Nintendo Attempts to Kill All R4 Revolutions
Source: Tom's Guide US | Keywords: Nintendo, Piracy, R4, Revolution, DS | Themes: The Internet, Software
Nintendo is going after retailers importing and selling Nintendo DS flash cards.
GoNintendo reports that Nintendo--along with 54 Nintendo DS developers--returned to court on Saturday and filed a new lawsuit with the Tokyo District Court, demanding that four companies cough up $4.4 million in damages. A previous suit filed with the Court demanded that the same four retailers halt the import and sale of the R4 Revolution and similar devices (majicon); these are used to download pirated games and play them on the handheld console via flash carts. But because all four companies blatantly chose to ignore the original notice, they now face monetary damages and perhaps even Mario's super jump punch.
"Through the spread of majicon and other illegal devices, our company and software makers have suffered grievous harm," Nintendo said in a statement. "We hope that, though this suit, recognition will grow among users and others in society at large of the great damage these devices have caused the computer game industry and start a wave that will sweep away these illegal devices from the marketplace."
Nintendo's latest lawsuit, backed by the original February Tokyo District Court decision that importing and selling the R4 Revolution and other devices are illegal, uses the Unfair Competition Prevention Law for its legal grounding. Although Nintendo and its developer clan are focused on four specific retailers, many outlets in Tokyo are still openly carrying and selling the flash card devices on store shelves.
Because of this, Nintendo also recently launched a Japanese "snitch" website where fanboy detectives can submit the URL of specific retailers that continue to sell the R4 Revolution and similar devices. “It’s getting increasingly difficult to track down R4 sellers as day by day they get more ingenious, flourishing online and complicating matters,” the company said.
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nintendo can suck my D
hey nintendo.the R4 game is over now. you should go after the group that cracked your new DSi here a few flashcarts out now that work with the new DSi
whatever they do... someone will always find a way to keep pirated games on the market.
Nintendo betrayed the gaming community when they launched a series of crappy games for Wii for the "casual gamer" (an oxymoron in itself) and started crippling their own consoles to battle "piracy".
They deserve to be ripped off.
As long as theres overpriced games there will be hacks/cracks to make the console price to software ratio more realstic.. so no shocker here...
make games cheaper.. we'll all have less headaches.
R4 has been dead for over a year. Nintendo needs to get over the "R4" term. Also if they kill off all the piracy devices they will still continually fill their consoles with shovelware and less and less first party support so that they can maximize their profit and minimize their R&D.
Has Nintendo ever heard of carts that aren't called R4? They don't ever specify that they use R4 as a generic term for all flash carts. I actually would appreciate it if they wiped out all the R4s because they are trash. There's better flash carts for the money. Plus rumor has it that Bung Enterprises is still in business cranking out these puppies. Wouldn't be surprised if they have a huge fake R4 clone plant somewhere in Guangzhou or Shenzhen.
what are you on dude the R4 was the best flashcart at one time. if it wasn't there wouldn't be people still making clones of it
nintendo can suck my D
they would have to find it first
Here is what I find ODD about the retailers selling a device for pirating games. Why? That only reduces their sales of legit software. If the R4 is useful for non-illegal activities (I don't know all what R4 does) such as custom home-brew software. Then I can see people wanting it for legit reasons.
But if I had a chain of stores. I wouldn't want to sell a $80 device that would allow my customer to pirate software and end up NOT buying 10~20 games at $40~60 each. Its a loss of long term profit.
$20 profit vs $100~200.
Plus what about taking out the top piracy news sites such as gbatemp and ds-news? lol, let alone eurasia. Those places do have a slight amount of copywrighted content available for download. Wouldn't be too difficult to shut them down. No news, no forums. less people interested in widespread global piracy of your software. Nintendo just is not on the ball. Plus remember subport? Only reason why that site shut down was because the owner got too busy with other things. Nintendo never did anything lol. Used to be the largest nintendo handhelds piracy news site there was. Nintendo hires anti piracy people whom just collect a pay check, never need to worry about news of this nature if you are an entheusiast.
???? Didn't know they had those.....
At any rate, epic move on using fanboys to report sites.
Here is what I find ODD about the retailers selling a device for pirating games. Why? That only reduces their sales of legit software. If the R4 is useful for non-illegal activities (I don't know all what R4 does) such as custom home-brew software. Then I can see people wanting it for legit reasons.But if I had a chain of stores. I wouldn't want to sell a $80 device that would allow my customer to pirate software and end up NOT buying 10~20 games at $40~60 each. Its a loss of long term profit.$20 profit vs $100~200.
