Piracy - Top Stories

Piracy - News

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  • 160

    News Ouya Heralds Emulation By Tweeting Image of Super Mario Bros.

    It wants Mario to be free, apparently

    Ouya - the Android-based, open source console that has the capability to run emulators - is now available to buy and has already whipped up a storm of controversy. Naturally, piracy is an issue that has surrounded the new console ever since its inception and will always swarm around it, but Ouya hasn't exactly...

  • 77

    News Nintendo Blocks 3DS Flashcard With Latest Firmware Update

    It didn't take long

    A short while ago a functional 3DS flashcard emerged into view that gave people the opportunity to play ROMS on their 3DS. ROMS are a particularly touchy subject as many do in fact use them as a means of backing up legally owned content. However, the Nintendo DS suffered greatly because of them as many flashcard users downloaded...

February2013

January2013

  • 62

    News Renegade Kid Clarifies 3DS Piracy Comments

    "If we cannot make money from developing games we can no longer develop games"

    Recently Renegade Kid co-founder Jools Watsham sparked off a conversation about piracy on the 3DS. In a blog post he stated that if piracy was to get bad on the handheld he would have no choice but to pull support for the system. In a second blog post on the topic,...

  • 74

    News Goodbye Galaxy Games Responds To Renegade Kid's Piracy Claims

    Indie developer says plenty of other factors contribute to poor sales

    Over the weekend Jools Watsham, co-founder of Renegade Kid, wrote in a blog post that he felt hacking into the guts of the 3DS would result in an increase in piracy - something that could force developers to stop supporting the system. Watsham pointed to the DS which suffered...

December2012

  • 156

    News Renegade Kid Worried About 3DS Piracy

    Hacking could cause developer to stop supporting the system

    It has recently been reported that a couple of hackers have broken into the 3DS, allowing them to run custom code on the device. They claim their motives are good — getting around the 3DS region lock for example — however games developers, as you can imagine, are less than pleased with...

November2012

  • 34

    News Naughty Nintendo Counterfeiter Sentenced To 32 Months In Jail

    Crime really doesn't pay

    Last month we reported that the ironically-named Justin Success Brooks was accused of selling thousands of counterfeit Wii, DS and DSi Nintendo games between 2009 and 2011 - pocketing himself up to £600,000 in the process - and that pleaded guilty to all charges. His court case was scheduled for November 9th, in which he...

October2012

  • 60

    News Counterfeit Nintendo Games Seller Faces Jail Term

    Made a small fortune pirating software

    Justin Success Brooks has been charged with selling counterfeit Nintendo games according to the Croydon Guardian. The 41 year-old's middle name proved to be innacurate as he was caught in an investigation supervised by Nintendo and the UK Interactive Entertainment association (UKIE). The two groups purchased...

July2012

January2012

  • 79

    News Millions of Wii Games Pirated in 2011

    Mario left all at sea

    The Wii may be in its twilight years, but a large number of its retail titles are still being being downloaded and played illegally. Website TorrentFreak compiled figures of downloads in 2011 from a number of sources and trackers, providing results for three major formats, though these are estimates rather than official...

July2011

  • 74

    News New 3DS System Update Warns You About Piracy

    Stern words indeed

    Remember when Nintendo warned using piracy devices may disable your 3DS? The latest 3DS system update may well have started that process. The update arrived yesterday with little fanfare, but here's the official description from Nintendo: System stability improvements and other adjustments Further improvements to overall system...

March2011

  • 100

    Rumour Using Piracy Devices May Disable Your 3DS

    So don't do it

    Nintendo has spoken before about the strong anti-piracy measures in 3DS, but there's been little more specific said. Now a rumour has surfaced that using a flash cartridge or similar device will actually render the console useless through a firmware update. A rough translation of a poster outside Japanese retailer Enterking reveals...

December2010

  • 53

    News Ubisoft Sticks It to Michael Jackson: The Experience DS Pirates

    Vuvuzela: The ultimate anti-piracy tool

    Piracy on the DS is a big problem for Nintendo as well as other developers, and if they can't beat the pirates, they might as well have some fun with them. If you're a software criminal, Ubisoft isn't making things smooth for you. One thing about this year's World Cup tournament that people won't forget is the sound of the vuvuzela and Ubisoft is using the..

