It is now illegal to buy or sell those R4 cartridges that make it possible to play cracked Nintendo DS games in the UK.

Yep, unlike before where the whole thing was something of a grey area it is now official. Get caught buying one or selling one and you’re in trouble.

Here’s an excerpt of the statement from the case between The London High Court and Playables Limited….

“Nintendo promotes and fosters game development and creativity, and strongly supports the game developers who legitimately create new and innovative applications. In the UK alone, there have been over 100,000 game-copying devices seized since 2009. Nintendo initiates these actions not only on its own behalf, but also on behalf of over 1,400 video game development companies that depend on legitimate sales of games for their survival.”

Playables Limited argued, in their defence, that the R4 carts are not simply a means to play copied games but are also used by the homebrew community to run legal applications.

However, the courts are having none of it.

I’m not sure that I agree with the new ruling. I have an R4 cart and am active in the Homebrew community where I get to play loads of perfectly legal games made by individuals who have about them the need to dabble in development. I have never, I repeat, never played an illegal rom on my DS (I don’t have to, I subscribe to ILOVEFILM and rent all my games which is kind of the same thing as piracy in my eyes) but now, if my R4 cart breaks I can no longer replace it and that just plain sucks.

Photo courtesy of bikudo.com

Related posts:

1. Nintendo Wins Court Case Against DS And Wii Pirates
2. Sony Kicks Nintendo’s Ass In Japan!
3. Sega Not Likely To Release Any More Mature Games For The Wii
4. The Nintendo 3DS Will Beat The Pirates
5. Are Nintendo Working On A New DS?