Nintendo has always had issues with piracy on their platform, but things really went into overdrive with the Nintendo DS. Piracy got so bad on that platform that Nintendo and other devs were losing out on thousands of potential sales, and that experience is what paved the way for Nintendo’s extremely aggressive tactics nowadays. Unfortunately, Nintendo’s piracy struggles during the DS era have now come back to haunt them.
The image above comes from an online auction listed by the Tottori Prefecture local government. The lot was put up for roughly $7 and seems pretty innocuous at first glance, but a closer look shows that this bundle of hardware/software is basically heaven for the gaming pirates out there.
As you can see in the picture, this DS comes with flash cards that can be used on the portable to play whatever ROM you can get your hands on. These were the go-to devices for pirates back in the day, with these flash cards being stuffed to the gills with illegally-downloaded/ripped ROMs. These devices were so prevalent that even moms and dads were buying them via online actions, having no idea that the products were filled with ill-gotten games.
If you’re wondering how this popped up online, the explanation is actually pretty simple. The Japanese government will often put up auctions for items that have been seized by the authorities. It’s clear that’s exactly what happened here, but whoever put the auction together had no idea what they were actually selling. Since this was brought to their attention, theTottori Prefecture local government has since taken the auction down.
AloJapan.com