I assure you that this is not clickbait. When I first read this news, I was skeptical too. Like, how the hell a pet fish plays Nintendo Switch right? Well, as it turns out, I was living under a rock the whole time. Not only a pet fish CAN play video games but it somehow managed to a make purchase from the Nintendo Switch store without the knowledge of its owner – all while livestreaming.
Japanese YouTuber Mutekimaru Channel is well known for featuring tetra fishes “playing” video games. A hardware and software setup including sophisticated motion detection tracking software in the fish tanks enables the fish to remotely control a Nintendo Switch console.
But how did the fish manage to shop online? Well, apparently Mutekimaru had stepped away when the game of Pokémon, which was being livestreamed, crashed. What Mutekimaru did not know was the console returned to the home screen with the motion sensor still completely functional.
And during the several hours that Mutekimaru was away, the fish continued minding its own business like a fish would when not playing a game, or maybe not. Because, it appeared that the fish continued to control the console and proceeds to change the owner’s Switch account name, logged into the Nintendo store twice, and seemingly read the terms and conditions before “checking” the agree box.
After that, it downloaded a new avatar and believe it or not, went ahead to set up a PayPal account from the Switch before proceeding to add 500 yen (about US$3.90) to Mutekimaru’s Switch account from his credit card – exposing his credit card details in the process and all while the entire process was livestreamed.
So yeah, the fish’s act was witnessed by a bunch of people, possibly in amusement than anything. The owner was notified of the PayPal setup via email by Nintendo too.
To be honest, I didn’t think the tetra fish involved in this historic “fraud” knew what it did. It was probably just, you know, an honest mistake. Then again, when the fish knew to turn off the Switch, which it did, then perhaps it wasn’t an honest mistake. LoL!
Images: YouTube (Mutekimaru Channel).
via CNN.
