Skip to main content
  1. Home
  2. Gaming
  3. News

Someone tried to smuggle spiders into the U.S. using Nintendo game cartridges

Add as a preferred source on Google

What’s worse than roaches in your PlayStation? Spiders in your Famicom, apparently.

To be clear, any arachnophobes reading this might want to skip on to something else right now. Either that or prepare to break into a cold sweat.

Recommended Videos

So what happened? Well, earlier this week customs officials in Mexico stumbled across more than 70 live spiders hidden inside 10 bootleg Nintendo Famicom game cartridges. They were headed to an address near Baltimore, Maryland according to local media.

The creepy package containing the as yet unidentified species was intercepted at Guadalajara International Airport on Wednesday, May 10. When officials took a closer look at the consignment, they found 73 spiders scuttling about inside plastic tubes concealed within the game cartridges.

The video below shows a customs officer carefully opening one of the cartridges to reveal seven separate tubes, each one containing a single critter. As the official holds one of them up to the camera, the picture flips out of focus — perhaps not a bad thing if the mere sight of a spider tends to cause the hair on the back of your neck to stand up.

Presumably someone in Maryland involved in the exotic-pet trade will be getting a knock at the door from guys in suits in the coming days. Taking creatures across borders without the proper documentation is obviously a serious offense, one that earned a German man a six-month jail term in the U.S. a few years back after he was caught bringing “hundreds” of tarantulas into the country by mail.

Roaches in your PS4

And if spiders aren’t enough to be dealing with, we heard just a few weeks ago about how cockroaches appear to enjoy shacking up inside PlayStation 4 machines, in some cases causing the device to crash ‘n’ burn.

The owner of a console repair store in Manhattan said he has a bag full of dead cockroaches extracted from broken PS4 machines brought in by gamers, and that he receives at least one roach-infested machine a week.

Apparently the insects love the PS4 not for its ability to entertain via its impressive selection of awesome games, but rather for its cozy, warm interior.

Trevor Mogg
Contributing Editor
Not so many moons ago, Trevor moved from one tea-loving island nation that drives on the left (Britain) to another (Japan)…
LG’s bonkers 1,000Hz gaming monitor is now available for $1,000
The UltraGear 25G590B reaches 1,000Hz without dropping below Full HD
LG UltraGear 1000Hz monitor featured.

LG’s insanely fast UltraGear 25G590B finally has a price and a US release date. The 24.5-inch esports monitor is now available to preorder exclusively from LG for $999.99, with free expedited shipping scheduled to begin on September 1.

The headline feature is a native 1,000Hz refresh rate at 1920 x 1080, making it the first Full HD gaming monitor to reach that speed without dropping to a lower resolution. The screen can update up to 1,000 times per second, or once every millisecond. LG also lets users overclock it to 1,100Hz.

Read more
PlayStation discs are dying in 2028, and fan backlash isn’t changing Sony’s mind
Sony is pushing PlayStation toward an all-digital future, protests be damned
Book, Publication, Adult

Sony just hit the final nail in the coffin for physical game discs for PlayStation. Despite the month-long backlash from its fans, the company has confirmed that it is still going ahead with its controversial decision. Sony CFO Lin Tao addressed the criticism during the company’s latest earnings briefing, confirming that Sony plans to proceed with its decision to end physical disc production for new PlayStation releases beginning in January 2028.

Tao acknowledged that players have strong opinions about physical media, while saying Sony spent considerable time evaluating the decision before reaching its conclusion. But at the end of the day, the message was still the same.

Read more
GTA 6 owns November, unless the Ocarina of Time Remake has something to say about it
If any game can launch alongside GTA 6, it’s Ocarina of Time Remake
The cast of The Legend of Zelda: Ocarina of Time poses in promotional art.

When a major studio or publisher drops a legacy AAA title, other studios generally avoid releasing around the same timeline to avoid having their sales eaten by the more popular game. So when Grand Theft Auto 6 finally got its release date, it was clear no one would be shipping their game during the same month.

But another game maker might be challenging it with a goliath of its own. A new discovery on Nintendo’s UK store has sparked speculation that The Legend of Zelda: Ocarina of Time Remake could launch on November 12, just seven days before GTA 6 arrives on November 19.

Read more