The family-friendly Super Mario Odyssey video game has become a victim of an inappropriate hack that may put children at risk of viewing mature content. The hack has allowed gamers to upload pornographic materials in lieu of avatars.
While many joke about the young kids hurling insults at online Xbox, PlayStation, and PC players, it's really Nintendo that is best known for innocent gaming titles that welcome young children. The company also has a strict policy of removing abusive or inappropriate content, as well as booting players who cheat or quit online matches too frequently. Basically, the Nintendo experience is meant to be a peaceful one that players of all ages can enjoy. This hack changes that.
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According to a recently Reddit thread, hackers discovered a way to upload inappropriate and pornographic images as their avatars, an activity that is normally banned. The images are specifically affecting the Luigi's Balloon World mini-game, which was released as free DLC earlier this year. The point of the game is to search for hidden balloons that players have hidden throughout the world. When a balloon is found, it's supposed to display the avatar of the person who hid it. So, gamers were sent on a wild goose chase that literally ended in pornographic content, due to this hack. The Reddit thread suggests that parents disable the internet access on their children's Switch consoles.
It would appear that a leaked DevMenu may have been the key to these hackers figuring out how to bypass the normal avatar protocols. Earlier this week, another Reddit user mentioned purchasing a Switch that appeared to be an ENDEV unit. The buyer asked Reddit what should be done with the unique device and many responders suggested releasing the data so that others could learn from it. Shortly thereafter, the thread was deleted but the data was, indeed, released.
Perhaps the biggest issue with this hack is the sheer number of children who could be exposed to the inappropriate images. For all the popularity of the Star Wars franchise, Super Mario Odyssey outsold Star Wars: Battlefront 2, despite only releasing on the Switch console. Super Mario Odyssey sold a massive 9.07 million copies on the Switch platform, thus surpassing the total sales across all the platforms for Battlefront 2. With such high sales, the sheer number of children who could potentially be exposed to this hack is quite high.