Nintendo clamps down on sales of R4

By Robert Purchese Published 5 October, 2009

Encourages gamers to grass up sellers.

Nintendo has outlined to Eurogamer a worldwide effort to clamp down on sales of illegal Wii and DS game copiers such as the infamous R4.

The push starts at home, in Japan, where a civil action has been filed against a quartet of companies selling the crafty copiers. Nintendo demands that import and sale of the devices must stop immediately and damages be paid.

The Mario-maker is doing this to help partners "who spend time and money legitimately developing software" for the Wii and DS, not just itself.

Nintendo needs your help, too: "It's getting increasingly difficult to track down R4 sellers as day by day they get more ingenious, flourishing online and complicating matters," wrote the company in a statement (translated by Kotaku). The result: asking Japanese people to fill out an anonymous form should they encounter a naughty seller, pin-pointing their location, URL or even sharing their names.

Here in Europe, Nintendo told us the push is equally hard, with 300 actions "supported" across 16 countries since 2008. That drive, incidentally, netted 200,000 contraband copiers.

Countries under scrutiny include Australia, Belgium, Denmark, France, Germany, Hong Kong, Italy, Japan, Korea, the Netherlands and New Zealand, plus Singapore, Spain, Taiwan, the UK and the US. Nintendo is working with Chinese police to "pursue" the (presumably moving) factories responsible for making the "infringing devices".

Nintendo is also hard at work here in the UK, working with the Queen to train front-line customs and police to spot and confiscate the copiers.

"ELSPA is coordinating the seizure of tens of thousands of devices; 285 auction sites (Amazon & eBay) offering game copiers have been terminated; 81,889 notices have been sent by our Internet monitoring vendor terminating illegal DS and Wii software; and over 85,500 illegal game copiers have been seized. Earlier this year, Camden Trading Standards and the Metropolitan Police raided a business in London, seizing over 50,000 game copiers in just one raid," Nintendo told us.

So watch out: Mario's about.

Picture of Robert.

About Robert Purchese

Bertie is Eurogamer's Senior Staff Writer. When he's not hunting down news stories he's often found playing with his kids or gabbling about fantasy games and strange online worlds.

Read more articles from Robert by visiting the Robert Purchese archive page.

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Comments (59) Latest comment 2 years ago

Comments threads automatically close after 30 days, but please feel free to continue chatting on the forum!

  • mingster #1 2 years ago

    And still they come..

  • jonsaan #2 2 years ago

    If only Nintendo could get the DSI store in the right kind of shape to compete with the freedom of gaming something like the R4 offers.

  • Psychotext #3 2 years ago

    Plenty of reputable dealers sell the in the UK... but then they're not illegal over here. At least the actual item isn't.

  • Floppy #4 2 years ago

    The thing Nintendo or any other manufacturer won't win on in court is that it's not illegal to sell 3rd party carts or mod devices, but it is illegal to distribute them with copyrighted game data, or fit the devices for you.

    Seriously Nintendo, 'grassing-up' your mate's favoured online 'R4' shop will lead you nowhere.

  • stevetuck #5 2 years ago

    Im gonna tell mummy off you!!!

  • reelbigkris #6 2 years ago

    The R4 card is a rather disturbing item that has legitimate uses but has been exploited by the general public. Every day I get asked by a little old granny if i sell R4 cards for her grandson and it seems that every Nintendo DS i sell, the person buying it openly announces that they have no intention of buying games as their mate has an R4 card. This is blatantly the most craziest piracy crime known to man when people openly tell game stores that they intend to steal!?

  • KayJay #7 2 years ago

    Good for them.
    Get rid of these dirty smelly Pirates. They should be ashamed of themselves.

    EDIT: Although im not sure how many people are going to split on thier mates.
    Edited by 1 at 05/10/09 @ 17:11

  • schnide #8 2 years ago

    Let's be honest shall we?

    Most people on here will buy an R4 for homebrew, but end up trying a commercial game or two. You like it, you're going to buy it.

    A month or so later you have about ten commercial games you've never bought sitting on your R4 and suddenly playing NES games on your DS isn't such a priority.

