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After decades of terrorizing the Mushroom Kingdom, Bowser is pleading guilty to his crimes against Nintendo. Or, rather, a man named Gary Bowser who participated in a hacking enterprise to unlock Nintendo Switch systems is pleading guilty to his crimes. As part of his plea deal, Bowser agrees to pay Nintendo $4.5 million, and he is still facing potentially multiple years imprisonment.

The plea agreement, outlined in a court filing in Nintendo's own Western District of Washington obtained by TorrentFreak, states that Bowser was a member of a "cybercriminals enterprise" that created, sold, and distributed circumvention devices capable of allowing game consoles to play ROMs, thereby inflicting monetary harm on the game developers and publishers who sold the legal versions of these games. In addition to the criminal charges, Bowser was also sued by Nintendo.

The group developed hacks for a variety of game systems, including the Nintendo Switch as well as the 3DS, dating back all the way to 2013 and running until August 19, 2020.