Nintendo Says “Game Over” to DS Piracy

If you own a Nintendo DS, chances are good that you’ve at one point heard mention of the R4 Revolution, a special cartridge for the handheld that introduces new functionality. In addition to allowing MP3 playback, Internet browsing and the ability to play homebrewed games, it also opens up the ability to play pirated games. So no surprise, Nintendo (and 54 other companies) are none-to-pleased.

According to a Japanese press release, all 55 companies have paired up to issue a lawsuit towards companies that import the special device. As I feel like I’m the only one who has never purchased one of these cartridges, I have a feeling this lawsuit is way, way too late.

Nintendo and the others request that all marketing, distribution and importation of the device halts, as it’s causing “severe damage to our company and software markers”. It’s impressive to me that piracy on consoles used to actually be difficult. Now, it takes literally no time before a unique piece of hardware is available just for that purpose. Nintendo is going to have a hard time keeping this one under control, that much is certain.

The R4 allows gamers to load and play Nintendo DS ROM files downloaded from the Internet. The ROM cartridge fools the Nintendo DS into believing a real cartridge has been plugged in to the DS and are only limited by memory capacity in terms of how many games can be loaded. The R4 has a small slot that a Micro SD card goes into.