R4 Completely Illegal in Japan

[Smartpal]

It's a flashcart for the DS. This spells bad news for the flashcart industry and for DS owners. Stock up on your flashcarts lol

 

[imz]

Noooooo!! They found us! Everyone run for it!!

 

[tjas]

R4 was the card back then,

But now there is just so much better out right now.

They brought this on themselves by advertising it like hell.

Also, how much do you think they paid that guy in the picture?

I still have an R4.. bought it when it wasn't mainstream yet.. but it still works.. so I find no need to buy another one!

 

[nic0804]

haha, I just got back from Tokyo yesterday and people were openly selling R4's in Akihbara

 

[jbondsr]

You have to understand how things work here. (In Japan)
For one thing, the sale of R4 is still ongoing here. It's not as blatantly advertised as it once was, but you can still pretty much walk into any small PC shop in Akihabara and pick one up.
The popularity of such devices here is not as big as one would think.
Most people here are pretty content buying games legit for their consoles. Almost all the people I talked too with a DS have never heard of an R4-like device, or have little interest.
For the people who do have it, they usually don't go around showing it off to everyone. (Ownership of actual legit items is kind of a fashion/status thing here.)
And even if they do, they usually still buy a few games on occasion.

So while it may be a problem for Nintendo and other developers on a global scale, I personally don't think it's that big of an issue here in Japan.

 

[Deleted-119707]

there selling them down the road at a phone shop (not like phones4u or carphine warehouse. an accesory seller.)lol

 

[Dr.Stiles]

R4 Completely Illegal in Japan
Nintendo Crackin' Down

The R4 DS is now completely illegal in the country of Japan. The law in Japan now forbids the selling of R4 DS flashcarts.
Apparently, only the R4 is banned in Japan at the moment. I guess other flashcarts such as the Acekard or M3 are legal in Japan if used for homebrew/owned-backups purposes?

Not only was Nintendo responsible, but 53 other software-developing companies have formed a coalition to get these things off the market!
It seems like Nintendo is starting to crack down on the R4 DS flashcarts, as last year they shut down a major R4 distribution factory in China. Who's next?

'Today, the Tokyo District Court has found in Nintendo's favour and granted an injunction against sales of the R4. Most outlets had already stopped selling it due to the lawsuit's pressure, but it's now officially against the law to sell it in Japan.'

Source

Discuss

In CHINA

" They have authority there? Omg... Stupid overpowering Japanese people. Not that I don't like their culture... I just don't like their... bossiness.

 

[BAHIM Z 360]

F*CK YOU NINTENDO

........

 

[trumpet-205]

Let's look at this in a different way. While the court ruling forbids the selling of R4s in Japan, those who already owns R4s are not affected. This does not mean, however, Nintendo is not letting these people walk away without scratch. Remember that DSi can upgrade their firmware. Even when a hacker modifies a flashcart (could be any) to work on DSi, Nintendo will respond by releasing updates to block it. Unlike other territories, DSi is more of a replacement for older DS in Japan (though DS Lite still exist in the market for Japan). This will affect a lot of gamers in Japan. Whether this will affect western countries remains a mystery. The point is that the banning of R4s in Japan is the first sign of Nintendo actually taking an aggressive approach on flashcarts. This also means that Nintendo and game developers felt threaten by the introduction of flashcarts. Flashcarts can be use for piracy or hoebrew. Apparently, the number of flashcarts being use as a piracy tool has affected the sales of the game. Even so, why Nintendo become aggressive at this point?

What I'm going to say might sounded bias, so watch out! - Correct me if I'm wrong!

* Remember, Nintendo and other game developers only release games because they feel they can score a nice profit.
* As in any market, there is always competition.
* In this case for Nintendo their primary competitors are PSP, flashcarts, cellphones, and other handheld.
* What flashcarts can do is that they can become a medium for hosting commercial games at a lower average cost (since you only cost are flashcarts)
* Depending on the number of people who use flashcarts for commerical gaming, it determines the strength of demend for these carts.
* In economy, flashcarts that are use for other purposes such as hombrewing are complement to DS games, while flashcarts that are use for the purpose of piracy are substitute to DS games.
* In the case of piracy, we are talking about an unfair competition (Not to mention other competitors also benefited from this too).
* When firms (Nintendo and other company) suffering unfair competition, their incentives of introducing games is in doubted.

They can correct this situation by,

* Reducing their supplies (which would rise their equilibrium price back up).
* Filing law suit for unfair competition towards flashcarts (R4 is the unlucky one).
* Decides to exit the market (very unlikely, last resort).
* Collusion (Companies all working together for potentially waging a price war - nasty one, like OPEC).

Does this means I'm supporting Nintendo's decision? No, that is not my point. My point is that Nintendo needs to develop a plan for a better competition. Say implement a stronger means for anti-piracy (whether that is physical or firmware), promoting homebrew (this is a big one, I always hope they would do this), lower prices (not constantly, that would be a price war then!), improve existing games and introduce unique new games in terms of gameplay. Should Nintendo is out of the gaming market, other competitors like PSP will be happy about this. For Sony they can potentially lower the game quality and rising prices (since big compeitior like Nintendo is out of the market) to earn more profit and lower their production cost. For flashcarts manufacturers this means they can rise the price of flashcarts (if they choose to). While Nintendo is in my opinion, not a good model for gaming industry, their existance in the gaming industry is quite important. The banning of sales for R4 is the initial chemical reaction for banning the sales of all flashcarts. Like I said before, we don't know yet how other countries and companies would react toward this. For Japan however, flashcarts probably will soon disappear in the gaming industry market.

I do believe that flashcarts with purpose of homebrew is going to help Nintendo produce better quality games.

 

[cocomonk22]

From Kotaku:
Court Injunction Or Not, R4 Devices Still On Sale In Akihabara

 

[baronluigi]

LOL, they have banned a dead and uncontinued flashcard... What a weird thing xD

 

[dilav]

man, im late on my news...anyway what about M3 Simply and the R4 clones...

 

[Logue]

As expected...

It seems that it is ordinarily sold not only at Akihabara but at west Nihonbashi in the stall.
Anyway, a price is a rip-off.

If it is such places which can be bought for 500-600 yen (with shipping cost) by a foreign-countries mail order, although it is memory attachment, it is sold for about 4000-5000 yen.?(The price of the microSDHC card of 4G is 1000 yen.)

Although it tends to be thought that it was targeted at "R4", all the adapters are targets. In Japan, such an adapter is well called "Magic Computer."(?????MagiCom) R4 will come out mostly because name recognition is higher than the adapter of others to the extent that it is used as a pronoun of an adapter.

Well, those more knowledgeable think that they are almost uninfluential in practice since it is natural to purchase by a foreign-countries mail order by DX etc. ordinarily.