Even though I'm going to get -100000 I disagree about the part for using the slot-1 for homebrew. Most people buy it to pirate games that is very obvious. Not that I am condoning not using it homebrew.
Also yeah I agree with the second part. It is also odd that there are sites selling a mix of legit or pirated video game carts as well as the slot-1 adapters that you can use to pirate games. They'd make a lot more selling individual pirated games. I guess maybe people buy those though seems a waste of money. Well I can see where say a store such as Gamestop wouldn't like the flash cart. I read on here a while ago that the mark up on computer game software is very large. So they might spend like about $15 on a game and resell it (brand new, not talking used ones here) for $35. If it's like that. A lot more profit in selling legit titles for sure. One flash cart costs about $8 now.
what are you guys on its the same thing as mod chips and console softmods. there is a market for everything. no ones cares what damage it will do
"what are you guys on its the same thing as mod chips and console softmods. there is a market for everything. no ones cares what damage it will do."
like crack, meth, politicians.etc
Got a flash cart for my DS the same day I bought it. For me it's just handier having all my games on 1 cart (copied from originals) that carrying around 20+ carts.
To me it's like a cd multi changer in the boot of a car.
No pirating = no DS sales
I like the fact that these de\/ices are around simply for backup if no other reason. Ive never been big into handhelds since the gamegear though. But I wish i had one so i could ha\/e backed up my original ffii and chorono trigger snes games. :-p
"fanboy detectives".........seriously?
It's not just the cost issue that's causing all this pirating, it's the convenience of pirating as well. Imagine you could have all your favourite games all stored in a single cartridge rather than having to carry a backpack around just to store all the legit cartridges while you're on the move. If Nintendo can come up with a way to legally backup cartridges that you own and store all that into a single cartridge, I'll be the first in line to buy it!!
No pirating = no DS sales
You are thinking of the PSP
They made so much cash selling so many consoles,,, which should go to game/console development and not into waste, as it appears.
Nintendo is getting greedy, their DSiware games are bound to your DSi hardware so next time when you upgrade to a DSi lite and thinking of selling your original DSi, your DSiware games goes with it, hiking your sales prices and have less buyer willing to pay for it. A avenge consumer would end up keeping the original DSi but still buy the new DSi lite.
Good for Nintendo right!! Greedy bastard.
I am still using my NDS phat playing original games only. NDS phat has my vote because its serviceable and durable.
The R4 is one of the reasons to why people buy the DS, DS lite, and the DSi. To play as many games as they can without the hassel of bringing useless cartridges/SD cards along with them. It is basic Utilitarianism that wins the day here. if there is a will, there is a way and so if you don't like it, go buy a PSP3000, which also has the same type of thing(crack) or get the Ipod(which has so many restrictions).
I love the fact that the sponsored link on this article is for "genuine" R4 cards.
If games were cheaper than gamers would buy those instead of pirate it.. End of story.
I'm all for pirating software. Everyone likes free.
However, I am 100% against profitteering from piracy. It's not your stuff to sell.
I have a R4 clone (cheap but it works great) I also own at least 20 DS games... Its nice to have all my games with me at all times. Since I have an 8GB card I also have some of my music with me and some of my video's, its funny to watch movies or something on the DS and people are amazed it can do it. I do agree that pirates are bad though and people should buy the games they like, if I download something and I like it I tend to buy a copy.
Another nice thing about these clones is they come with cheat functions built in so thats a nice bonus too.
oh my heart bleeds for Nintendo and any other major manufacture, these companies routinely hobble their games and discs to squeeze extra money from consumers in different regions, then have the front to complain about circumvention devices, I don’t believe in piracy but they all make their own lives difficult to begin with by alienating their consumers in the first place.
Maybe Nintendo should stop making garbage ?
Until then
Nintendo's system deserves to be bootlegged
Maybe Nintendo should stop making garbage ?Until then Nintendo's system deserves to be bootlegged
last time i checked almost everyone is buying this so called garbage
nintendo wii FTW
"Through the spread of majicon and other illegal devices, our company and software makers have suffered grievous harm," Nintendo
said in a statement.
Isn't Nintendo the on top of the world right now with more consoles/hand-held devices out there than anyone else? What damages are they talking about?
I could understand if they're referring to the attach rate since its lower than the 360 or PS3, but seriously, an independent study needs to be conducted to research the effects of any damages they so claim since it seems blatantly obvious that if anything it has helped them move hardware.