Nintendo (NTDOF) stock was up on Friday after the video game company scored a win against pirates. This win resulted in the FBI taking control of “nsw2u”, a popular website with a collection of pirated games for the Switch.
Elevate Your Investing Strategy:
- Take advantage of TipRanks Premium at 50% off! Unlock powerful investing tools, advanced data, and expert analyst insights to help you invest with confidence.
- Make smarter investment decisions with TipRanks' Smart Investor Picks, delivered to your inbox every week.
A message on the website now reads, “This domain has been seized by the Federal Bureau of Investigation in accordance with a seizure warrant issued pursuant to 18 U.S.C. §§ 2323 issued by the United States District Court for the Northern District of Georgia as part of a law enforcement operation and action by: Federal Bureau of Investigation.”
Increased actions against pirates of Nintendo’s games aren’t unexpected. The company has likely increased its efforts to stop piracy of its games following the release of its Switch 2 last month. This will help prevent losses from players who wouldn’t pay for its games. Nintendo has also enabled the ability to brick Switch 2 consoles for accessing pirated content. This has landed it in hot water with regulators in Brazil.
Switch Piracy Crackdown Leads to Innocent Mistake
In related news, one Nintendo Switch 2 owner was banned from online services after buying a collection of Switch games secondhand. The owner put each of these games in their console in succession to download updates for them. This triggered a ban from Nintendo.
The Switch 2 owner had to reach out to Nintendo support to be unbanned and was required to show the listing for the Switch games. While the exact reason for the ban remains unknown, the games purchased were likely connected to another account that was already banned. It’s also possible that they matched game files uploaded to piracy sites.
Nintendo stock was up 0.85% as of Friday morning, extending a 50.7% rally year to date and a 52.65% increase over the past 12 months.
Is Nintendo Stock a Buy, Sell, or Hold?
Turning to Wall Street, the analysts’ consensus rating for Nintendo is Moderate Buy, based on eight Buy, two Hold, and a single Sell rating over the past three months. With that comes an average NTDOF stock price target of $96.21, representing a potential 9.64% upside for the shares.