    Or you're a housewife who's bought one of these things with the sole intention of never paying for a full release game again, and probably not even realising how illegal or immoral it is.

  • ChaK #9 2 years ago

    @reelbigkris : same here, i'm a reseller and I just want to blast their heads off.

    "Do you have r4 young man? It's for my son, he downloads games on the internet" BAM

  • CallousB #10 2 years ago

    What annoys me more than R4 are the people who sell obviously illegal carts with multiple games on them.

    ... often using paypal and romancart (whoclaim they won't allow pirated goods...yet still allow them continue taking payments....despite being reported multiple times) and google ads which keeps allowing them to advertise (despite selling clearly prohibited items).

    Some of those site have been around for years...but despite being illegal they seem impossible to shut down...as even when they are shut they just open up again with a slightly different name a few days later.

    There's a UK based site that has been shutdown and re-opened under a different name half a dozen times. I don't know how they get away with it.

  • KayJay #11 2 years ago

    CallousB - E-mail the URL over to nintendo then... :)

  • kobashi #12 2 years ago

    just take a trip on my daily train to work everyday and you will see people with the DS machines all playing copied games. I see more and more people using copied software. That includes woman and men in there 30's and 40's. I was on the bus last week and two builders in there late 40's both got out DS machines and started a two player game with copied software.

    I have said it before on this site. I was in gamestation last year looking at DS software and the shop assistant actually told me not buy any games and instead he will tell me where I can get them for free. If he is telling everybody that you can see what kind of problem nintendo have.

    My reply was "no thanks I like to support the industry mate"..
    Edited by 2 at 05/10/09 @ 17:27

  • Zomoniac #13 2 years ago

    If only Nintendo could get the DSI store in the right kind of shape to compete with the freedom of gaming something like the R4 offers.

    This. When a 'modded' console offers a much better experience other than pirating, as is the case with DS and PSP (and the first Xbox), surely it makes more sense to find out what makes them better, and to work with that, rather than just putting fingers in ears and start whining. A modded PSP plays PSP games better due to not having to use the disc so increased battery and quicker loads, and the ability to convert original PS1 discs to be used on it (I know they want to make money by selling them again, but most people won't have the originals anyway and they're cheaper to buy on PSN than eBay with the current decent pricing). Those are the reasons I use it. But the thing is, despite having it for entirely legitimate reasons, the fact that it is now so ridiculously easy to quickly download a game "just to try out and see if it's worth buying" then end up never getting around to buying (I have shamefully done that a couple of times) means people who might not ordinarily pirate end up doing so. Same applies to DS. I know it's not a huge number of people compared to blatant pirates who will always find a way and don't care, but there must be a fair number of scumbags like me who think they're well-intentioned but sometimes find themselves pirating something thoughtlessly for no other reason than "they can", and the only reason that "they can" is because the thing that allows them to do so is something that really should be on the system in the first place. Work with, not against, the pirates. They cannot be beaten.

  • TheBear #14 2 years ago

    I'm guessing a lot of people who bought the DS wouldn't have bothered had it not been for R4. Nintendo should thank them. :)

  • GrumpyLlama #15 2 years ago

    I have a R4 card and have never played a copied game on it. I use it mainly for the spectrum emulator which is excellent and the odd bit of homebrew which is usually crap. So we are not all filthy pirates!

  • CallousB #16 2 years ago

    @kj66246 I have emailed Nintendo,ELSPA..pretty much everyone. They shut them down for a fews days..and then they re-open with a different name.

  • jambii267 #17 2 years ago

    DS games are way too pricey, it is Nintendo's own damn fault.

  • Chufty #18 2 years ago

    Well, I hope it works. As has been commented already, the amount of people, many with absolutely no technical knowledge whatsoever, who use these devices is frightening.

    The PSP benefits from the fact that hacking one can be intimidating and technically challenging. These R4s are just plug-n-play.

    Also, what's with the tabloid-style article?

  • bad09 #19 2 years ago

    well said Zomoniac.

  • smelly #20 2 years ago

    >DS games are way too pricey

    compared to what? Do you know how much it costs to make, duplicate and distribute ds games? If not, then you're not in any positiion to say whether they're worth the price or not are you?

