Japan has finally all but stamped out the sale of R4 cartridges (used for pirating games on the Nintendo DS), by putting an import ban into place.
A sales ban was issued three years ago, but it’s seldom been enforced – Japanese police made their first arrest this year.
Nintendo has been pressuring the government for quite some time to close the import loophole, but it’s probably too late to make much of a difference now. DS sales have predictably dropped since the release of the 3DS, and R4 cartridges have been available since 2007.
Perhaps if the ban had been implemented years ago it could have boosted Nintendo’s sales, but at this late time it’s unlikely to show much of a result, as there probably not too many new DS adopters.
The UK banned sales of the cartridges two years ago, although their use is still widespread.
Source: Eurogamer
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I don’t think it’s too late…
The old R4 cartridges aren’t compatible with the 3DS and you have to buy a “3DS ready” R4 cartridge if you want to play your pirated NDS games on the new console.
I also assume this R4 ban will stay in effect for any R4 cartridges that allows actual 3DS games to be pirated – so win either way if you ask me.