Nintendo DS Downloads Shut Down

The R4 and other forms of the DS storage devices The R4 and other forms of the DS storage devices wreaked havoc on game sales particularly for Nintendo’s DS games. Games like the newest version of Pokemon, Mario, Zelda and other ‘hot’ games were readily available after a couple of days after their release on the Internet. “It’s a blatant exploitation of our work and the money that goes into all this”, scorned a representative of Nintendo. All the downloads worked perfectly, there were no restrictions nor exact punishments for those who pirated the games. Connect the chip to the computer via printer or other device, download, open, move the files, pull out the chip, return it into the slot located back in the DS, and play. Simple.

The only cost to the DS owner is the chip itself for as low as $12, which obviously does not equal to a sum of perhaps $60 for several DS games. Of course, the ‘paradise’ for Nintendo DS owners slowly faded away.

Nintendo, Square Enix, Capcom, and other game companies started to crusade against these storage devices starting in Japan. In an almost, easy legal ‘battle’, Japanese courts in 2008 ruled that the R4 chip and similar devices were illegal in the nation of Japan which quickly clamped down on the songre quiet, back-alleyway sales of these chips in the Japanese gaming market.