    >it is Nintendo's own damn fault.

    Is it also the fault of the people who are making games for the hardware? Afterall - its them who suffer the most from these things.

  • malexous #21 2 years ago

    R4s have been out of production for probably over a year now. There are numerous other cards out there that are much better and up to date.

    The R4 doesn't even work on the DSi.
    Edited by 2 at 05/10/09 @ 18:59

  • Markusdragon #22 2 years ago

    I downloaded a firmware for my R4 (and it's many legitimate practical uses), and got told that my R4 was a fake and had been blocked from working.
    Thing is, the original company that makes R4 doesn't exist, so I got moaned at for having an illegal copy of an illegal copy of a device mostly used for playing illegal copies.
    Then my head hurt, and I had to go lie down until it all went away.

  • dingo75 #23 2 years ago

    Sorry Nintendo but I was trained to only disclose
    -> Name, Rank, Army Personal Number.

    So go find someone else to spill his / her guts!

  • StooMonster #24 2 years ago

    I know several people who've given them to all their kids and have never bought a DS game, my kids come home from their houses and ask why they can't have an R4 and get all DS games. These are the same type who own Xbox 360 and have never bought a title; and don't own a PS3 because they can't get pirate games.

    I digress, I see R4 in London on the tube, in lifts, on trains, and on aeroplanes.

    It's a wonder that anyone actually sells any software for Nintendo's handheld platform; there are so few of us buying it, and so many freetards.

  • miiiguel #25 2 years ago

    Yeah, I have a few of those at work, and in DS territory the parents are the worst. When I try to understand why they do it, they say: "well, it's only video games, isn't it?, it's not like serious software... and I just want them to be quiet!". Ffs...

  • peteb #26 2 years ago

    I emailed nintendo a url of one of those blatant "by a card with 20 ds games on it" websites in december last year. The site is still online now. Maybe theyll get round to it after they shut down ones in japan & US first. Typical PAL delays :(

  • aine #27 2 years ago

    acekards are better anyway.

    just saying.

  • bionutz #28 2 years ago

    Taking them down is not the best solution, see what a fight napster takedown has been. The success they had was because of the accessibility of music. I hate the fact that I have to carry 20 cartridges with me every time I go on a trip. With R4 I would only have to carry 1 card with all my games - in the NDS directly. If NDSi would have a possibility to upload the old cartridges inside I wouldn't need an R4...

  • LazyDan #29 2 years ago

    I have money, I'll simply buy what's most convenient.

    Carting around 30 piddly little cartridges is not convenient, sorry Nintendo. Improve your download service and I'll glady pay for it - as I pay for Steam, a WoW subscription and XBox live stuff currently.

  • richorchard #30 2 years ago

    Like a previous poster here has said, I too get loads of customers where I work asking if we sell R4 cards, or where to get them from. Obviously, I just tell them to buy real games. But I do admit having a flash cart for the GBA.

    In my case, it's simply so I can play gameboy colour games (with super game boy borders!) on my Game Boy Micro. Which would be absolutely impossible otherwise. Another obvious benefit is being able to backup my many, many GBA cartridges onto one cartridge, which is perfect for the little micro. For a console solely designed for ultra-portability, having to carry around a heckload of carts kinda defeats the whole purpose.

    But yeah. The GBA is a dead console. So hm, kinda different. Or is it?
    Edited by 1 at 05/10/09 @ 22:28

  • Skurmedel #31 2 years ago

    I have a R4 card... is this what they are talking about? Or is it some kind of R4 copying device?

    You can have a pretty fun time with devKitARM and libnds. My pong game kinda sucks but it was fun writing it.

    malexous: I have one that works with the DSi, but it's not the original maker. It seems that there are now multiple producers with their own "R4s".
    Edited by 2 at 05/10/09 @ 22:36

  • richorchard #32 2 years ago

    Skurmedel -

    Yep, it's the R4 card you've got that they're clamping down on. Although it has perfectly legitimate uses such as homebrew and media players, it's main selling point for the majority of DS owners, like it or not, is the prospect of FREE RETAIL GAMES OMG

  • chrisjm #33 2 years ago

    maybe nintendo should sue facebook and google who allow the adverts for them?

