Online piracy has ravaged the music business and now it’s about to do the same to the games industry, thanks to a device the size of a thumbnail. Once known only to hackers, the R4 Revolution is currently the fifth biggest-selling electronics item on Amazon’s UK web store - priced at £12.57 including a 2GB memory card. It is marketed as a legitimate device that enables gamers to store copies of Nintendo games they have already bought for their portable DS console, negating the need to carry cumbersome cartridges around. However, as some gamers have discovered, the device also stores games downloaded direct from the internet. This means that rather than paying £20 for a game, they can download it free from filesharing sites. In the past these illegally downloaded games wouldn’t play back on a DS console because of inbuilt copy protection software. The R4 circumvents this, leading to a freeloader frenzy as gamers rush to buy the device then load it up with free games. The scale of the problem has forced Nintendo to act. Last month it launched a lawsuit in Japan against importers and marketers of “game-copying devices such as the R4 Revolution”. Nintendo also said it is working closely with authorities in 11 countries - including the UK. The problem is that the device itself is not illegal. “It’s the purposes that people use it for that’s often illegal,” says Rob Saunders, a spokesman for Nintendo UK. “When you fill a memory card with hundreds of downloaded games - that’s theft.” Exactly how Nintendo intends to wage its war on piracy in the UK is unclear. Will it follow the music industry’s lead and press internet service providers to freeze the accounts of file sharers – or even mount private prosecutions, as the British record industry has done? Nintendo says it has asked Amazon to stop selling the device, but last week there was no sign of this, with R4s still selling well. If the music industry experience is anything to go by, the signs for Nintendo - and other gaming companies - are ominous. Source: Times Online
I don’t see anything wrong with the R4 or other similar flashcards, yes they can be used for pirating games but so can memory sticks on the PSP and blank DVD-R’s on the PC and Xbox 360. Having a flash card in the DS opens up the door to free and legal homebrew applications such as MP3 and Movie players on the DS along with organisers, MSN clients and other useful applications that enable more functionality on the DS.
Nintendo doesn't have much to worry about, with their line-up at E3 nobody's going to get an R4 anyway because there are no games to pirate. Personally I don't have R4 and I bought all the games for my DS, but I've tried my cousin's (you might remember him as Funkyrabbit) and it's nice to have all your games and stuff on one cartridge. Especially when traveling it saves a lot of space.
Ive heard Nintendo are doing their own flash card anyway and I think that could be quite successful for them. One of the reasons I got mine was because I didn’t want to carry all my games around with me, the second was all the homebrew really expands on what the DS can do. Can your DS play MP3, Video and be used as a PDA without one? I think not I can see why Nintendo don’t like them but they do have their legal uses too.
Half the guys I know who own a DS have cards like that and use it for illegal games, I don’t work as I am still In school so I don’t have the money to buy games.
I dont agree with that, the games industry is makeing LOADS of profit, its allmost if not better off then the movie industry and most of the sales are made over the internet. + yeah the card is rly usefull for ds i mean vids and mp3's its like haveing a ipod vid but better next 2 u.