The High Court in London has ruled that so called 'game copier' chips, which allow Nintendo DS owners to run pirated games, are to become illegal in the UK. The judgement against Playables Limited means that the devices cannot be imported into, marketed or sold in Britain. Game copiers, also known simply as storage devices, fit into the DS cartridge slot and bypass the security systems; this allows users to insert memory cards which can be loaded with pirated games downloaded from the internet.
The chips are often advertised as 'back up' devices, as owners can also save their own DS games onto cards – although this apparently legitmate practise was always a murky and legally ambiguous justification. They can also be used to play video files and MP3s on a DS, and are utilised by 'homebrew' coders to run home-made games and applications. Indeed, it was homebrew programming that Playables Limited cited to defend its products. The appeal, however, was rejected.
Earlier this year Nintendo blamed a 50% fall in Nintendo DS software sales on piracy. And in June, Japan's Computer Entertainment Supplier's Association produced a top 20 list of the most pirated DS games. The total illegal download figures came in at over 19 million, costing publishers 86 billion Yen.
The problem, of course, is that the sale of similar storage devices is rife on the web – and not just for the DS: there are mod chips available for most current consoles, which all perform a similar function. Nintendo claims that over 100,000 game copying devices have been seized since 2009. This is likely to be a fraction of those coming in to the country.
So, do YOU own a game copying device? How do you use yours?
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