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Nintendo DSi cracks down on R4DS carts

Posted by Al Warmington on Thu 6 Nov 2008

One week until a workaround gets released? Two?

Nintendo's newly released DSi is going down a storm in Japan, with the lion's share of the first shipment selling out in just two days. However, ol' Ninty wasn't just being generous with its updated hardware, improved screen sizes, additional cameras and new music player and photo viewer. The company also had an ulterior motive: to combat those infamous R4DS cartridges.

Not content with taking legal action against firms selling R4DS 'back up' carts, it has now been revealed that the new DSi won't let you use old R4s in the latest hardware.

One intrepid DSi owner has tried out a string of different R4DS models and each one of them is greeted by a polite error message.

Given that the DSi does most of the things that gave the R4DS some semblance of legitimacy, this isn't a particularly crushing blow. Even the 'back up' argument is a little defunct now that there's the new DS Store to download games from. And with this major counteraction made against the primary source of DS piracy, Nintendo will have an easier time convincing publishers to make games for the console.

That, however, would make the mistake of underestimating the skill of hackers and pirates. It's probably only a matter of time before R4DSi cartridges are developed.

Nintendo (via Kotaku)