Japan Outlaws R4 Cartridge

February 27th, 2009 Posted in Business, Hardware, News, Nintendo DS, Nintendo DSi, Technology

One of the biggest concerns Nintendo has is with piracy. They’re always pushing to crack down on those selling fake DSes and pirated cartridges. Unfortunately for the company there are much more easily accessed, technological means for accessing games for free. One method was the R4 cartridge, essentially an adapter to allow DS owners to upload files onto a micro SD card. There are some legitimate uses for the technology: one can download home brewed software that turns the DS into an eBook reader by uploading PDF files; putting music or video files on the card also allows you to use the handheld as a portable media player.

Unfortunately any technological item that has both a legitimate and illegitimate use is much more likely to be used for the latter. As you can imagine, Nintendo doesn’t like this device and now they’ve succeeded in doing something about it. The gaming company must have some excellent lobbyists, because the Japanese government has just banned sales of the R4 cartridge.

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This entry was posted on Friday, February 27th, 2009 at 12:52 pm and is filed under Business, Hardware, News, Nintendo DS, Nintendo DSi, Technology. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.

7 Responses to “Japan Outlaws R4 Cartridge”

  1. The Daily Wrap Up - Specs, reviews and prices. Says:

    February 27th, 2009 at 6:47 pm

    [...] Google Tools to Help YouSony CyberShot DSC-HX1 to Arrive at PMA? Teac SA-50 SACD/CD PlayerJapan Outlaws R4 CartridgeNew ‘Wolverine’ PosterToyota to Make Cars From Seaweed?GSX-R 1100 Show Bike Up for Grabs on eBay [...]



  2. Nintendo DSi Says:

    March 2nd, 2009 at 10:18 am

    Apparently the DSi will not work with products such as R4.



  3. Nintendo R4DS flashcard officially banned in Japan (Eclectic Electronics) Says:

    March 5th, 2009 at 5:41 am

    [...] Japan Outlaws R4 Cartridge (Digital Battle) [...]



  4. John Says:

    July 5th, 2009 at 1:24 pm

    Thanks for the great post. R4 DS is a Nintendo DS flash card, also know as R4 Revolution. The build quality of R4DS is top notch, The R4 DS GUI is user friendly.
    —————–
    r4 software



  5. DSi Console Says:

    July 14th, 2009 at 7:02 am

    Some guy told me inside the dsi console is a sticker with “hack goes here” I m not going to open my ds console to see though :-



  6. R4 card Says:

    July 27th, 2009 at 3:14 am

    r4 cartridge saved my business. This is simply unbelievable! Man, this thing’s getting better and better as I learn more about it.



  7. R4 Says:

    November 19th, 2009 at 7:56 am

    Another great post.
    Thank you for the information, Its good to see such quality posts.
    Im subscribing to your blog.
    Keep them comming



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