The sources describe a combination of online activity and Nintendo records; they do not establish that any single clue, by itself, identified Williams. 303133

What this ruling does—and does not—say about modding

This case is a U.S. copyright judgment concerning allegations about pirated games and online shops. Reporting also connects the allegations to advice or tools for bypassing Switch protections, but the judgment should not be read as a ruling on every kind of console modification. 24

The sources available here do not provide enough reliable detail to compare this case with specific recent Nintendo actions against modding hardware in the United States and Europe. The clearest takeaway is narrower: Nintendo pursued an alleged game distributor in court, and won by default after the defendant did not respond. 15