In 2020, Nintendo went to court to stop the sale of SX Core and SX Lite, two Team-Xecuter modchips designed to work on all Switch consoles at the time.
These lawsuits were followed by a criminal prosecution in the United States, and Team-Xecuter’s operation effectively shut down. The chips lived on, however, and remained available through compatible alternatives such as HWFLY and Picofly.
Now, Nintendo is also going after the repositories that host the firmware for these modchips.
In a takedown notice dated November 6, which GitHub published on Tuesday, Nintendo of America targets Ansem-SoD/Picofly. According to its description, this repository offered information and firmware for a Switch modchip based on the RP2040-Zero board.
The notice names only the parent repository, but its effect doesn’t stop there. Because the network was larger than a hundred repos and Nintendo said that all or most forks are infringing, GitHub disabled the entire network of 144 repositories.
From Emulators to Modchips
Nintendo’s earlier GitHub notices mostly went after emulators, key dumping tools and so-called sigpatches. This time, the gaming giant targets repositories offering firmware for SX Core, SX Lite, Picofly and HWFLY modchips.
According to Nintendo, the Switch’s technological protection measures (TPMs) include the console’s boot sequence and various cryptographic signatures. The company says the modchip firmware bypasses that boot sequence, violating the DMCA’s anti-circumvention provisions.
“The firmware allows Nintendo Switch modchips to illegally circumvent Nintendo’s TPMs in order to run illegal copies of Nintendo Switch games,” the notice reads.
As far as we know, this is the first time Nintendo has targeted modchip firmware on GitHub. None of the 90 earlier Nintendo notices in GitHub’s public archive mention modchips. The closest are the 2023 and 2024 notices against key dumping tools such as Lockpick_RCM.
A Team-Xecuter Precedent
To support its circumvention claim, the notice points to the criminal case No. 2:20-cr-00127-RSL. That’s the case against the alleged members of Team-Xecuter.
The U.S. indicted three people in 2020. One of them, Gary Bowser, pleaded guilty to conspiring to circumvent technological measures and to traffic in circumvention devices. He was later sentenced to 40 months in prison.
The other two defendants, including alleged leader Max Louarn, have not appeared before the U.S. court as far as we know, and both remain at large.
It’s worth noting that Bowser’s guilty plea is not a court ruling on modchip firmware. However, at the takedown stage, Nintendo doesn’t need one, and GitHub appears to have processed the notice regardless.
Firmware Still Online
When we checked on Wednesday, the Picofly repository was replaced by GitHub’s standard takedown message, which also explains that the owner can file a counter notice.
However, not all modchip firmware is gone. Several other GitHub repositories with Picofly and HWFLY firmware were still online, including what a GBAtemp forum user describes as the original Picofly source. None of these are named in Nintendo’s notice.
Nintendo also sent three emulator notices on the same day. One targets the Citron Neo emulator, where GitHub disabled a network of 71 repositories, and two target single copies of yuzu.
| Repository | Project | Repos | Status |
|---|---|---|---|
| Ansem-SoD/Picofly | Picofly firmware | 144 | Disabled |
| citron-neo/emulator | Citron Neo | 71 | Forks disabled |
| IpwnedU/yuzu-mainline-master | yuzu | 1 | Code removed |
| IpwnedU/yuzu-android-master | yuzu | 1 | Code removed |
These yuzu repositories are still on GitHub, but their owner has since removed the code and cleared the commit history. Both now only host a README which says that the source code can be found on the Internet Archive.
For now, the Picofly network remains offline. Its owner can still file a counter notice, but GitHub’s archive shows no sign of one yet.
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Nintendo’s DMCA notice targeting the Picofly repository is available at GitHub here. The Citron Neo notice can be found here, and the two yuzu notices here and here.
