Nintendo R4 Cards Ruled Illegal in U.K., 28th July 2010 (1up.com)
Court ruling is a victory against rampant handheld piracy, but also a strike against homebrew development.
Nintendo has won a major battle against piracy in the U.K. as a British high court judge has ruled that the popular Nintendo DS R4 emulator cards are now illegal to import, advertise, and sell in the country.
R4 storage cards have long been used to pirate and play DS games, an issue Nintendo has been battling all across the world. But as Develop reports, the British ruling is particularly significant as the court ruled the card's bypass of Nintendo's security measures on the DS is in and of itself illegal. This means that even using R4 cards for homebrew purposes -- often considered a far more innocuous use than for game piracy -- is still now illegal in the U.K.
"Nintendo promotes and fosters game development and creativity, and strongly supports the game developers who legitimately create new and innovative applications," Nintendo said in a statement. "Nintendo initiates these actions not only on its own behalf, but also on behalf of over 1,400 videogame-development companies that depend on legitimate sales of games for their survival."
A report earlier this year showed that piracy on the Nintendo DS and PSP cost the industry over $41 billion in the past five years. Understandly, Nintendo is already attempting to avoid a similar wave of piracy on the 3DS with new and improved security measures, which are already garnering the confidence of some third-party publishers.