Piracy Costs Nintendo $1 Billion?

Nintendo said in a report given to US Trade Representatives that it lost $975 million dollars worth of revenue from pirated DS and Wii games. While the report is definitely an exaggeration because Nintendo claims that every game that was pirated would have been a sale, the number is still quite staggering.

Much of the piracy may be due to the R4 cartridge, which has been a bane of Nintendo since its introduction. While the R4 can be used for good and noble purposes like user created DS games, it is generally employed as a tool of piracy, allowing users to download games and then play them on their DS.

Piracy, once associated only with PC gaming seems to be slowly spreading onto consoles. Mod chips on the original XBox were something that required technical know-how, but now it's so easy to pirate console games. The big three will definitely be looking for ways to fight back against the pirates.

Source: Bit-Tech