Nintendo scored a major visctory in the British courts yesterday, recieving judgement that R4 and R4 style flashcarts for the Nintendo DS are now illegal in the UK. Retailers are not allowed to import, sell or advertise the devices that were used to run homebrew – and pirate DS software. The defendants, Wai Dat Chan and Playables Limited, claimed the devices should be legal as they allow homebrew applications to be run but the court ruled it illegal as it has to disable Nintendo’s security systems to work. Wonder if this will bring the end of ‘DS and 200 game’ bundles that often crop up on auction sites across the net. Should hopefully also stop mothers going into game stores with DSi’s complaining their R4 cards don’t work on the system.
Hardware manufacturers have been working hard to stop piracy this gen with Microsoft banning thousands across Xbox Live, Nintendo fighting to outlaw the R4 cards and Sony disabling Linux on PS3 after exploits were found.
