R4 DS Emulator Card Ruled Illegal In UK

The venerable R4 card, responsible for spearheading the wave of DS homebrew development, has been ruled illegal for import and sale in the whole of the United Kingdom after years of lobbying from Nintendo to have such products banned under claims that it and related products encourage piracy.

Below are statements issued by Nintendo in the wake of the ruling:

“Nintendo promotes and fosters game development and creativity, and strongly supports the game developers who legitimately create new and innovative applications. Nintendo initiates these actions not only on its own behalf, but also on behalf of over 1,400 video game-development companies that depend on legitimate sales of games for their survival” 

The company also added there have been over 100,000 game copying devices seized in the UK since 2009.

The ruling sets precedent and solidifies the legality of the R4 and similar cards in the UK, as it affects those users that have long claimed that using the R4 to play homebrew games is not akin to piracy. While the ruling is worded to solely affect the R4, the availability and legality of other emulator cards may be equally affected.