November2010

  • 66

    News DS to Have Life After 3DS, says Nintendo

    Company will still bring big games to DS

    If you're not caught up in the whirlwind of excitement surrounding the 3DS and want to stick with your trusty DS, you'll be glad to hear that Nintendo still wants to bring major titles to the machine even after the 3DS is available. Satoru Iwata stressed the importance of quality software for the machine's...

October2010

  • 37

    News Piracy Not to Blame for Poor Software Sales, Says Iwata

    Blame must be divvied out more evenly

    We know that the DS has suffered a great deal from the impact of piracy, with many titles failing to gain the sales they deserved, in part due to the ease with which software is pirated on the device. Nintendo president Satoru Iwata isn't convinced the blame lies squarely at the feet of pirates however, acknowledging his company has a part to play in promoting..

July2010

  • 109

    News High Court Outlaws Flash Carts in UK

    Piracy? But that's not all they R4!

    The R4 flash cart has been the bane of Nintendo's handheld existence for years now, with the device widely being used to play illegally downloaded DS ROMs. Rampant piracy has made it especially difficult for third-party developers to reach projected sales marks, and is also the reason non-Japanese-speaking gamers...

  • 48

    News 3DS Anti-Piracy Measures are Too Sophisticated for Human Brain

    So says THQ man

    Nintendo's suffered badly at the hands of piracy this generation, although it's done its best to stem the flow with a series of court cases and lawsuits. With its next-generation 3DS handheld the company's keen to combat the problem still further, employing more preventative technology than before; technol

June2010

  • 65

    News The War on DS Piracy may be Hard to Win, but Iwata Optimistic with 3DS

    What modern tools can be utilised for the latest member of the family?

    Nintendo has always made efforts to combat the various forms of piracy its consoles has had to endure. From sales of illegal flash carts to the copying and distribution of retail games, individuals have been known to pay upwards of US$1.3 million should they get caught. The c

May2010

  • 24

    News Man Who Sold Modded Wiis Was In It for the Money

    Not a story from The Onion, we promise

    It may not be a huge deal but Japanese police have arrested a 52-year old man for selling modified Wii consoles and copied games after he made over £20,000 (about $28,000) selling the units over a two-year period. Selling the consoles for around ¥32,000 – ¥12,000 more than a standard Wii – the man reportedly made over ¥3,000,000 through the sale of..

  • 30

    News Nintendo Swashes Even More Pirates' Buckles

    After giving them fair warning, too

    Nintendo filed a lawsuit on May 11th against the owner of Queens-based NXPGAME, the company behind a website that gave its customers access to illegally copied DS and DSi software. Not that the Big N didn't give them a chance - after repeated communications between their legal department and the defendant, the crooks shut down their website, only to swiftly..

  • 36

    News Software Pirates Beware: No 3DS Booty For You

    Security tougher than a chastity belt... maybe

    Nintendo takes a hard stance on piracy, using cartridge-based games for its systems way past their use-by-date. Whilst more difficult to produce illegal copies of their intellectual products, it also imposes a certain limit to how much data the console had access to. With the upcoming 3DS, Nintendo is well aware of the modern age with its p2p mentality..

February2010

  • 59

    News Nintendo Wins Another Piracy Court Case

    Massive fine for Mario bootlegger

    Nintendo have won a court case where they took action against the James Burt, an Australian who illegally copied and uploaded for distribution the first pirate copy of New Super Mario Bros. Wii, a whole week prior to its official release in Australia. How was Burt able to get it so early? Well, blame that on an...

January2010

  • 69

    News British R4 Card Importer Shipping Off To Prison

    Guilty plea nets 12-month sentence

    Don't mess with Nintendo. British resident Yun Can Meng clearly didn't get the memo when he was busy importing approximately 26,500 R4 cards, as GamesPolitics reports that Meng has been sentenced to 12 months in prison for pleading guilty to the charge. Meng was sentenced in Hull Crown Court. R4 cards can be used to illegally download and play DS titles. They can..

December2009

  • 70

    News And The Most Pirated Wii Games Of 2009 Are...

