The legendary R4 card, which allows gamers to essentially help themselves to the entire Nintendo DS library, has become officially illegal to import, advertise and sell in the United Kingdom. The R4 is used by thousands of UK gamers, but as of today it is outlawed.
“Nintendo promotes and fosters game development and creativity, and strongly supports the game developers who legitimately create new and innovative applications,” states Nintendo. “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.”
It has been argued that the R4 has legitimate uses as a homebrew device, or a means of storing digital versions of games that have already been purchased. While these are ways in which the R4 can be used, the popular and most commonly boasted use has always been to simply pirate games.
I wish I could claim this is an outrageous ruling that infringes on our freedom, but screw it. The R4 has always disturbed me, especially in a community where we complain about there not being enough “hardcore” games, yet hardcore games don’t sell on the DS because a bunch of people have stolen them. I’ve not got some moral objection to piracy, but the wholesale theft of a console’s entire library by the very gamers who demand that they be catered to just never sat well with me.
So sod the R4.
Nintendo victory as R4 emulator is outlawed [Develop]
Published: Jul 28, 2010 08:00 am