Japan has recently made an extremely controversial decision that might impact the gaming community as a whole. The Association of Copyright for Computer Software of the country has decided to make the modification of save data and consoles illegal. Both are punishable by up to five years in prison and can cause a $46,000 USD fine.
This is part of Japan’s Unfair Competition Prevention Act which was amended in December 2018. The intent is to prevent people from tampering with consoles and modifying them under any circumstance. Save editing is also affected by this new law, Action Replay and Cyber Save Editor are now forbidden and have been forcibly discontinued.
Console Modification is Now Illegal in Japan
Any offender can be punished for doing one of the following three major offending actions:
- Distribution of game save data editors and programs
- Distribution, selling, auctioning serial codes and product keys without the software maker’s permission
- Services that offer the editing/hacking of save data, and/or modifying/hacking game consoles
The law also prevents actions like loading extra games on consoles like the NES/SNES Classic. Any and all future attempts at doing this will result in a punishment from Japan’s new law.
This could spell bad news for a lot of gamers who love to resell hacked consoles as well. The new law has been specifically to go against those sort of criminals. However, it also will affect those who simply want to add more fun to their consoles.
What do you think about the new outlaw of console modification? Do you think Japan’s methods are way too extreme? What do you think about console modding and save file editing in general? Let us know your thoughts on the VGR Forums.
In case you missed it, we recently saw the reveal of the HTC Viveport Infinity. The platform aims to be Netflix for VR games and will be available for both the HTC Vive and Oculus Rift. Also, the Humble Store is now the home for Nintendo Switch and 3DS games. Stay tuned at VGR for more news and updates.