Nintendo files suit against five DS hacking firms

"Touching is good," but hacking? Not so much. Nintendo has gone on the war path against five Japanese companies that make their living helping users rip off DS games. Of course, a primary use for such hardware -- such as the R4 Revolution, pictured -- is homebrew and emulation, but good luck convincing Nintendo (or any large console manufacturer) of that. Details of the actual lawsuit are slim, but Nintendo has brought along with it 54 Japanese software makers to lend a bit of gravitas to the suit. If you haven't managed to hack your DS yet, now might be a good time to score the requisite hardware -- we might be facing a scarcity before too long.

[Thanks, Michael]

[Jack @ Jul 29th 2008 1:00PM]

Aww, I always enjoyed DS homebrew.
(That way, I didn't need an ipod) :)

[Hold McGroin @ Jul 29th 2008 1:17PM]

Don't sweat it, I doubt Japan has much sway over the countries where they're manufactured.

[Ayrkain @ Jul 30th 2008 2:37PM]

Between Colors loaded onto the R4 and Electroplankton, I've got my 3 year old hooked on the DS.

[ishism @ Jul 30th 2008 3:43PM]

How about nintendo owning up to their own piracy. Their patent breaking gamecube and wii controllers. FUK NINTENDO

[Jack @ Jul 29th 2008 1:01PM]

DS homebrew is amazing, and if you use it for illegal ROMs, then that's your problem

[DMC-12 @ Jul 29th 2008 1:04PM]

Well, technically it's Nintendo's problem, as they are the one's filing a suit. But, all good things must come to an end I guess.

[Tonicboy @ Jul 29th 2008 2:04PM]

Come to end? I don't think so. Nintendo doesn't have a case, this is just posturing and intimidation (which is actually a pretty good tactic as many of these smaller companies cannot afford to posture in return).

[milton359 @ Jul 29th 2008 4:56PM]

It's not coming to an end. There are hundreds of thousands of these out there.

Nintendo was a little late on this one but my guess is they are trying to scare these companies into stopping (legal costs and possible damages) or they are really trying to make a case on something that is pretty thin.

[Ihar `Philips` Filipau @ Jul 29th 2008 5:42PM]

> Nintendo was a little late on this one [...]

Late??? That's one heck of underestimation.

After all the press M3/R4/etc got, after all naive questions from press about Nintendo providing similar solution with downloadable games and content for DS, all they did was to release 1+ year later the half-arsed DS Vision(?) which isn't even half of what M3/R4/etc provide (and Jap only at the moment).

They are frigging TOO DAMM late.

P.S. R4DS hits 900K entries on Google, BTW. No stopping now, baby.

[SteveJ @ Aug 4th 2008 9:07AM]

The only people who would claim that DS homebrew was "amazing" are people who aren't using an R4 (or equivalent) for homebrew. The homebrew for the DS is pretty universally bad. Not only is it primarily just emulators and ports of Doom (as is the case for console/handheld homebrew in general), the emulators aren't even very good, for example, the terrible SNES emulator. Not to mention that if you are running console/handheld emulators and playing games on them that you don't actually own, that is piracy as well. The primary use of the R4 (and equivalent) is piracy. Either directly (DS and GBA games) or indirectly (emulators running roms of games you don't own.)

Claims to the contrary are completely ridiculous. Even if you aren't using it for piracy right now, you will. It is so ridiculously easy to pirate DS games that you will be tempted to do it and eventually succumb to it. You'll convince yourself that you're just "trying the game out", or some other excuse, but you're pirating a game. End of story.

I should know this. I have an M3 DS Simply. I've stopped using it and I'm better for it.

[tekdroid @ Jul 29th 2008 1:03PM]

5 firms that import and sell into Japan were sued. I think talk of any shortage is a bit premature.

[Jesse S @ Jul 29th 2008 1:05PM]

It's illegal for me to back up my own games to my computer, and then put them on one of these things so that I can carry ALL of my games with me, have free access to my save files, in a small package?

Fucking Nintendo.

[MC Double Def DP @ Jul 29th 2008 1:08PM]

*dances*

[phanbouy @ Jul 29th 2008 1:44PM]

as an end user, fair use allows you to make a backup of media or software for _personal_ use, regardless of of the pro-DRM brainwashing corporations propagate

[mahmud @ Jul 29th 2008 1:13PM]

They can gag me, chop off my legs, but when they ask me what I use my R4 for, I will simply say "homebrew".

