Nintendo Leads Lawsuit Against DS Piracy In Japan

Officials from Nintendo in Japan have revealed that the company is to file a lawsuit with the Tokyo District Court to prevent sales of the R4 Revolution and other similar cartridges which allow for homebrew and pirated software to be run on the Nintendo DS. The lawsuit is led by Nintendo, but supported by over fifty other companies, including publishers and developers such as Capcom, Koei, Square Enix, Tecmo, Bandai Namco and Sega. Produced in China, the R4 in particular has become popular as an inexpensive way to run custom made software on the Nintendo DS, with the use of an interchangeable Micro SD card and downloaded files. Although the console has a thriving “homebrew” scene, the cartridge also makes piracy of Nintendo DS titles extremely easy. A Japanese language press release on Nintendo’s website has been partially translated by consumer weblog Kotaku, with Nintendo commenting that the devices are “causing severe damage to our company and software makers, and this is something that we cannot possibly overlook.” Also relatively easy to obtain in the West, the lawsuit only pertains to the Japanese market, and none of Nintendo’s other local subsidiaries have yet indicated similar legal action.