'R4' Nintendo DS Flash Card Outlawed in UK

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The infamous Nintendo DS 'R4' emulator card and other similar devices have been declared illegal to sell in the UK by a High Court ruling, Develop reports.

The R4 device and its ilk allow unauthorised programs to run on Nintendo DS handhelds--contentiously letting owners easily play pirated software and games. They will now become illegal to import, advertise or sell anywhere in the UK.

"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," the company said in a statement.

However, this ruling will also impact upon the 'homebrew' scene. Enthusiast programmers have used emulator cards to bring everything from media players and paint programs to Wikipedia readers and brand new games to the DS.

The R4 and similar devices were declared illegal to sell in Japan last year.

From The Chatty
  • reply
    July 28, 2010 8:09 AM

    I don't foresee any super UK Internet Spec Ops teams infiltrating the homebrew internet community, locating their where abouts and setting up raids to take their r4s. Just some scare tactics, and if they happen to nab a few pirates downloading games, they can claim its because of the awesome effective new law.
    When gov'ts try to scare you and make you paranoid about everything, eventually you become immune, and laws like this isn't likely to stop people doing things that were probably wrong in the 1st place, it's just now the gov't will be able to make some money off it as well as the companies that manage to catch the few that get caught.

    Wowzers, I'm anti "the man" this morning lol

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