..that this is being tackled finally. I'd like to hear Amazon's comments and see them tackled. Although its a market place item, they still make good money on each sale.

I object to the line "For every game pirated and so not bought. . ". This is a very old argument and doesn't hold water. I beleive there are 2500 roms available on the web.If you downloaded them all that would not equate 2500 lost sales.
If you look at the buy-through rate on XBL demos, that would probably give a better indication of the level of damage these R4 cards cause.

Finally! Glad to hear steps are being taken, still no comment from Amazon though, disappointing to not hear anything from them yet, and Simply Games comments basically amount to "well they were doing it so we are to" which seems to be childish and not helping the matter at all!

about time, we have been loosing very regular cusomters each week because of this, the consoles sell but no on buys games when they ca download for free, and everyone tells their friends famiy etc so it spreads like wild fire, a guy called me and asked for r4 i told him it was illegal to download and he said so is drink driving and people still do it so what.
If this is the mentality something has to be done !

I think completely eradicating it will be difficult, but the first big step is to get it out of the respectable retailers like Amazon. Its appearance on there is too much of a validation to less knowledgeable consumers. Mums must think 'well its on Amazon so it must be ok'.

From the opposite side of the problem, parents are pressured by their kids for the latest games. If they can't afford the £20-30 per game, a £10 card & £5 memory card seems like a much better option to them. The average parent doesn't care about the industry, only that they save money & their kids are happy!

And it's not just the 'tech-savvy' that know about these cards anymore, a lot of 'normal' parents do.

this problem really has got to be dealt with asap , we do not want what has hapened to the psp tohappen to the ds console. i am forever telling customers its illegal to pirate games, but the idea of saving money makes it to appealing, Nintendo, Sony and Microsoft must do more to protect their product or the game industry will end up like the music industry...DEAD

If you Buy one of these devices it is copyright infringment so it just mean you are a "Knock off Nigel " the industry needs an advert for copying of games parents set a great example for their kids dont they understand people jobs will be on the line

its an absolute disgrace that no one has stamped this out. use of these cards is spreading like wild fire and hardworking people in this industry are all suffering because of it.

Crush this Nintendo with immidiate effect - you must know whos selling them!!!

Of course this is good news - if it has an impact.
However, I do not think it is suprising how mainstream such things as R4 are nowadays - there are many "honest" people that quite simply do not see the harm in piracy. It does annoy me that people think piracy is ok, and that the honest amongst us will happily foot the bill in higher priced games etc.
However it is nothing new....I remember as a kid on the Commodore 64/Amiga etc everyone had pirated games then also, and being a kid, I didn't see any harm in this - maybe education is also needed to attack the problem, but who is going to spend the money on that ?
The simple fact is that one person who pirates games does not think they are affecting the industry.....but you get thousands of people with the same mentality and the industry can get screwed.

the R4 is actually quite useful to publishers for internal and sales purposes. The official EPROMs for test code are quite expensive and we never have enough to go round. The R4 has proved useful in sharing code internally and also with distributors in foreign countries. Just upload the file to ftp, download, drag and drop onto the R4 et volia.

HAVE SOME BALLS ELSPA. GET IT OFF AMAZON NOW Otherwise im gonna sell it! YEAHHHH. Actually im not, but i really want to. Im fed up of all the talk.

Seriously! In electronics and photo, its one of their most popular items. SORT IT OUT!!

And I trust Simply Games will not receive any more Wii Consoles, Mario Kart or Wii Fit, they simply dont deserve them and do not deserve to be part of our industry.

Amazon slightly different as it is a marketplace listing but I hope Nintendo can put some pressure onto Amazon, as you can with Amazon Marketplace sell anything (even terrorist manuals!)

The real problem is that the use of an R4 is not only cheaper but also -easier- than the use of legally acquired games. Not having to drag along 5-ish small, easy to lose cartridges with a -portable- console has a lot of value.
Plus a great portion of the DS game releases are just not that good in terms of quality, and are therefor hardly worth the money one has to spend on it.

I think nintendo should think about:
1. digital distribution for portables like the DS for the more hardcore gamers, possibly for a lower price range (the development cost of any DS game should be way lower than a currently same priced AAA title on a non-portable console).

and
2. Stricter quality control on the products released on the DS.

Combating piracy should probably be done but as shown in the past the effectiveness of this practice is questionable.

