Nintendo pressures Akihabara vendors to pull R4 carts
If you've ever been to the Akihabara district in Tokyo, you probably know that stores there stock R4s. Well, at least they did stock them. Many Japanese retailers, including the online ones, have been pressured by Nintendo to discontinue their support for R4 carts. The extent of Nintendo's threats weren't made clear, but it's likely that they would no longer provide their products to these stores if the retailers didn't remove R4s from their inventories.
Nintendo is being naive if they think this is going to help alleviate piracy issues. People who want to pirate games will find a way to pirate games, whether the equipment to do so is out in the open or not. The R4 cart is also not the only means for people to download games -- we're sure Nintendo knows this.
All the same, we can sympathize with Nintendo. The fight against piracy is an uphill one, at best, and since there's not much that Nintendo can do about it, they're doing what they can.
[Via Kotaku]
