With the most beloved and well known back catalogue of any developer, Nintendo has been doggedly litigious when it comes to protecting older intellectual property. Regularly sending out Cease and Desist notices to numerous websites for the removal Mario, Zelda, and other company owned ROMs. In many cases, site such as EmuParadise and CoolRom have quickly complied to avoid legal action, going so far as to remove and an entire console's library.

Rom sites LoveROMS and LoveRetro have not been as fortunate. On Thursday, Nintendo officially filed a lawsuit in Arizona against the owners, Jacob Mathias and Mathias Designs, L.L.C. According to the documents filed by Nintendo, the defendents are "sophisticated parties with extensive knowledge of Nintendo’s intellectual property and the video game industry" Claming that LoveROMS and LoveRetro "are among the most open and notorious online hubs for pirated video games."

Nintendo is seeking $150,000 for each copyright infringement and $2 million for every illegal use of company trademark. As pointed out by TorrentFreak, the combined 40 trademarks and 140 copyright expamples listed in the lawsuit would total over $100 million in damages in addition to Nintendo's own legal costs.

On both it's Twitter and Facebook account, LoveRoms informed it's users that "All Nintendo titles have been removed from the site. #willupdateyoulater" Though since then, both websites have been "shut down until further notice." Each site not only distributed playable ROMs but also included the ability to play games directly from a web browser.

In related news, Nintendo's upcoming Nintendo Switch Online service is set to launch this September. With the flagship feature being a collection of 20 classic NES games with new online multiplayer capabilities. The service will be avaliable for $3.99 per month, $7.99 for three months, and $19.99 for a full year.