A man who allegedly sold the recording files of The Legend of Zelda: Breath of The Wild in Japan was recently caught trying to sell them. A 27-year-old Chinese man arrested by Japanese police was later jailed for violating Japan’s “Preventing Unfair Competition” law.
The penalty for unfair competition has been severe
In the past, you’ve heard of pressures on street sales of modified Nintendo hardware and games. This story is a little different from them. In April, it posted an ad on a Tokyo-based Japanese e-commerce site selling “final data recording” for The Legend of Zelda: Breath of the Wild. In reality, people who wanted to buy this data could only buy their data played on top of the game. But the Chinese man was offeringto make enhanced character skills for 3,500 yen, rare items that are normally difficult to obtain through standard gameplay, and changes that buyers want .
The Legend of Zelda: Breath of the Wildwas not the only game that allegedly sold the man’s altered recording files. Police were recorded admitting that in just one and a half years from December 2019, he had earned 10 million yen (about 65,000) by selling registration files through an auction website. According to the report, the auction list declared the modified save files “The most powerful software”.
This isn’t the first time Japan has caught someone selling modified game files. In February 2021, Japanese police also arrested a 23-year-old man who allegedly made 1.1 million yen (about £7,100) selling thousands of modified Pokémon for the Pokémon Sword and Shield game.
