The United States Department of Justice (which we will shorten to DoJ onwards) revealed that several pirated were caught who also worked on tools that could be used to hack the PlayStation Classic (amongst other consoles).

The DoJ’s statement says that 48-year old Frenchman Max Louarn, 35-year old Chinese citizen Yuanning Chen, and 51-year old Canadian Gary Bowser (who has nothing to do with Nintendo…) were charged with developing and selling illegal devices to hack consoles and play pirated copies of video games. They belonged to a pirate group called Team Xecuter, and the DoJ’s statement openly names the PlayStation Classic as one of their target platforms.

„The enterprise targeted popular consoles such as the Nintendo Switch, the Nintendo 3DS, the Nintendo Entertainment System Classic Edition, the Sony PlayStation Classic, and the Microsoft Xbox. These defendants were allegedly leaders of a notorious international criminal group that reaped illegal profits for years by pirating video game technology of U.S. companies.

These arrests show that the department will hold accountable hackers who seek to commandeer and exploit the intellectual property of American companies for financial gain, no matter where they may be located. These defendants lined their pockets by stealing and selling the work of other video game developers – even going so far as to make customers pay a licensing fee to play stolen games,” the statement reads. Which Xbox? They didn’t specify… it could be the original Xbox from 2001 at this rate. Also, why the PlayStation Classic?

The DoJ claims that piracy doesn’t just impact „billion-dollar companies,” as it „hijacks the hard work of individuals working to advance in the video game industry.” They seek to get Louarn extradited from France; Bowser has already appeared in a court in New Jersey after being deported from the Dominican Republic (they both face twenty years in prison!). Chen, however, might not be extradited, as he is a Chinese citizen, and the People’s Republic of China might not let him out of the country. (In other words, he might not be charged.)

But why the PlayStation Classic? That console had to be heavily discounted in 2018 and 2019 to be sold!

Source: PSL

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