# Is it all coming to a end?



## Eternal Myst (Jul 30, 2008)

QUOTE said:
			
		

> via  Game Industry
> 
> *Nintendo: 30,000 illegal pirate devices seized so far in '08
> *
> ...



Bastards!


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## pilotwangs (Jul 30, 2008)

Shame,good thing I got my flashcarts while I did.


Does this mean nintendo's next handheld won't have flashcarts?

I mean,If Nintendo stopping them now for the DS,I presume they're gonna take even more action for they're next handheld.


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## granville (Jul 30, 2008)

Stopping piracy is like cutting off a hydra's head. 3 more grow back where the first one was. I can also use the mythical phoenix bird as a reference here.

In other words, this won't do much.


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## jcm4 (Jul 30, 2008)

Damn them.  
	

	
	
		
		

		
			




http://tinyurl.com/6cjo3q


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## ojsinnerz. (Jul 30, 2008)

I just hope my friend, who borrowed my flashkart at the moment, doesn't do anything stupid to make me actually lose the cart.

Also, piracy will prevail.


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## Satangel (Jul 30, 2008)

They worked with enforcement officials in Belgium, China, Denmark, France, Hong Kong, Italy, Korea, Netherlands, Spain, UK, and the US.
Why in Belgium too? Cmon we're so small, take another country like Germany or Australia or someone else, but not us!


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## WildWon (Jul 30, 2008)

Hmm. Now lets look at this real quick. Flash carts have been around for years. YEARS and years. Now Nintendo is trying to stop them. How many small/unknown companies have been putting out (yes, i know... shitty, but still) cards? I agree 110% with the "Hydra" analogy. This wont end. We'll see major companies being shut down... and that REALLY sucks.

But this will continue. There is no real threat to the Flash Cart community. This is just a speed bump.

However i also give a +1 to  "...good thing I got my flashcarts while I did."


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## pokemongalaxy (Jul 30, 2008)

lol this crap encourages people to buy more...ps: good thing I already have a m3dssimply,ak2,sc ds one!!!
MAYBE, IF COMPANIES LIKE R4 DIDNT ADVERTISE THE PART WHERE the r4 can play games (but it still could), then nintendo wouldnt be able to sue their asses


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## Whizz (Jul 30, 2008)

Most/all Dutch webstores selling/installing Wii modchips and selling flashcarts had to stop because of a Nintendolawyer. It makes me sad.

I'm really glad I modded my Wii early and got some flashcards before the incident.

I can still import R4's, M3's and TTDS's from Germany however.


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## BurlyEd (Jul 30, 2008)

"The Sky is Falling" - Henny Penny and BurlyEd.

Luckily I have 2 R4's, 2 DSTT's, an EDGE and a SCDS1.
Plus I have 2 (probably junk) "R4 Advances" on order from VolumeRate.
Plus 646 .nds files (>27GB) backed-up.
And I have 2 3in1's to use with NDS_Backup_Tool_3in1 for dumping retail carts or playing GBA games.

I am about as ready as I know how to be.  Bring it on!


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## fenthwick (Jul 30, 2008)

http://kotaku.com/5030798/is-nintendos-leg...elping-r4-sales


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## WildWon (Jul 30, 2008)

fenthwick said:
			
		

> http://kotaku.com/5030798/is-nintendos-leg...elping-r4-sales



lol i saw that earlier... but if nintendo stops the production... then this sales hike will create a drought. I'm not WORRIED about it, but it'll only spike for a short time until supply is killed. I still stand behind my idea of a flood of cheap cards coming from all directions... but still.


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## silent sniper (Jul 30, 2008)

granville said:
			
		

> Stopping piracy is like cutting off a hydra's head. 3 more grow back where the first one was. I can also use the mythical phoenix bird as a reference here.
> 
> In other words, this won't do much.


That's actually a perfect analogy. Good luck, Nintendo! You'll need it!


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## Celice (Jul 30, 2008)

After reading the first headline, about how many were confiscated, I kept remembering threads about people who accidentally sent in their modded Wiis...


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## FAST6191 (Jul 30, 2008)

The only bad thing I can see is that if it goes through there is the potential to challenge sony vs betamax and sega vs accolade (two fundamental US court rulings a good chunk of the electronics industry is built on and both are somewhat under fire right now).