Dont give amazon marketplace any excuses

They know exactly what they're doing and they get a cut of every sale of these horrid industry melting cards

Elspa and Nintendo......Talk Talk Talk Blah Blah Blah

Its time for action. Let us see the criminals selling these cards being arrested on the ten o'clock news.

@13 I have a Ds with case and really how hard is it to not lose games? if kids are losing them tough, saying they want back up copies is a poor excuse, also saying some games are of poor value is as bad as the people who download movies and music, with the excuse " ohh its crap, I wouldn't buy it" so dont copy it then! if the games are of poor value dont buy them, let the publishers know that there games are not selling, piracy is never the answer and is never excusable.

I find it a bit harsh on the homebrew scene, but I can understand the majority of worries. I still don't see how people can be annoyed about this and not doing much about pre-owned sales. Retailers get around 50% of a game's price in profit anyway, so why should they be able to collect extra cash off pre-owned sales?

50%??? WOW what type of stores do you own/shop in? 50% margin would be fantastic!

@17

My kids lose them all the blooming time & they have cases.

they even manage to 'misplace' the retail packaging!

Kids grrrrrrr ;-)

this has nothing to do with the tiny homebrew scene - R4 cards are now mainstream and tens of thousands of them are coming into the country every week which are then loaded up with dozens of illegally sourced DS games, this is having a drastic impact on our industry.

Does no one remember the fate of the Amiga

Also, selling pre owned games is perfectly legal, like selling a used cars.

The point above about piracy being ok because the quality of games is poor is.....well...poor.
I do not think that those that happily pirate games are discerning between only pirating the poor games, and legitimately buying the good quality games, The fact is that piracy is easy, and games can be pirated in large quantities quickly - both good and poor games get caught up in this, as when something is free you will be much less picky.
Besides - if piracy becomes more widespread then cant it be argued that all games will be poor, as no developer will want to invest the money required to make a good game (or any game ?) if profits will be eaten up by piracy - it's a vicious cycle I am afraid, so please dont feed the problem by making such poor excuses to legitimise piracy - you are effectively blaming the industry for its very significant problem which is not correct (although your point about quality control is valid in any case).

I feel slightly ashamed to say i have an R4, and it has effected the rate at which i buy DS games- thats not to say i've completely stopped buying them, im just more cautious about how i use my money. I got the R4 for 'colors', and use it a lot more for homebrew than piracy, though im not going to say i've never grabbed a ROM or at a cash-strapped time thought to myself ' why bother buying X when i can just download it'.

My conscience always gets to me in the end- if i love a game i want to support the devs by forking out. I know not many people share that opinion however, so as much as i adore having acess to homebrew.. i agree something has to be done to stop this problem.

@Anon: What you are saying i syou could not afford to buy a game so you downloaded it? That is not a 'Lost sale' then and would have no impact on the industry. If you would have bought the game but decided to not to then you are making an impact, and should be bannished to hell for all eternity.

As a gamer, I am going to have to support informed piracy. The problem with games today, is that it is virtually impossible to rent games without subscribing to some kind of monthly plan. In the past, I would always rent a game I wanted to "see if it was worth buying". You just can't do that anymore, so the R4 is a way to try out DS games before you buy them. If there's a game that I want to buy, I would buy it regardless of whether or not I've played the rom. The rom might even help me decide to buy a game, because $35 is a lot of money to spend taking a chance on a new game. I'm cautious with my money, so if I don't know that I will like a game, I won't pay full price for it. Now that I'm rambling in circles, I'm going to end my post without making any good arguments.

@25 your argument is valid so far as I think it fairly represents the mentality of those that think piracy is ok. The fact is, even with best intentions, only a small percentage of this "try before you buy" attitude translates into game sales.
It is true that better quality control is needed as it is just as unfair when the market is splattered with full price "shovelware" games of poor quality - this rips off the consumer - but the sad fact is despite the arguments that piracy is ok, it can only damage the industry in the long term.
There are other avenues in order to avoid buying bad games, such as magazine reviews although your opinion may differ (try looking at gamerankings.com or metacritic for a cross section of reviews). Also - some stores do offer a return period where you can return the game if you dont like it, although I am sure this is exploited to.

