A group of pet animals whose movements are tracked by a Japanese gaming YouTuber reportedly went shopping on the Nintendo Switch, compromising their owner’s financial information.
Mutekimaru Channel, a YouTube channel created in May 2020 by an unidentified gamer who allegedly lives in Japan, has uploaded “Fish Play Pokémon” videos that have served as entertainment for 93,900 subscribers, according to YouTube statistics and a self-written description in the “About” section of the channel.
On Monday, January 16, the Mutekimaru Channel livestreamed a Pokémon gaming session featuring three fish swimming in an aquarium with a moving camera, said to be connected to a keyboard overlay and a red laser pointer overlay that tracks the movement of each fish. The motion capture system is reportedly hooked up to a Nintendo Switch, allowing the fish to “play”.
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“I made a controller with my own electronic circuitry and used opencv (python) to recognize the movement of the fish,” Mutekimaru Channel wrote to Fox News Digital in a translated email. “The microcontroller board is from arduino.”
A Japanese YouTube gaming channel claims its motion-detected pet fish made custom settings and made purchases on a Nintendo Switch during a recent “Fish Play Pokémon” live stream.
(Mutekimaru Channel)
During the live stream, the Pokémon game appears to crash, but the fish’s continued swimming apparently gave the aquatic creatures a chance to take over the game console’s settings, the video shows.
The trio of fish appears to have changed the Nintendo Switch account username, self-published a game on Nintendo eShop, sent an email, launched the game brand’s online store, and made several purchases. have done with the stored credit card information of the Mutekimaru channel, according to the Youtube video.
Viewers of the live stream left comments in real time as they watched the fish.
“I was out of town when the incident happened and didn’t get home until evening,” Mutekimaru Channel wrote to Fox News Digital.
Mutekimaru Channel, a YouTube channel focused on Japanese gaming, regularly posts live streams of “Fish Play Pokémon” in which tetrafish control a Nintendo Switch by swimming as they normally do.
(iStock/John Keeble/Getty Images)
Mutekimaru Channel shared a six-minute, 26-second clip of the fishy antics on YouTube. The user called the video “Pet fish revealing the owner’s credit card information on the live stream ended up shopping.”
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In the split clip, the Mutekimaru channel provided English subtitles describing the fish’s every move and how it reflected on the Nintendo Switch.
“Fish eagerly read the terms and conditions,” Mutekimaru Channel joked in the video. “A lot of us humans don’t read the terms of service. But fish are smarter than us.”
The user behind the Mutekimaru channel documented the refund request that was reportedly sent to Nintendo’s information desk towards the end of the video.
“I’m very sorry, but is it possible to get a refund for items accidentally bought by my pet?” the translated request reportedly said.
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Mutekimaru Channel’s video has been viewed more than 491,662 times.
News outlets in Japan ran articles about the unexpected “credit card fraud” the day the Mutekimaru channel uploaded its YouTube video, which seems to have contributed to the video going viral.
“A victim of a phishing attack,” one Twitter user joked under a post sharing the viral Fish Play Pokémon video on Jan. 28.
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“What if we’re all just fish, living our lives, subconsciously entering signals for a vast, incomprehensible cosmic game? What if that’s all?” pondered one Twitter user on Jan. 25.
“Imagine calling the credit card company and telling them to cancel your card because your pet revealed your information on the internet,” another Twitter user said on Jan. 24.
Mutekimaru Channel wrote in an email to Fox New Digital that multiple refund requests have been made, but Nintendo has not issued a refund.
The Nintendo Switch video game system is developed and released by Nintendo Co., Ltd. in 2017.
(iStock)
The Mutekimaru channel was reportedly started as a way to encourage people to stay home and “prevent the spread of COVID-19,” according to the channel’s description.
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Videos posted by the channel have received more than 45.2 million views at the time of publication, according to YouTube analytics.