The High Court has ruled that it is now illegal to import, sell or advertise R4 cartridges in the UK, causing much wailing and gnashing of teeth among Nintendo DS pirates and homebrew enthusiasts alike.

Nintendo chalked up another victory in its fight to stop the distribution of R4 cards and similar devices that allow the running of custom code on Nintendo DS and DSi consoles. Such cards can be used to run ‘homebrew’ apps and games, of which there are many, but also allow a DS or DSi to run pirated game ROMS from a memory card.

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Today the UK High Court has ruled that because R4 cards circumvent Nintendo’s anti-piracy security systems they are therefore illegal under UK law. The defendant, Playables Ltd., had argued that the existence of homebrew software meant that there was a legitimate use for such cards.

The news comes just a week after a court in the Netherlands ruled against retailers who were selling the cartridges in Holland and via mail order.

Not Available | £n/a | Nintendo (via MCV)

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  • http://www.facebook.com/richard.mullens Richard Mullens

    An anti-consumer measure introduced at the behest of big business.

  • Katejohnson73

    oops just brought one on amazon just now…. WHATEVER all my friends have an r4 so yh

  • http://www.farango.com/ R4 card

    It is a law in the UK, Spain and France have found these articles of law. Distibutors Only the people in the UK will be affected so only buy from the Far East or other that makes it unnecessary.

  • Anonymous

    I think some gamer will not happy with this decision of court. But I think it is necessary step to prevent the piracy which is harming the gaming industry.

  • Anonymous

    I have heard from my colleague that users aren’t happy with their r4. But last year, millions of users were bought r4 device..
    http://r4ds-r4.com/
    nintendo ds r4

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