I believe stopping sales of the R4 and other such carts may aid games developers in reducing piracy, however it's doubtful that EU games sales will increase as a result. The cards are already in gamers homes and roms are continually provided a few days if not hours after their release.
Though I agree piracy is wrong and is wreaking havoc in todays entertainment industry, but from a gamers point of view these cards offer a convenience and additional features that cannot be simply bought on todays UK market.
A built in MP3, video and image player as well as all being contained on the same cart as roms/homebrew games even emulation of other games systems is exceedingly conveniant. You never need to swap cartridges meaning if you take your console out on the road all you need to bring is the console, no extra cases or accessories.
And the ability to acquire games before they are launched in the UK by downloading US roms MONTHS in advance of the EU release makes this an even more attractive choice for the hardcore gamer.
Why games companies don't take these ideas onboard before simply shouting at retails to stop sales is baffling. If these carts are ruining sales why not offer gamers a more attractive - non piracy option.
Sell us a cartridge that we can load music onto. Sell us the carts at the same time you launch them in the US and they might make more progress. Most gamers (Myself included) would gladly pay for an official Nintendo alternative to the R4.

I wonder if Nintendo are even bothering to attempt at stopping this as taking R4's off shelves is a waste of time. Granted you will reduce future sales but the damage was done a long time ago. Its too late to prevent it, now its time to react and deal with it with a proper solution.

Please note that there ARE people who buy these cards simply for the fact that they allow you to program your own games for the DS. Also note that piracy cannot be 'stamped out', as any security system has flaws.

these cards arent illegal and never will be if you buy a flash cart you cant do anything with it untill you buy a memory card to put in it all it is is a piece of plastic weither you buy the mem card is down to the consumer and they aint going to ban memory cards antime soon!

if they make these illegal theyl just alert more people that thay exist the companies will sell more flash carts because kids think its cool to warez games cause its now illegal and itl kill off the booming hombrew scene which is what i use my 2 flashcarts for at the mo i love using moonshell to listen to my legal mps3 and watch my backed up dvds i own while on the move without a flash cart you cant do this so its a bonus and probably sells more ds's simply for that reason alone

I pirate everything I can to save money.

Goodbye.

When these retailers in the Caribbean stop doubling the prices of all video games, movies, and music I will stop them. For me to buy an original XBOX 360 game I have to pay $600 of our dollars. A DS game is $400. I only work for $4500 and over half of that goes to bills. I'm sorry, but i will continue to d/l these roms until the second set of criminals in the Caribbean are regulated. And if they never get regulated I will never stop. So don't try to stop us personal crooks and leave the commercial crooks alone. It isn't fair to us.



Do the math:
1 USD = TTD 6.3
XBOX 360 Premium: $3600
Nintendo DS: $1350
Nintendo Wii: $2900
Playstation 3 40GB: $5000

Is that really fair to the consumers?

I have one for homebrew and to store a copy of all the games I bought, heck I use it to emulate some other system games that I own as well. The consolidation feature is what I love the most. If a device such as this was official and allowed me to DL a game directly to a regulated cartridge then id be all for it.

There are quite a few things you can use these flash cards for other than piracy. Homebrew games being one of them, also web browsers, instant messaging programs, organizers, video and music playing as well. Not everyone that owns one of these devices is going to pirate their software.

Well the truth is people don't want to pay £30 for a game. I work for a big entertainment retailer in the UK and a lot of customers don't want to fork out £30 for a DS game when there are great titles on the Xbox 360 which they will get more play out of for same price or cheaper.
There is no way the price of a DS game needs to be at £30. If they did digital downloads they would make way more profit.
Yeah thats it lock up these people, our jails are already over flowing, id rather that my taxes were not wasted on this.
The world is changing, conventional distribution is changing, you can buy a CD single in a high street retailer for £3 or 79p on iTunes.
With the rising cost of Food, Oil and utility bills no wonder people flock to a cheaper alternative.

this article is gonna just make more people research the R4DS, and more people will buy them!!!!

many people have purchased NDS's in addition to these.
this article doesnt mention the increase in the purchases of the HARDWARE!!!

@37
Hardware Isn't the issue here it's software where console manufacturers get their revenue from, through licensing. And , obviously, Its where games publishers have to make their own cash.

Has anyone taken a look at the reviews on Amazon? Take a look. There are lots of families by the look of it using the R4 cards to obtain multiple copies of games to keep little Billy , Johnny and Agnes happy. Socially accecptable piracy by the middle classes.

I've been a developer for 21 years and what really pi**es me off about all this is that I can guarantee, 99% of all you "innocent victims of this heinous crime", have got copied software on your pc, listen to MP3's of music you don't own, watch pirated DVD's and download TV shows from the US. But of course, you'll all be happy to ignore that when you can make some noise about something that affects "you" instead. Stuff the musicians and the actors, you sell/play games, so that's all you care about.

