Nintendo and the pirates

The focus of this post is a look at how piracy is growing day by day on Nintendo's two current systems. Both the DS and Wii became a platform for Homebrew at first but moved into something far more illegal, running current and old copyrighted games!

First the Nintendo DS has been swarmed with piracy as various unnamed companies continue to make cards that allow rom files to run game downloaded online. While I cannot talk about which websites and cards allow this just searching  on google opens up endless possibilities for DS owners. Even in the current economic climate most first party Nintendo DS games come in between £20/ 30 in the UK. This price compared to our US and Japanese counterparts could attribute to the rise of illegal gaming on DS here. The Wii has also become the victim of Piracy which can even be achieved without the traditional void console warranty mod-chip. Nintendo has countered the homebrew community on the Wii with system updates that can even remove installed homebrew!

 The question of does this obvious minority whom use these illegal methods effect the industry as a whole?

Well for nintendo I doubt it, the DS and Wii continue to sell through the roof across the entire world. Each months NPD numbers for Wii and DS sales still manage to impress compared to Microsoft and Sony's figures. I can only assume that people familiarity with Gamecube architecture attributed to the Wii piracy issue. The DS like the Game Boy Advance before it shows no sign of stopping illegal activities. Recently the DSi (A new incarnation of the DS) was hacked to run a homebrew, the first step to game piracy.