Nintendo of America announced on Wednesday that it has filed a lawsuit in the Southern District of Florida against the owner of HackYourConsole.com. The gaming company claims the website "blatantly" promotes and sells unauthorized Nintendo games along with devices and services that circumvent the security in Nintendo's DS Series handheld systems and the older Wii console.
"The operator of HackYourConsole.com has developed a global business focused on selling unauthorized copies of Nintendo games and game-copying devices (such as the R4 device) used to circumvent the technological protection measures contained in the Nintendo DS family of hand-held systems," the company states. "The website operator, for a fee, also provides services to hack and modify the Wii console and allow the play of illegal software."
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The website, established in 2012 and based out of Miami, Florida makes no effort to hide its true cause: to unleash the power of your console. The site states that it specializes in Nintendo DS/DSi/3DS Flash Carts, providing a product portfolio spanning microSD cards, R4 cards ranging from the R4 Dual Core to the R4i 3DS, Acekard products, the Supercard and the upcoming Gateway 3DS cards. There's reportedly even a portable hard drive that's pre-loaded with 200 Wii games although that seems to have been removed.
"HackYourConsole.com also claims to be an authorized distributor for the yet-to–be-released 3DS Gateway cards," Nintendo states. "The Gateway device is promoted as operating similar to the R4 game copier for the Nintendo DS, which facilitates the play of illegally downloaded games. Game copying devices, such as the R4, severely undermine the sales of video games created by thousands of developers."
The site states that R4 cards, which it sells, are not illegal, but the software dumped onto them could be. "There's plenty of things that are legitimately free for them," reads the FAQ. "It's the actual DS games that you download that are illegal. Backups and NDS ROMs are a touchy subject. If you don't own the game usually a backup is illegal. According to the law, you are allowed to have the software/games (ROMs) as long as you have purchased and own the original copy of the game."
Nintendo said illegal copying of video game software is an international problem that continues to "stifle growth of the creative development community." Nintendo did not provide the specifics of the lawsuit regarding damages or halting the site from conducting further business.