  • Skurmedel #34 2 years ago

    Hm... okay. But, is the card in itself illegal if you really use it for legitimate stuff? I'm sure it's legal in Sweden, I know at least one street shop where they can be bought, but what about the UK? I mean if you can prove it's just homebrewn stuff on there...
    Edited by 1 at 05/10/09 @ 22:47

  • miiiguel #35 2 years ago

    While we can all claim about it being legal, the portability, all the awsomeness of these "tools", but lets be fair, the main purpose is "free". Like "oh but I hack my PSP not because I, can play er... free games but because UMD kills my battery". Come on..., the operative word here is "free", don't BS.

  • fizzyfish #36 2 years ago

    Is it legal to run games from such a card if you own original copies? I don't mind carrying around all the genuine cards (their size makes that much more convenient than with GBA cartridges or UMDs) but I might consider an R4 if it saved me from ever having to swap out the cartridge.

  • LudusSolers #37 2 years ago

    Really. One the one hand I vehemently oppose piracy - even wihout getting into the semantics as to whether it is/isn't technically stealing, it does the industry no good whatsoever and is robbing developers or well-deserved earnings.

    That being said, I think Nintendo can do their bit to discourage it by refreshing their online offering to include a more expansive demo service given that the existing function on the DS is so poorly supported.

    Also, some sort of official home dev/homebrew support would be great - unless they plan to open up the DSiWare service to bedroom coders. Investing in those two functions would surely cost less than the action they're taking now.

    But there again, who am I kidding - this *is* Nintendo we're talking about...

  • rprince #38 2 years ago

    LudusSolers is right. It would be very interesting to see all platform holders provide better game download systems, with the option to import games you already have (this seems to be a major stumbling block currently). Some legal and commercial emulators of old systems may also encourage people to buy old games (though I guess there's some major legal wranglings that stop this). For them all to support homebrew bedroom coding more would be ace too. If all of this was done, it would remove all the legitimate reasons for these cards.

    The 360 is probably closest to this: good download system (XBLA) and the facility to write code for it (XNA). The PS3 and Wii have some emulation credentials. None of the systems are quite there though. Also, why is it the DS and PSP that are so heavily hacked? The PS3 is barely hacked to my knowledge. The Wii is a bit. Is the 360 hacked at all?

  • TheMoonRat #39 2 years ago

    360 is very hacked. But then there's the mass risk of those doing it getting caught then banned from xbox live; and considering xbox live is a definite plus in terms of the experience of a lot of games, I think it's a good balance between carrot and stick. Carrot in terms of xbox live slick goodness, with great integration in games; Stick in terms of potential to get banned from losing all that.

  • persus-9 #40 2 years ago

    @ Smelly: In my opinion DS games are too expensive for the amount of entertainment they deliver. I can get AAA games for my PC cheaper than I can the glorified browser games they release for the DS. Why should I pay so much more for inferior DS based entertainment?

    The manufacturing cost of the games is irrelevant. If I cut a £50 note into little pieces and wrote this message out as a collage of the fragments and then e-mailed a picture too you would you be happy to pay me £50 for it? Of course not. The fact it would have cost me £50 to do that wouldn't make the end result worth £50 to you.

    None of that justifies piracy of course. That's why my DS is rather dusty and I take my laptop everywhere I go.

  • malexous #41 2 years ago

    persus how much do you think DS games are worth?

    http://www.find-games.co .uk <a href="http://www.gamestracker. com
    ">http://www.gamestracker. com
    </a>

    Games such as GTA: Chinatown Wars can be found very cheaply on the internet. It was £9.99 at Play but is now £14.99 at Amazon, GamePlay and Game. Brand new from reputable companies and IN STOCK.
    Edited by 5 at 06/10/09 @ 06:59

  • Fab4 #42 2 years ago

    I have an M3. Have I used it to play games which I did not own? Yes. Have I bought games that I found out I liked after playing it from the M3? Yes. Is this the end to my point? Yes.

