A fish plays on the Switch Pokémon Scarlet & Violet. A YouTuber set up an aquarium so that a fish could “play”. While doing so, he secretly made purchases on the owner’s Switch. How it works is explained in our article.
Our title image is a symbolic image.
The YouTuber Mutekimaru connected the aquarium with a motion sensor and a webcam. The image included a grid that was filled with controller inputs. When a fish took a break or changed direction, the corresponding controller input was registered in the game.
In an experiment, the fish was supposed to play Pokémon Scarlet and Violet. You can watch the entire Japanese stream in the following video:
Fish buys for 5 euros in the Nintendo eShop on the Switch
How did the purchase happen? After 1,144 hours, the game crashed, but the motion sensor continued to register the animal’s inputs.
Here, the fish managed to start the Nintendo eShop and inadvertently enter the correct inputs to make a purchase in the eShop. In total, it concerns a sum of 500 yen, which is about 5 euros. Even more frustrating: After the purchase, all viewers knew the YouTuber’s credit card details. Otherwise, the fish caused some other mischief:
- He bought a new avatar
- downloaded the N64 emulator
- made PayPal send him a confirmation email for the setup
- changed the Nintendo account name from “Mutekimaru” to “ROWAWAWAWA¥”
Why did the error not go unnoticed at first? During the mishap, YouTuber Mutekimaru was not present, so he did not notice the mistake at first. Only after 7 hours did the owner manage to turn off his Switch and undo the actions.
We have embedded the video of the purchase here for you:
How did it end? YouTuber Mutekimaru ultimately got back the 5 euros from Nintendo. He did not incur any financial loss. Only the points for the new avatar the fish bought, he will not get back.
The fish is still alive and was not (as mentioned in the following article) turned into fish sticks. Whether a fish stick pizza can actually taste good, you can read in the following article:
I ate the famous fish stick pizza that the cool kids are talking about!