What annoys us devs more than piracy is hypocrisy, especially with journalists. Maybe most of you can't remember Morpheus on the C64 and the damage a certain journalist did to that game. Bottom line is, don't complain about one aspect of something when you're quite happy to partake in another aspect of it.

Perhaps we should just stop the sale of all recordable media, I mean, without the memory-stick duo, you can't play pirated PSP games, without SD cards, the R4 would have no storage media, without blank DVD's, you can't copy games...

I know, just switch off the internet, then you won't be able to download anything and that will stop all the problems. But of course, that will stop you all getting your MP3's, films and TV shows, so we can't have that can we?

I used to use the GBA flash linker as a GBA developer, in fact without one, I wouldn't have got a job as a GBA coder. Cards like the R4 have meant I can familiarise myself with the DS architecture without forking out multiple thousand pounds for a dev kit.

Over 15 years ago, I worked for a company that had 6 artists using 2 copies of 3D Studio (a £2000 package, before it became Max), work that one out. And this was a multi-national company with branches across the globe. Yes, that's right, some developers make games with pirated software... shock horror!!!

I'm sick of listening to pirates complaining about piracy... give it a rest already.

My self-invented thought for today... "never give a clue to the clueless"

@ LeeC

What is your point ?
If you were a musician or movie man I would understand, but as a developer I dont see why you are complaining about people complaining about piracy, an issue that would effect you if you are a developer.
Also - I dont think it is fair of you to attack everone on here that has spoken up against piracy - where do you get your figure of 99% from ? Also - even if there is some hypocrisy, just because piracy has affected the music industry and "x" percentage of us have pirated music it does not mean we should sit back and also let the games industry go the same way. The problem is that a high percentage of us probably do have pirated music/videos - that is because illegal downloads etc have become so wide spread that it is pretty much mainstream these days, so your figure of 99% may not be too far wrong - but do we want to see video game piracy also become so wide spread and socially acceptable ?
Also - I am still struggling to understand the people on here that state that piracy is ok since the games are so expensive - I admit that this is an incentive for piracy, but does not make it the least bit right - it is stealing. Do we steal expensive cars just because we cant afford them ? Only in GTA (I hope). It is only because it is so much easier and so widespread these days that we probably wont get caught that we do.
I am talking about piracy in general - your point about the R4 merely being a storage device and not the pirate itself is right and we did not have people calling for blank video tapes to be banned back in the day - but the problem is we all know what it is used for (shall I also pull a blind unsupported percentage out of the air ?) - 99% of the time.

I work in an independent video games shop and when we had the R4 cards in stock, they sold like there was no tomrorrow.

However, the fact of the matter is that the sale of these cards is NOT illegal. Independent video game shop need as much business as possible to make money to survive, so although it may be true that the sale of these cards is affecting the industry as a whole, not selling these cards would affect retailers like ourselves [at my place of work].

At the end of the day, it is the end user ("The Consumer") who is downloading the games illegally.

If you want to stop R4 cards being used then UK suppliers must stop supplying them to those who sell them and Nintendo should go after the makers of the R4 cards and not the retailer who is simply running a business to make money to survive.

And the rubbish that sales are being affected isn't exactly true. A lot of our DS game sales are to adults/parents who own a DS or are buying the games for their children/family. It is only a small minority of people who are using the R4 card and downloading games instead of buying them.

CJ

I think the whole argument is an absolute load of *******s. The margins on new games have been squeezed so much that its not worth stocking new titles. The only money to be earned in this industry as an independent retailer comes from used items and peripherals. For years, Ive seen our margin shrink, and Ive also been stung with crappy allocations on best sellers from the likes of koch. Its simple, this industry gives two fingers to me as an independent retailer, therefore I give two fingers back and stock the r4 card. I couldnt give two hoots about the developers, and earn a very nice margin on my r4 sales. Why should I care?, and dont offer that age old argument about me affecting the developers by lowering their income stream. It simply isnt true. They would happily see me eradicated from the industry for merely selling used software, so why should I care about them? And its not like stealing a car whatsoever. Have you never heard of bodykits. People who cannot afford to buy a ferrari 360, choose to buy a toyota MR2 and have a body kit fitted. Its that simple. If parents cant afford to buy the latest releases, they will buy an R4 card, if they are aware of their existence, to save money. Id rather sell them an R4 card, than have them go to a local supermarket, and purchase a game from them which is probably retailing on their shelves for roughly the same price that I was charged from the supplier including VAT. So shove that argument up your ass. I hate this industry with a passion, and am sick and tired of being bullied by the supermarkets and online retailers such as Amazon and Play!!!!