  • Tyranix #43 2 years ago

    Although I don't support piracy, with the new 'direction' Nintendo has taken (on many issues) I really can't feel sorry for them so I won't be turning anyone in.

  • db3 #44 2 years ago

    Not many parents will want to shell out a hundred quid on a handful of games just to keep their nippers quiet. There are so many overpriced shite games on the nds that it's not going to take much to convince them over morals to buy an R4 once they learn about it.

    Anyhow, the R4's old hat now, surely the big N's going after newer DSi compatible cards.

    Apple's Appstore has far more reasonable prices for mobile gaming and provides free 'lite' games so you can check stuff out before purchasing the full version.

  • kipper #45 2 years ago

    Piracy will never be defeated by technical means or by prosecutions. Same as the unwinnable war on drugs, its a simple case of supply and demand.

    As a youth, I used to play pirated games on my Amiga. As an adult, I only play genuine legit games as I accept stealing is wrong, and I care about gaming as an entertainment medium.

    Sadly, there are many children and parents (I know some) who own multiple handheld consoles but not a single legit game. Because they don't care.

  • linea #46 2 years ago

    I've got to somewhat shamefully admit that I've got an M3, and that while I bought it mainly for SCUMMVM and the brilliant Nitrotracker, the amount of DS software I've bought has plummeted since I got it.

    It's not something I'm proud of but despite good intentions I'd simply be buying a cart to sit in a box while I play the game off the card anyway, and making the choice to do that when I could buy an xbox game with the same money is a peculiar kind of mental gymnastic manouevre- good in theory but in practice it never seems to happen. I know this makes me a bad man.

    I'm not sure that when my (original series) DS conks out that a DSi is what I'll be getting though- I love the DS but unless they sort out the DSi store and open it up then the iphone apps store looks much more like the sort of place where I can get my combination of useful software and games and pay for them legally. I hope for nintendo's sake that they do sort it out.

  • kipper #47 2 years ago

    Forgive my ignorance, but I presume that its possible to download demos of DS games to try before you buy, like on XBL and PSN?

  • malexous #48 2 years ago

    Yes but only through the Nintendo Channel on the Wii.Last time I checked there was only about 10. There are currently no demos for DSiWare or WiiWare. Or even Wii games.
    Edited by 1 at 06/10/09 @ 11:12

  • schnide #49 2 years ago

    I said before DSi was released that the download option would be in part to combat piracy from the R4 over time, and I still say I was right. I also still say Rev Stuart Campbell is a cockpiece, who told me I was wrong.

  • shadowaspect #50 2 years ago

    "just take a trip on my daily train to work everyday and you will see people with the DS machines all playing copied games. I see more and more people using copied software. That includes woman and men in there 30's and 40's. I was on the bus last week and two builders in there late 40's both got out DS machines and started a two player game with copied software. "

    What sort of weird eyes do you have that can see this? Going by my Acekard (legitimate uses only) you might be able to spot the microSD card slot in the back of the DS R4/etc cartridge, but I doubt you've been peering closely at the back of other peoples DS's.

  • miiiguel #51 2 years ago

    What sort of weird eyes do you have that can see this? Going by my Acekard (legitimate uses only) you might be able to spot the microSD card slot in the back of the DS R4/etc cartridge, but I doubt you've been peering closely at the back of other peoples DS's.

    So, you don't know that ppl not only pirate but also brag about it ?
    Edited by 1 at 06/10/09 @ 11:27

  • davearnie #52 2 years ago

    This really is just the same old nonsense we hear about piracy all the time. I admit that the DS is a special case insofar that it is much easier to hack and therefore more people will be playing pirated games than would have otherwise.

    But if you take piracy in general - especially from the games side - the argument that it hurts the industry significantly cannot be justified.

    Take the Xbox 360, in order to play backup games, you have to either open the box up yourself and do a lot of work to the box in order to play them or you have to find someone trustworthy enough to do this for you. Of the people willing to go out of their way to do this, you then have to know where to get copies of games and then how to make them work properly on your Xbox.