    Plumbers, boxers, islands and zombies top the list

    BitTorrent news site TorrentFreak has compiled a list of the most pirated PC, Xbox 360 and Wii games of 2009. Modern Warfare 2 takes the overall scurvy cake at over five million downloads, with four of those on the PC side. But how about Wii? Unsurprisingly, the biggest Wii game of the year happens...

  • 33

    News Nintendo To Appeal French Flash Card Case

    Company "extremely disappointed" with ruling

    DS flash card manufacturer Divineo won big in France earlier this week, and Nintendo is not happy about it. A lawsuit filed by Nintendo against the company was thrown out in Paris’ Criminal Court earlier this week, with the judge saying that Nintendo should adopt a more open development system to allow anyone to create applications – like a PC, where..

October2009

  • 58

    News Nintendo vs R4: The Lawsuit and the Snitch

    A very un-Harry Potter like snitch website opens to combat R4 and their brethren

    A while ago Nintendo won a lawsuit against retailers that sold and distributed R4 and R4-like devices. In case you didn't know, these are essentially carts which allow consumers to pirate DS games. Since then, those retailers were sent notices updating them on the situation and were told to immediately stop selling..

August2009

  • 61

    News DSi Firmware 1.4 Defeated Already?

    It looks like hackers have already bested the new DSi update

    DSi Firmware 1.4 was released a week ago with the intention of stopping pirates from running questionable programs on the machine. However, it already looks as if someone has got the R4i running on a DSi system with the new firmware. The video below seems to show it all running perfectly:...

  • 213

    News Man Sentenced Over Pirated DS Games

    30 months prison and a whopping big fine

    Captain Jack Sparrow's popularity proves that everybody loves a good pirate, but not when they're stealing money from hard working developers and gaming companies. A 38 year old man was found guilty of breaking Copyright Law by the Kyoto District Court on Monday for using the internet to distribute pirated...

May2009

April2009

  • 14

    News DSi Contains Improved Anti-Piracy Technology?

    Early reports suggest that dodgy DS fakes are unplayable on the new machine

    If you’re keen on sailing the seven seas of piracy then you might be interested to know that early reports are suggesting that fake DS cartridges fail to operate on the shiny new DSi console. It’s still not known whether or not this is down to improved anti-piracy technology inside the DSi itself, but it stands to..

  • 23

    News South Korean President feeling sad about DS Piracy

    Special memory cards for copying vastly outsell actual games in South Korea with little sign of slowdown.

    In case you’ve just dropped onto planet earth and somehow ended up on here surfing a Nintendo website there is very popular phenomenon called a Nintendo DS. In South Korea it’s sold about 2 million console units since 2007, but software piracy has become a rampant problem in the region..

April2008

  • 0

    News Wii ‘Fraud Factory’ Raided In UK

    Thousands of Wii chips seized in thrilling swoop on criminal HQ

    A Wii 'Fraud Factory’ has been raided in Leicestershire, with over 2,000 chips recovered by Police. The factory itself was actually a house in the town of Coalville (which, incidentally is a five minute drive from the offices of NintendoLife – although we’ll point out that we had no involvement with this!). Police worked in..

October2007

  • 5

    News Mario Galaxy Hit By Pirates

    Reports surface that Super Mario Galaxy has already been pirated, two weeks before its scheduled release of November 12th.

    Rumours and hearsay surfaced over the weekend which eventually led to the discovery that the game had indeed been leaked onto the internet. This comes just over a week after Nintendo raided a huge warehouse in Hong Kong, seizing over 10,000 copy units for DS and Wii. Pirates..

  • 1

    News Nintendo Raid Hong Kong Pirates

    Nintendo go Kung Fu Hustyle over "Supreme Factory Limited" in Hong Kong, seizing over 10,000 products in one go.

    At Nintendo's request, the Hong Kong High Court has intervened to help stop a global distribution operation involving game copying devices and modification chips ("mod chips") that violate its copyrights and trademarks in the Nintendo DS™ and Wii™ systems. On Oct. 8th, the court..

March2007

  • 0

    News Nintendo Fight Back Against Wii Modders

    Nintendo have introduced a new motherboard into the Wii production to combat recent "mod chips".

    Reported recently by a number of sites, including technology magazine T3, it seems Nintendo have tried to block the gaps and stop the pirates. "The games giant has quietly slipped new motherboards into its consoles, narrowing the gap between critical solder points to less than a millimetre. It means..

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