A fanatical gamer appears to have over stepped the line, uploading his legitimately purchased copy of Super Mario to the internet a week before its official Australian release. As a result, the 24-year-old Queenslander owes $1.5 million to Nintendo.

James Burt, a part time freight worker who lives at home with his parents, will be forced to pay the amount following an out-of-court settlement, formed to compensate the company for a claimed sales revenue loss. Burt purchased the game from a large Australian retailer, who mistakenly provided him with the game before its release.

50,000 downloads in 5 days

Nintendo has accused Burt of deliberately distributing the game line in order to establish a relationship with a game hacking group. Forensic investigations showed the file was downloaded 50,000 times over the five days prior to its release, but confirmed Burt earned no money from the downloads.

As the game was one of the first Wii titles to launch in Australia ahead of the rest of the world, the company has said it could damage the chance of early Aus releases in the future.

The game accumulated $20 million in revenue, in just seven weeks following the game’s official release. Selling 200,000 units, it is said the game is the only title to have done so, at such a fast rate.

Not a hacker – just a huge fan

Burt has been forbidden by Nintendo to comment on the matter, but his father has said he is far from a commercial pirate, but simply a fanatical computer game player.

"It was peer pressure on the internet forums and the blog sites that led him to do a very very silly thing to prove that he'd actually managed to purchase a game before its release date," Richard Burt said.

"It was certainly [done] with no malice or intent to make money - he actually bought the game legitimately from a major retailer," he added