Wii chips (up to D2c anyhow) are basic programmable chips (the more advanced ones are nothing special either) and no place in the list lacks a route in (Japan + HK have mainland china and even Russia, Europe mainland has Russia, Scandinavia and various principalities/"states" not party to this), the UK has Scandinavia, the US has Canada, Antigua and Mexico.
Seriously hampering trade is not going to happen right now either (also if they can handle something as simple as drugs and people smuggling what possibly makes you think they can stop something the public is barely aware of much less comprehends).
This does not even mention the possibility of internal manufacture/assembly (I have dealt with a few electronics companies with arms all over the place and loose "morals")

Nearly every country I have every been in has electronics, computing and even reverse engineering courses (reverse engineering was part of a normal engineering degree for me and forensic engineering (almost the sanitised name for it) is also available at all levels) as well as extensive information available for nearly everyone.

I can not speak for anyone else (although I am sure several would echo my sentiments) but for as long as I breathe I will be playing this game.


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## Panzer Tacticer (Jul 30, 2008)

The horror, the horror.

Fuck Nintendo.

Yeah their DS is a great hand held. Yeah their Wii is a great console. I won't say they ain't.

But their software (if it has Nintendo on the box they are taking some of the credit for it) is often abominable.

Oh and don't respond with "well you don't have a gun aimed at your head being made to buy it".

I shouldn't have to deal with a product type that is SO rife with schlock, that the verdict is guilty until proven innocent.

I enjoyed buying Civilization Revolution, but it's very rare a game of that calibre is offered to us.

More often they try to suck us in with Paint DS which was nothing short of an offense.
Games like Command and Destroy which should have been a dozen times better.
And products like Aquarium DS soon followed by Fantasy Aquarium which was nothing more than shameless customer exploitation. They could have combined both into one game, but felt that getting twice the cash was more fun.

If it comes to pass that they release titles that need not about to happen firmware upgrades, I suppose the choice to buy, or not, will become harder to make.
Won't bother me. Most of the games released, that need firmware patches fall under 1 of 2 headings.
1. Shit that never should have seen the light of day, and why do you care that you can't play it, it's shit after all.
2. Games good enough you shouldn't mind buying them anyway.

Final Fantasy IV for instance. If you bitched about waiting and waiting and waiting because you wanted it so badly, why not just buy the f**king game, and stop worrying if your piracy product won't run it?

Don't wait for me to care if your useless level of income can't afford it.
Life sucks, you can't have everything.

It's really a bit too late for Nintendo though. Everyone that wants to have the capacity to use these flash carts, already has one.
And those that don't well suck it up, you'll just have to wait till the next cool tech device is invented.


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## Lupigen (Jul 30, 2008)

Eh, this news was already posted a few topics below this one. As for that topic, it addressed some of the points. Mainly that the Cyclo board going down is most likely a routine case of their site exceeding their bandwidth limits. They should be back up when their bandwidth period finishes in a few days.


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## wiimodder69 (Jul 30, 2008)

Pirates account for a small percentage of losses.The sales and profit generated from average joe public isnt even a comparison number.sooooo
I think nintendo is merley protecting thier investments and suppliers by coming up with some arbitrary number that really means..to be blunt.... means sweet fuck all to the bottom line. This is the important thing. Media hype is all. Reverse engineering is always going to prevail. A professor said it long ago. The introduction of the internet will kill copyright. It would seem this is true.


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## tinymonkeyt (Jul 31, 2008)

will they be able to track down the people that bought the items?


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## Twiffles (Jul 31, 2008)

Probably not.


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## Awdofgum (Jul 31, 2008)

tinymonkeyt said:
			
		

> will they be able to track down the people that bought the items?



This only affects the manufacturer, not the retailers.


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## DeMoN (Jul 31, 2008)

Yes it is all coming to an end.  Nintendo will send suicide bombers to blow up all flash card manufacturing plants.  They will capture and execute Team R4, Team Cyclops, Team Acekard, all the other flash card teams and the ROM dumping groups.  Then they will hire professional assassins to murder everyone who owns a flash card, including all of us.


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## MR_COW (Jul 31, 2008)

Piracy will never end. It's impossible to stop.


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## alex (Jul 31, 2008)

Oh no! I need to get a cart fast!!!! Is the Supercard DS-One any good?