[Dauragon88 @ Jul 29th 2008 1:14PM]

phew, good thing i got mine a few weeks ago.

I use it for music software. It's good fun.

[y3k.nik @ Jul 29th 2008 1:15PM]

Why would anyone use them to do anything illegal? Why oh why indeed??

[Dillon @ Jul 29th 2008 1:18PM]

I'm pretty sure the company that manufactured the R4's got shutdown already... not sure if I read it here or not. As far as I know though, a new company suddenly took its place, and started manufacturing "R6"'s, which are basically the same thing plus 2.

[nephersir7 @ Jul 29th 2008 4:53PM]

actually, its called the N5 and its sold for 15 $ (http://www.dealextreme.com/details.dx/sku.11457)

[Alex Dawson @ Jul 30th 2008 8:05PM]

I actually came across the R4 "factory" once while walking through the back alleys of Ap Liu St in Hong Kong. It's actually just a couple of guys in a shop.

They're worth every dollar ;)

[ajd6c8 @ Jul 29th 2008 1:22PM]

if slumping DS game sales are the fuel to this fire, maybe nintendo should take a hard look at its pricing structure and the flooded DS market. I'm sorry, but $20-$35 per game for a system that has literally thousands of games - none of which are technologically impressive or difficult to develop - is f*#$ing ridiculous. DS is a throwaway system (i.e. the games should be all but disposable). I will, however, give kudos to the fact that my local Blockbuster's now carry DS games.

[Mr. B @ Jul 29th 2008 1:30PM]

Agreed. The pricing for the DS and games resembles disposable razors.

[Travis Brown @ Jul 29th 2008 1:32PM]

I agreed with you until recently. I didn't think there was anything good on the DS... then I bought one (I realize the flawed logic in that). There are some really good games on it. FF3, FF4, TLOZ:Phantom Hourglass, Trauma Center, plus support for the back catelogue of awesome GBA games (such as Metroid Fusion, Metroid Zero Mission, all the SNES Ports that are available on the GBA). It's a great value. I have no problem paying even $40 (CDN) for a game if its gonna last me 10 hours of play time... and so far, both the DS games I have played through (FF3 and TLOZ:Phantom Hourglass) were well over 10 hours.

Just because these games don't exude the graphical prowess that their console bound brethren do, doesn't mean they don't take a lot of work to make, and doesn't mean you should enjoy them any less.

[Josh L @ Jul 29th 2008 1:36PM]

$20 per game is too high? What do you think would be a more reasonable price?

Actually, the real questions are: what expertise do you have in the game design industry to make judgment calls on the price of games? Do you actually know how much money goes into making one? How that money is distributed between the publisher, developer, licensee, distributor, etc?

[bandigolo @ Jul 29th 2008 6:01PM]

Josh, only the crappiest of crap games (or games that have been out for years) cost $20. Try $30-$35 for anything worth playing. No, I do not pretend to know how much it costs to develop, market, produce, and sell a video game. Nor do I know how much profit margin or how many units are being sold. But neither do you, so my opinion is just as good as yours (mine as at least based on the "hunch" that games are really, really profitable so long as they aren't 3D CGI masterpieces that take years to develop).

Travis, some of the $35 games are respectable achievements for a handheld (certainly not Trauma Center, though). And I agree that for some of those games, I'm totally fine paying the money. But I'm not alleging that the cream-of-the-crop isn't "worth" $30-$35 to a gamer. Nor am I alleging that "lack of technological prowess" and "fun" are mutually exclusive. I'm alleging that:
a) it's (probably) highway robbery in terms of margin;
b) it's a diluted market whereby 90% of DS games aren't worth $5 (
Seriously, how many cookie-cutter Phoenix Wright / Pokemon / RPG ports / bad sports ports / Brain games / Nickelodeon crap do we have to sift through to find good games?); and
c) although it could be fun, if a game is not a technologically impressive game, it was not difficult, nor expensive, to develop, especially if it is just a DS incarnation of an old game.

I think these are reasonable points. Keep in mind that I AM a DS user and a Nintendo lifer who thoroughly enjoys the top 10% of DS games. But I refuse to sympathize with Nintendo on this issue.

[Ben @ Jul 29th 2008 1:27PM]

So THAT's why the Cyclo DS website is down.....

[Brandon @ Jul 29th 2008 2:25PM]

The Cyclo website is down because they exceeded their bandwidth. It happens about once a month.

