More juicy details have now emerged from yesterday's now infmaous R4 court case, and the news is worse than we thought. The extremely thorough ruling details all devices and methods designed to circumvent Nintendo's copy protection, specifically covering "the shape of the connector arrangement of the slot on the DS and the corresponding shape of the game cards designed to fit into it; the boot up software permanently stored on the Nintendo DS, which checks for the presence on an inserted card of the Nintendo Logo Data File (NLDF) and prevents execution of programs present on the inserted card if the NLDF is not detected; and the use of shared key encryption technology and scrambling to enable the DS to detect whether game cards are authentic."

That means that any device designed to get around this protection using the above methods is now officially illegal, and the case itself specifically names the R4 DS, M3 DS, DS One Supercard, DSTT, DS Linker, Acekard, CycloDS Evolution, N5 and EZ devices.

It's worth noting that it is still legal to own flashcarts, just not to sell or advertise them. Readers interested in the exact details of the case are recommended to go read the full breakdown over at Eurogamer.

Ladies and gentlemen, boys and girls, it is with heavy heart that I must write this blog post today. You see, the popular R4 flash cartridge for Nintendo DS was officially declared illegal in a London high court today, making it against the law to sell, promote, or advertise this card in the UK. Unfortunately that means that we, too, have had to withdraw this card from sale, and a quick Google search reveals that our competition in this area have taken exactly the same approach.

Opponents of the card argue that it enables piracy, and therefore enables others to break the law and seriously impact the gaming industry (of which we are, of course, huge fans). Supporters argue that the cards allow gamers the convenience to carry all of their games with them on one cartridge, and that the music and video playback, homebrew games, and ebook reading far outweigh the fact that a few people do decide to use this device for piracy.

Regardless of which side of the fence you sit on, the truth of the matter is this: R4 cards are no longer available for sale.

Fortunately, the R4 is a very small part of what we do, and while it is sad to see it disappear from our virtual shelves, hopefully this means that we can expand our range in other directions. As far as we can see, the ruling does not affect the Acekard 2i, so we are selling off our (extremely limited) remaining stock of this card before withdrawing from the flashcart business permanently. (see update)

Thanks for your understanding, and don't be a stranger.