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## Eternal Myst (Jul 31, 2008)

*Nintendo Sues Piracy-Enabling R4 Cart, R4 Sales Predictably Skyrocket*



			
				QUOTE said:
			
		

> Yesterday, Kotaku reported on Nintendo and 54 software makers filing an injunction to stop the sales of the R4 and similar devices in Japan. For the uninitiated, the R4 allows you to download DS games online and play them on your DS. Yes, DS piracy. And now said piracy is threatened! So what does that mean? R4 sales are through the roof. Hell, even I bought one yesterday.



*Source:*http://gizmodo.com/5031048/nintendo-sues-p...tably-skyrocket

Why is it always the R4?


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## Sir-Fritz (Jul 31, 2008)

Because We all know that those without an r4 arent worthy to have such a godly product.


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## DeMoN (Jul 31, 2008)

Eternal Myst said:
			
		

> *Nintendo Sues Piracy-Enabling R4 Cart, R4 Sales Predictably Skyrocket*
> 
> 
> 
> ...



The R4 is most synonymous with "DS flash card," seeing as it's the most popular and one of the first to boast 100% compatibility and MicroSD usage.


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## dark42 (Jul 31, 2008)

They're not losing much money over flash cards, they're basically printing money with the DS. Sounds like Nintendo's getting greedy!

IANAL, but I'm surprised it is legal for Nintendo to do what they're doing.  Flashcards are kind of like BitTorrent (or all P2P for that matter). They have legal uses (homebrew and media playback), now whether or not the consumer uses the flashcard for piracy should not be the manufacturer's responsibility (although they know perfectly well that they make most of their money from sales to pirates.) If BitTorrent is hurting the movie industry so bad, why isn't Bram Cohen in jail?

Although flashcards contain code to bypass the RSA sigcheck (or something like that) in the DS, so that makes them illegal in the US (and Flashme for that matter) under the DMCA. Ninty might be able to use that in court in the US. Realhotstuff, it's been nice shopping from you.


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## Gman 101 (Jul 31, 2008)

I hope Nintendy loses all their money here in Australia. I've ranted enough about high prices here and I don't think Nintendo really cares... even if we have a small population, we don't care 'cos it's almost parity with the US dollar and Americans are paying half our prices! Piracy is definitely a legitimate way for us Aussies, until Nintendo starts making us on par with the rest of the world.


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## enarky (Jul 31, 2008)

I'll quote myself from here instead of replying:


			
				enarky said:
			
		

> To get a bit of reason into this discussion: you people are aware that Nintendo goes after video game copier/flash cart producers every now and then *at least since the early 1990s?*
> 
> Read this letter from Nintendo for a laugh. It's from 1992, the oldest one I could find. It clearly shows that they know a little bit more about this stuff then one could imagine after reading the first post in this thread.
> 
> Really, things like this happened every few months in the past few years, I'm amazed at how agitated you people can get every time.


Does "cat and mouse game" mean anything to you? This is definitely not the end of the world.

And now move along, nothing to see here...


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## Doggy124 (Jul 31, 2008)

Fair Well R4....Their site is gone.


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## Gore (Jul 31, 2008)

Doggy124 said:
			
		

> Fair Well R4....Their site is gone.


Only partially.
http://www.r4ds.cn/download/r4.html


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## Searinox (Jul 31, 2008)

Coming to an end my ass. =\

The copyright concept needs to be reinvented, with an emphasis on sharing of information. Nintendo and any other company which has ever had to deal with intellectual property theft are fighting something too wide-spread whilst the people will keep on considering the copy and distribution of information an act so basic that they literally take it as a right granted by nature.

Yes there may come a time when things will be more difficult for flashcarts, and we will probably see a few stores shut down stopped from selling them, MAYBE get sued, and JUUUST MAYBEEE shutdown temporarily, but I doubt we will ever see the day when we'll want to buy a decent flashcart and there either won't be one online store in sight to buy from, or find out that their order was confiscated upon entering the country by postal customs.

As for Nintendo, they're about as n00b as the n00bs who keep recommending R4s. They're ravaging a deprecated, declining product like rotworms on a corpse. I doubt that is any sign of the flashcart world coming to an end. =\


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## Panzer Tacticer (Jul 31, 2008)

Nintendo profits up 34%

Oh they're suffering alright 
	

	
	
		
		

		
		
	


	




R4 = Kleenex

Hey someone had to be given the privilege. The rest will just have to settle for being labeled "tissues".


