Nintendo fires legal broadside against Japanese pirates

In 2007, Nintendo sold more than 30 million Nintendo DS systems, bringing lifetime sales of the popular portable to in excess of 70 million. However, even though Nintendo turns a profit on each handheld sold, the publisher still derives much of its income from software for the handheld. And according to Nintendo, it and its publishing and development partners lost nearly $1 billion due to pirated software for the Wii and DS in 2007.

The offending party.

With Nintendo urging the US government to take a more aggressive stance on piracy earlier this year, the gamemaker today announced its own offensive against pirated-software purveyors. Nintendo, along with 54 other software companies, have filed suit in the Tokyo District Court against five businesses that sell devices that allow for easy access to illegally copied software.

The suit seeks to ban the importation and sale of R4 Revolution for DS and similar software emulation devices in Japan based on the Japanese Unfair Competition Prevention Act. Nintendo's statement did not reveal the names of the 54 other software companies that were party to the suit, though a report on Japanese news service Nikkei Net (subscription required) notes that defendants include JNH Co., as well as one Yokohama- and three Tokyo-based companies.

"These devices allow playing of copied game programs which were obtained from illegal uploading Web sites on the Internet and which could not be played on Nintendo DS in a normal situation," said Nintendo in a statement provided to GameSpot. "Nintendo and the game software developers are suffering tremendous loss caused by the import and distribution of such devices...In addition to the actions in Japan, Nintendo will continue to curtail the distribution of the game copiers and battle against global piracy."