Tokyo District Court bans R4 flash carts for DS

Along with 53 other companies, Nintendo has been working at the Tokyo District Courts to have DS compatible flash carts banned from sale in Japan - and yesterday it won its case.

Currently the ban only seems to apply to flash memory cartridges manufactured by R4, though Nintendo (and the party of corporate supporters) intend to pursue the remainder of the market to help stem the flow of piracy made possible by these devices.

The grey area here is the wealth of legitimate uses flash carts also offer, alongside their inherent similarity to such devices as DVD recorders, MP3 players and even computers - all of which offer the potential to aid in illegal piracy, yet offer indisputably legitimate functions as well.

Presumably the Japanese courts decided the ability for flash carts to easily play pirated DS games outweighed the lawful and justifiable operations - such as homebrew game and application programming.

Whether or not Nintendo will attempt, or have much success, following a similar legal route in other territories remains to be seen.