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## ndpndnt16 (Aug 1, 2008)

next Nintendo ds might be having built in memory so just download online!!!lol and you need to pay to play

*CURSE YOU NINTENDO!!!!!!!!!YOU GOT FAMOUS BECAUSE OF R4 REVOLUTION AKA R4 GENERATION*


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## ImpulsE69 (Aug 1, 2008)

There is no reason to get worked up. This has been going on since before many of you were born. The main difference now are the new electronic laws that were put in place in the USA. Now, those laws really don't apply to anyone outside the US, however companies are beginning to use these laws by strectching the their sphere of influence with the local governments. While I doubt it will get as bad as the satillite hacking gear raids ( yes, I know many people that recieved letters over those), it is quite possible that if Nintendo wanted to, they could sieze sales records and go after the end user. It would take quite a bit of moola to accomplish this. 

The thing is, every company puts out "trumped up numbers" of losses due to pirating, and this is what is presented to the government. No company has ever had to PROVE that they lost these amounts. There is no way they could, it's purely an educated guess based on what they think they SHOULD have made based on how many systems are sold and their "idea" of how many games the average user buys. They never account it to the fact that the games just suck and no one would have bought them anyway. They are simply protecting their investment, which is in their right. And I'm sorry...but the R4 did NOT make the DS popular. I don't think anyone truely knows the true ratio of people who use flashcarts vs. who actually owns systems (or mods vs systems in general).

Ok...this post was too long....done.


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## Cermage (Aug 1, 2008)

Gman 101 said:
			
		

> I hope Nintendy loses all their money here in Australia. I've ranted enough about high prices here and I don't think Nintendo really cares... even if we have a small population, we don't care 'cos it's almost parity with the US dollar and Americans are paying half our prices! Piracy is definitely a legitimate way for us Aussies, until Nintendo starts making us on par with the rest of the world.



exactly. we are paying double if not more for any type of video games when compared to the US. and around 25% more on consoles as well.


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## roses_108 (Aug 1, 2008)

Interesting, I think this will be interesting to see how it ends up. Either way I don't mind, I'll just buy my DS games legally I'm in NZ though and because I have a wii too I need to dish out quite a bit of money to get wii games(I have easily spend over 2-3grand on my wii and gamecube stuff) FYI I have 28 games in all. So the flash card helps me get more wii stuff cos I don't have to pay for DS games unless I don't wanna.


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## Rayder (Aug 1, 2008)

When Ninty prevents me from clicking the mouse button a few times to get what I want, then I'll worry.  Until then, meh.

I just ordered new slot1 and slot2 flashcarts (CycloDS & M3 Perfect).


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## WB3000 (Aug 1, 2008)

PaperPlane said:
			
		

> Doggy124 said:
> 
> 
> 
> ...



Hmm, so basically they took down their index pages.


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## superdude (Aug 2, 2008)

some links do dx don't work! so there taking down index's and maybe soon the sites


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## R2DJ (Aug 3, 2008)

DSTT team, you better fix your servers. Here we go again with the 1KB/s dilemma.

The hydra analogy is perfect for this situation. It's just inevitable. This situation is like "DS-X death meets Resident Evil zombie invasion". One flash cart's dead, infects other flash carts and all of it will die. But it is going to be stopped by something. 

I think a new handheld system that's WAY better than the Lite will stop this. 

And there I was thinking of trading in my Lite for SSBB. I'm keeping it and I'll rely on my only child, DSTT...

One more thing, should the flash carts cease production, does this mean an end for GBATemp quizzes where you get flash carts as rewards"?


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## ENDscape (Aug 3, 2008)

I think Nintendo is losing money because they try to sell crappy games and alot of it. I mean theres a game called Catz,Dogz, and all those other animal games. Why not just make one game with every animal in it? Seriously, they waste time making crappy games when they should make all those good games people will buy. Even though i dont think alot will buy them because theres always those ignorant people who brags about having no ds games. But there are always those fanboys who would buy them. Another thing is they sell their crappy games extremely high. I mean a 16MB game is $39 or something like that. So people would rather download it than buy it.

Anyways im not worried at all because piracy has been around for a long time. The worst thing might happen is a drought and then a few months later, everything will be back to the way it was.


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## Lumstar (Aug 3, 2008)

They could just charge based on cart size.

256MB- $39
128MB- $34
64MB- $29
32MB- $24
16MB- $19
8MB- $14


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## ENDscape (Aug 3, 2008)

theclaw said:
			
		

> They could just charge based on cart size.
> 
> 256MB- $39
> 128MB- $34
> ...



