why do u even care?

Seriously though modding is illegal because the companies retain the rights to the machines even though you own it. Your owning is more like liscensing and modding it is tampering with their intellectual property. Some crap like that. 

I'll say it once, i'll say it a dozen times.

Piracy doesn't hurt in developed countries where people have money... and it doesn't likely hurt in poor countries either.

Immoral? yes. Comapanies like to pretend it costs them so they can get favorable legislature and blame less profits then normal? Yes.

Costing companies money? Not statistically distinct from zero anyway.

The R4 has been available for well over a year worldwide and online and other Flash Cards were available within a month of launch. Yet, despite this, the DS still has a software attach ratio of around 5 games per system... the best in the history of handhelds.

Personally, I own an R4 myself, but I just use it for import games and to test drive games I may want to buy. I got it a month ago, and I have bought 4 games since then (FFXII:RW, MPDS, Contra 4, and Mega Man ZX Advent). What I did was I downloaded a bunch of games on the R4, and if they were good I bought them. If they sucked I deleted them and moved on. It works quite well. I also used it to "import" It's a Wonderful World and Dragon Quest IV to see what they were like.

I have a bunch of music on there, an NES and SNES emulator (though these suck compared to my PSP ones), and a couple movies at a time. It's quite nice.

Legend, do you seriously think this is a huge risk to Nintendo? This chip has been available for a while and Nintendo is still selling a lot of software in Japan.

Consider the fact that even if Nintendo stopped selling software entirely -- both first and third party -- they'd still generate a profit from all of the hardware they sell. And they're not weighed down by a $1.15 billion charge to repair defective-by-manufacturer consoles.

Stuff like this has been available forever.  A friend of mine has a flash card and a GBA card for his DS that he can use to download and try software -- I don't approve of it, but he purchases all software that he actually enjoys.  It does discourage sales, but only because he tries the game, hates it, and doesn't buy it.  He's more of a game collector than player (he has a pile of 360 and Wii software he doesn't play, some of which he hasn't even opened yet).

legend11, tell us more about x360 piracy plz !

I have an R4 and use it mostly for homebrew (nes, snes emulators). I still buy games since i like to have the box and instructions, but I do have some downloaded games on there. Between my DS, Wii and 360, plus my older systems, I barely play the pirated games, so I wouldn't have bought them anyway.

PS2 mod chips were very popular and and they still sold lots of software.

 Oops, I should have clarified that.

The OP, and it's not news: it's over a year old and he's posting it here with the intention of spreading FUD.

It's like if I made a thread over in the 360 forums about how MS will be dropping the xbox line in favor of PC gaming (which is why they've moved Live to the PC already). What would the end result be other than angering 360 fans and spreading FUD?

I'm not insisting upon action. All I'm saying is that this is a thinly-veiled troll attempt. 

These things are being sold on amazon.co.uk, and have been for months. They are even sold on quite a few retail stores worldwide. For the price of 2, maybe 3 games. And their quite useful cause they allow you to carry a bunch of games in one cart.

And still everyone and their mothers argues it's the PSP that suffers from being easy to pirate, when it needs downgrading firmwares and battery hacks, and whatever. Well no, actually not their mothers. The mothers would definitely find it easier to pirate on the DS.

This won't kill the DS. You know why? Cause it already hasn't.

Spare me the drama Ben, the article is old, and its only being posted to incite a situation. This is about as legitimate as his thread about Super Mario Galaxy being only 5 hours long because someone on another forum said they beat it in that time. It's a hit and run thread, plain and simple.