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Why pornographic images are showing up in Super Mario Odyssey
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New Donk City is known for its stylish parties and celebrations. - photo by Herb Scribner

Nintendo Switch players may be running into indecent content, including pornography, while playing the most recent "Super Mario" game.

According to Polygon, gamers have found a way to hack into the Nintendo Switch, allowing them to mess around with online games in ways that can go unnoticed. Nintendo has even banned some users from the device, locking them out of their console due to piracy issues.

One of the main concerns: Some gamers have changed their custom avatars into indecent and pornographic images.

As The Verge noted, in “Super Mario Odyssey,” in a game called “Luigi’s Balloon World” mode, players put balloons in hard-to-reach areas. The avatar for whoever placed the balloon in that place hangs above.

“Apparently, however, some users are reporting that a small number of Odyssey players have changed their profile pictures to porn, and these avatars went on to show up in-game for other Mario fans,” according to The Verge.

Developers have used a service called DevMenu to hack into retail Switch consoles to change avatar images in that game.

“Inevitably, that led to some users uploading pornographic photos and illustrations as their profile pictures,” according to Polygon.

A Reddit thread written by a concerned parent attempted to show censored versions of these pornographic pictures, but it was later moderated by the social network to not include those images.

The Reddit user expressed uncertainty over how common the hack is among Nintendo Switch games.

“We only have seen this happen on Mario Odyssey, but who knows how many other games could be affected,” the Reddit user wrote. “While we wait for Nintendo to offer better parental controls, I am taking my child's switch offline and I encourage others to do so with me.”

Nintendo has yet to moderate the customized profile pictures, according to Ars Technica.

But Nintendo is working diligently to ban users who mess around too much with the games and the Switch console.

Fortunately for Nintendo, the company has added certificates from the factory to each console and game, which allows Nintendo to identify specific games and consoles involved in hacking the data.

“A very small number of consumers have been using modified Nintendo Switch systems to display inappropriate or unauthorized material in certain online games,” Nintendo said in a statement to The Verge. “Nintendo always strives to provide a positive experience for all consumers and this includes continuously monitoring all threats to its products’ security and taking swift and strong action to prevent them. Modified Nintendo Switch systems have been banned.”