[Grey Acumen @ Jul 29th 2008 2:00PM]

If I were to hazard a guess. I'd have to say that's unrelated.

I'm pretty sure CycloDS is considered separate from R4, and from what this article just said now, this is only effective in japan, whereas i had thought CycloDS was US based (or at least some English speaking area)

[b4andafter5 @ Jul 30th 2008 3:10PM]

Cyclo is european-based- pretty far from the reaches of any normal suit...

[mick @ Jul 29th 2008 1:30PM]

read link is not working. theres just http://

[Kherka @ Jul 29th 2008 4:03PM]

The link is here
http://www.reuters.com/article/technologyNews/idUST8746920080729

You can see the link from the "Read -->"
--> arrow

[funkstar @ Jul 29th 2008 1:45PM]

Never mind the R4, whats the deal on that 16GB Kingston microSD card???

[Chris @ Jul 29th 2008 2:10PM]

That's a 1Gb...just the 1G looks like 16...
Unless you're being sarcastic..

[Grey Acumen @ Jul 29th 2008 2:12PM]

time to either adjust your screensize or adjust the prescription on your glasses, funkstar.

that says 1GB, which might be confused to look like 16B, but it still doesn't look like 16GB unless you're getting double vision.

It's okay okay, it happens to to a lot of people who have been on the computer a a little too long.

[Najakwa @ Jul 29th 2008 2:21PM]

ha, 16 bytes, yes.

[Najakwa @ Jul 29th 2008 2:17PM]

no doubt nintendo has made a profit on those things. People that normally wouldn't have bought a DS have done so because of those things. Are DS console sales starting to fall? I thought they were steady.

[Kevyn @ Jul 29th 2008 2:22PM]

The R4DS website is also down as well. But i dont think that that's gonna stop anyone from buying these and downloading homebrew and roms.

[Sandlog @ Jul 29th 2008 2:32PM]

love the R4

got 3 of them for xmas presents last year.

w00t

[paul @ Jul 29th 2008 2:45PM]

Edge card is where it's at. I had an R4 and it was nice, but Edge has it beat.

[BigD145 @ Jul 29th 2008 3:20PM]

I happen to like carrying just a single cartridge in my DS rather than having 10.

[firerock @ Jul 29th 2008 3:46PM]

I have to agree with you. I knew about DS mod, but now this article just sparked my interested again....

[Russ @ Jul 29th 2008 3:47PM]

the r4 and both the m3 simply and m3 real are awesome.. at least that's what my *friend* says.. *ahem*

[CaptSaltyJack @ Jul 29th 2008 4:20PM]

R4 is very hard to get now, I was on the market for a flash cart, and I couldn't easily find the R4 for sale. I went with the M3 Real, and it's quite good.

[icepop4who @ Jul 29th 2008 5:25PM]

took them a while. too bad they can't do what sony did with the psp; give the psp a firmware update and significantly hamper the hacking

[dvmrp @ Jul 29th 2008 6:39PM]

R4 actually helps NDS's record-breaking sales. Just look at the teenager holding a NDS passing-by and peek the top of the gear, 95% you will be able to spot the little microSD... :-)

So, they probably think they sold enough already.

[PheZ @ Jul 29th 2008 7:16PM]

Just to give you guys an idea of prices of DS games else where in the world. I am in Australia and newer release games are around the $74 mark, older games range from $20 to $50 depending on the title and demand.

I just saw in the comments people talking about games being $15, $20 $30 - $40, I nearly laughed!

[tekdroid @ Jul 29th 2008 11:00PM]

can't say i've ever seen $74, but seen many new ones at $69.95. Frankly, that's just ridiculous either way, so you take advantage of the weak USD and import.

[Atenlaugh @ Jul 29th 2008 9:11PM]

Why be cool when you can just sue everybody else into not being able to afford to be cool?

Genius.

[neofolklore @ Jul 30th 2008 8:14AM]

lol, wow way to picture the R4. There are forums featuring THREADS upon THREADS of n00bs trying to figure out the best flashcart to get for the DS.

and yes, R4 is the best.

[ArtyG @ Jul 30th 2008 11:26PM]

I got an M3DS Simply, and boy, am I satisfied. I'm not worried about needing an SDHC card yet for some reason, and in an unrelated note, there aren't that many good DS games besides The World Ends With You, Picross and CrossworDS(U).