    Quite a lot of work there. Then you have the people who can do all this, downloading whatever games they want - but how does this hurt the industry? Are AAA games on the Xbox 360 really not selling well compared the PS3, has everyone suddenly stopped buying games? Are the non AAA games losing out from people who would have bought the games now just downloading them instead?

    Of course not!!!! Most games that get pirated are by people who would never have bought the game in the first place!

    Think about that for a minute.....

    Take an average reviewed game like Wet. You download the demo think its ok, so you download the game and give it a go, its alright but mainly sits on your shelf. Now if you were paying for said game, you would try the demo, think this games alright but no where near worth 40 of my hard earned pounds. I will wait till it drops in price, meanwhile you forget all about it and never buy it anyway.

    IE, most games pirated are never bought in the first place. Really great great games, a lot of people will still buy a legit copy to keep. Same applies to movies and to a less extent music.

    Nintendo are IDIOTS. They should not be going after the makers of cards etc. They should be spending money into making sure that it is soo much harder to pirate their system and therefore most people wont bother to do it. People that do bother to do it probably never had the intention of buying the games anyway and therefore by just making it more difficult = you eliminate the damage done to your profits.

  • Sunyavadin #53 2 years ago

    "Metropolitan Police raided a business in London, seizing over 50,000 game copiers in just one raid," Nintendo told us.

    They siezed 50,000 computers?
    50,000 USB leads?
    50,000 DVDs?
    50,000 SD cards?
    50,000 tape decks?
    50,000 mobile phones?
    50,000 ethernet cables?
    50,000 copies of Windows?
    50,000 servers running torrent sites?

    If you're defining something as a "game copier" it's on a par with defining books as "potential arson utilities"

  • Marshall2008 #54 2 years ago

    maybe if nintendo dropped the prices of their games it would help. I mean, £30 for a glorified flash game !?!?

    In the mean time I will quite happily point people in the direction of the R4 tyoe cards and clones. Works fine on the DSi now too.

    On the other hand I have over 100 xbox 360 games and I have bought every one of them.
    Edited by 1 at 06/10/09 @ 18:20

  • Skurmedel #55 2 years ago

    Some games are overpriced yes, but I wouldn't call Chrono Trigger a glorified flash game. It's a complete RPG in your DS.

  • canIdoyabombsforya #56 2 years ago

    "That includes woman and men in there 30's and 40's. I was on the bus last week and two builders in there late 40's both got out DS machines and started a two player game with copied software. "

    What's the big deal? some of the first video game pirates, from around 30 years ago, will now be in their 30s and 40s.




    Edited by 1 at 07/10/09 @ 01:27

  • kipper #57 2 years ago

    @ Marshall2008
    "In the mean time I will quite happily point people in the direction of the R4 type cards and clones. Works fine on the DSi now too. "

    Perhaps next time you would point them in the direction of the large number of websites and magazines to help them with their purchasing choices. If you don't want to pay good money for a poor game, get informed and buy a good game - rather than steal the bad game.

  • grussbarbar #58 2 years ago

    @bionutz/LazyDan
    Do you really need to take 20/30 games cards with you wherever you go? I would think one in the DS and 1 or 2 extra would be more than enough to pass away the time on any trip. Besides, they're pretty small. As fizzyfish said, it's not like they're CBA carts or UMDs or something.

    Apart from that, I do agree that Nintendo's download system could be improved remarkably. They could and should probably start by offering a large catalogue of game demos for the DS. We've got the Nintendo channel on Wii, now allow us to make full use of it. After that, give us a Virtual Console on DSi and expand from that.

  • kobashi #59 2 years ago

    What sort of weird eyes do you have that can see this? Going by my Acekard (legitimate uses only) you might be able to spot the microSD card slot in the back of the DS R4/etc cartridge, but I doubt you've been peering closely at the back of other peoples DS's.

    It is not hard to see the micro sd slot when sitting directly opposite someone. Also I have seen people put white SD cards in the DS machines. Then you get the fact of people playing with the friends and bragging about how got loads of games one one card.

    I went Game today to buy that new Kingdom Hearts game on the DS. There was a mother walking around with her two kids. One of the kids asked for a DS game. Mother said "not buying any DS game as I can just download it when I get home"