ELSPA shoots down the ’90 percent’ R4 story

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We all knew something was up with a recent quote by John Hillier, Manager of ELSPA’s Intellectual Property Crime Unit. The Sunday Post, a Scottish newspaper, quoted Hillier saying “In America it’s thought 90 percent of Nintendo users are playing pirated games because of R4s.” Now the ELSPA says that the Sunday Post article contains false quotes.

A spokesperson for ELSPA told GamesIndustry.biz that, “[John] didn’t quote The Sunday Post on any figures whatsoever. ELSPA would certainly never presume to comment about America or anywhere else outside of the UK.”

It seems that the Sunday Post article is a mishmash of a real conversation with Hillier, facts from a Singaporean article, and false quotes. Or that’s that the ELSPA says.

“The quotes from The Sunday Post were ascribed to his name from another article which originates from a website in Singapore. This, it appears, is where The Sunday Post first found out about the supposed R4 situation and for some reason unknown to John have quoted him on what this article said.”

The spokesperson also added that Nintendo views the reported facts in the article as false.

“As far as Nintendo are concerned, the facts are completely spurious.”

I think that a comment by Destructoid reader DeusPayne sums things up well: “I HIGHLY HIGHLY doubt that even 90% of DS owners KNOW what an R4 is, let alone own one.”

You guys are too smart for this crap, right? 


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