All this talk about piracy is not going to achieve anything. Pandora's box is open, and content wants to be free.

We all know that retail is going to disappear from the games industry, which is great, and that we'll be downloading direct, which is great too.

The job for the remaining (ie useful - in terms of creating games, not just in terms of buying boxes for one price, putting them somewhere and selling them for another) part of the industry is to work out compelling content, service and business models which will encourage consumers to keep on spending.

We will all have to move away from 'boxed content' models to service-based services, as we have already seen to great effect on PC and will see on consoles this (and, much more, next) generation.

So - the DS is dead? We can't make money on it? Who cares? We closed the coal mines too and we're all still alive.

Let's move on from pretending we're going to beat piracy, which serves only to encourage people to keep paying ELSPA each quarter for their 'invaluable' service.

The future's very bright indeed.

The recent Mr.Modchip victory at the high court means this action isn't going to get very far without new legislation.

Well, I got M3 cos its better then R4, and as GBA games dont appear to be around anymore I can use it for that, and yes, DS games are overpriced, £30! An xbox 360/PS3 console game cost £30-£40! I see nothing wrong with this, its not like nintendo are losing money lately, or, well, sony are but thats cos PS3 Hardware is expensive, but these cards are not for the Hardcore gamer, I was told about it by a mum and I consider myself a hardcore gamer, so I got M3, I see simply games havent stopped selling the other cards, and I find it useful for emulators, homebrew and movies, my DS collection is huge, and I buy USA games as they come out months before EU and are far cheaper, a $30 US game does not equal a £30 EU game but somehow games companies make a $300 console in USA it will £300 in EU when rate of exchange is $1.9 to £1!! FFS! Why does EU get the high prices in comparison to Japan/USA? So, games companies should consider that, then maybe people wouldnt pirate, but its no different then copying Mp3s etc so why all the fuss, MP3 players are sold mass market...

I own an r4 and i barely use it for games. I tend to use homebrew apps and surf the internet. And pfft, who would pay $50 for a useless game

I spend almost my entire income on different types of games be it psp ps3 xbox 360 nintendo ds or pc and most of the time i have very little left so if theres a game im that desperate for I will pirate it simple as that, but only for the ds because ive bought so much crap for it, i feel im being screwed every time i just cant trust nintendo these days i mena £20 for whac a mole!!!
P.S Final Fatasy for xbox.
yeaaaaaaaah

If nintendo really wanted to surely they could go down the same route as what they did with the wii in placing firmware upgrade onto the DS card so that it diss allows the R4 and so fore...........

If piracy is killing the industry (YAWN) and losing everyone such a fortune, how come UK games revenues are up 42% this year?

http://www.eurogamer.net/article.php?article_id=180572

I don't believe most who buy these cards would have even bought a DS in the first place unless they could copy the games, the line that every duplicated game is a lost sale is clearly cobblers and used to inflate the size of the issue. If people really believe it they are delusional.
We've had this "the industry is collapsing" line since the 80's, here we are 25 years on from the first one I ever saw and I can bet in the next few weeks MCV will post a headline alluding to record sales, profits and installed userbases. The two don't reconcile.
It's not straight theft, it's duplication , it's the equivalent of a sweatshop making unauthorised copies of branded goods as opposed to stealing physical items. No one is physicaly losing anyone, you may be losing out on sales, you may have never made them in the first place and you know what you can't prove it either way.
The "problem" is simple really, DS games in the UK are twice the price of those in the US, they go up to a maximum of 40 dollars plus sales tax and usually float around 30-35 for brand new AAA titles, over here they start at 30 for the ones anyone wants and go up from there. The initial high prices and small used market for the top titles keeps the used prices high.
Bring the prices down to sub £20, £25 at a push, in line with the US, come down on the likes of Amazon etc. by not selling them products while they continue to sell these machines. Simple as that really, you'll never ever kill the distribution of roms and frankly you'd be mad to try but you can push the sale of these units underground and make them harder for people to buy.
And while we are at it, the likes of Sony who moan about piracy can stop selling DVD burners and blank discs...
And games companies spending a bit more money to come down on commercial piracy rather than little Johnny wouldn't go ammis, that nocked off nigel advert, he downloads films fro mthe internet, how pathetic is that, in any office I've worked if someones got a download film he everyones friend and can everyone have a copy please, it won't change behavior..