Yep, you heard me right. The R4 flashcart, that seemingly-innocent little bit of plastic and metal you see above, is now well and truly against the law in the UK. That’s according to the High Court in London, who apparently decide these things.

Say what you will about the cartridges (they do make the DS a lot more useful as a media device and ebook reader), but it can’t be denied that these things get used for piracy by a lot of people.

Defendant Wai Dat Chan, of Playables Limited, argued that the cartridges should be legal as they enable the use of homebrew applications. Unfortunately the court ruled that, as the carts must circumvent the DS’s piracy protection to do so, they should be well and truly on the wrong side of the law.

A statement had this to say:

“Nintendo promotes and fosters game development and creativity, and strongly supports the game developers who legitimately create new and innovative applications. In the UK alone, there have been over 100,000 game copying devices seized since 2009.”

“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 ruling follows similar action across much of Europe and Japan in recent times. Read more about the case here.

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