Nintendo has won a small victory in its War on Piracy, which, like most “War[s] on [Idea or Concept],” is primarily a fool’s errand. A court in Japan banned the further importation of R4, a device that lets users, among other, legal uses, easily play pirated video games.
The ruling said that the plaintiffs— Nintendo was supported by other video game companies, including Capcom, Square Enix and Sega—had been negatively affected by the device’s existence. That is to say, the ruling concluded that, yes, piracy hurt these companies’ bottom lines.
Nintendo, as you may well know, is pretty damn aggressive when it comes to piracy. Remember that it singled out several countries last week for doing too little to prevent piracy of its products, asking the U.S. Trade Commission for help.
So yes, the R4 is now verboten in Japan. Of course, that means we should expect the release of the cleverly renamed 4R or R44 any second now.