They should but they dont. All new games would cost $29 +. And they expect people to buy them.


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## Splych (Aug 3, 2008)

DeMoN said:
			
		

> Yes it is all coming to an end.  Nintendo will send suicide bombers to blow up all flash card manufacturing plants.  They will capture and execute Team R4, Team Cyclops, Team Acekard, all the other flash card teams and the ROM dumping groups.  Then they will hire professional assassins to murder everyone who owns a flash card, including all of us.
> ... that would be scary ...
> 
> 
> ...



agreed ... that would make more sense , only reason why most people buy flashcarts are because they can't afford all those games  
	

	
	
		
		

		
			




and add 384MB as $44 for people that want like all 3 Pokemons ( as an example : Emerald, Ruby, Sapphire ? ) Like that for an expample .

Would improve your list to be more like this :

400MB- $49
384MB- $44
256MB- $39
128MB- $34
64MB- $29
32MB- $24
16MB- $19
8MB- $14


that way Nintendo can have more games in one Cartridge !!


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## superdude (Aug 3, 2008)

Out of the game companies participating in the lawsuit an interesting fact is Square Enix has already implemented anti-piracy measures against the R4 in their latest game Drgaon Quest 5: Hand of the Heavenly Bride. Pirated copies of this game do not work properly when used with the R4.

read the end of this http://www.dailytech.com/Nintendo+Launches...rticle12528.htm

looks like nintendo's plan is back fireing http://www.kotaku.com.au/games/2008/03/nin...r4_carts-2.html
http://arstechnica.com/journals/thumbs.ars...and-sky-rockets

5 done how many are left? http://afp.google.com/article/ALeqM5iR0DMY...qcU3-kQxR2bAqbQ


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## ImpulsE69 (Aug 3, 2008)

Since when does the mbit size of a game have any bearing on the cost...and why should it? You could easily pad or add crap stuff to the game to make it bigger. You are forgetting that games are sold as GAMES, not by the byte. I think you are more looking at the "length" of a game (hours of gameplay). If that was the case though, most 360 games should only cost $10. 

Seriously...some of your viewpoints are insane. You buy flashcarts because you can't afford all the games? Did it ever occur to you you don't NEED every game? Just sayin... piracy isn't a right. It's a skill.


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## Splych (Aug 3, 2008)

superdude ~ right now im just wondering which 5 flashcarts are being sued ..

Impuls ~ that would make sense , and we musnt forget that they can be making the game a larger size by adding a longer ending where they show the credits O_O


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## DrKupo (Aug 3, 2008)

Christ guys. It's another raid, another batch of busts. Chill out!


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## NeSchn (Aug 3, 2008)

Well I have a Cyclo DS and an M3 DS Real now. So I am good. Even though I am planning on selling the Real after I am done with the review. My Cyclo has never shit out on my so far, but I always like to have a back up.


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## golden (Aug 3, 2008)

Everyone's panicking too much. Seriously, the world isn't going to blow up but looking at this in an intellegent perspective I would seriously have to say the below quote from one of the news quotes in the original post is VERY TRUE:



			
				QUOTE said:
			
		

> now might be a good time to score the requisite hardware -- *we might be facing a scarcity before too long.*



People saying nothing will change are clueless as are the people saying it's all over. What simply will happen is that nintendo will seize as much of all the carts they can and ban as much selling of it as they can. Big deal...they'll just get back on their feet after awhile and just make the carts again and find a new way to market them. 

What will really happen though is that through the publicity these lawsuites are getting, people who have no idea what an R4 is will then have it their dream to own a flash cart and with the seized carts and the sudden increase in demand they will be really hard to find for a short while and their price, just like oil, will skyrocket. What a smart person that owns one of these online stores like RealHotStuff or OzModChips might like to do is invest in buying like 500-1000 cyclos or something and when they hit their skyrocketed price due to demand they can sell them all off and make triple what they bought them for. That's a lot of money for selling pieces of plastic. 

You guys have to think realistically. Nothing big will happen like the world exploding. It will just increase in price and scarcity for a while then go back to everything being normal that is, IF the lawsuits are successful.


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## littlestevie (Aug 10, 2008)

Satangel said:
			
		

> , take another country like Germany or *Australia* or someone else, but not us!




they wont try tackling the problem in australia because it is legal here


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