If you click on a link and make a purchase we may receive a small commission. Read our editorial policy.

Nintendo 3DS logs flash cart use?

UPDATE: Nintendo responds, stays cagey.

UPDATE: A Nintendo spokesperson issued the following statement to Eurogamer: "We do not discuss product security details (for obvious reasons), nor can we discuss the details of countermeasures available in the Nintendo 3DS system.

"Nintendo 3DS has the most up-to-date technology. The security has been designed to protect both the creative works in the software and to protect the Nintendo 3DS hardware system itself."

ORIGINAL STORY:The Nintendo 3DS may remember each time a flash cart-pirated game is played.

And if it can do that, Nintendo can pin-point which systems have been used illegally and disable them via firmware.

Japanese shop Enterking warns buyers about this on its website (via GoNintendo):

"Dear customers who resell Nintendo 3DS," a roughly translated open letter reads.

"Non-purchase able 3DS system: if you use equipment which is illegal or unapproved by Nintendo or if you do customisation which is unapproved by Nintendo, there is a possibility that Nintendo 3DS becomes non-bootable by system update."

"Because of terms of agreement above, Enterking refuses to buy 3DS system with a record of illegal or unapproved equipment.

"To protect from leaking your personal and internet connection information," the warning adds, "we ask customer to format system."

Nintendo had huge problems with the R4 flash cart, which could store hundreds of downloaded DS games obtained illegally online at no cost. The infamous R4 cart was eventually outlawed in the UK last summer, following a ban a year earlier in Japan.