According to a Japanese press release Nintendo and 54 other game developers and publishers have filed a lawsuit in Tokyo District Court against companies that import the R4 Revolution for DS. The lawsuit is led by Nintendo and supported by major game companies such as SNK, Capcom, Koei, Square Enix, Sega, and Taito. Nintendo is requesting all marketing, sales, and importation of the device be stopped. According to Nintendo’s press release the Chinese made R4 is “causing severe damage to our company and software makers, and this is something that we cannot possibly overlook.” The lawsuit is limited to the Japanese market only.

The R4 allows gamers to load and play Nintendo DS ROM files downloaded from the internet. The ROM cartridge fools the Nintendo DS into believing a real cartridge has been plugged in to the DS and are only limited by memory capacity in terms of how many games can be loaded. The R4 has a small slot that a Micro SD card goes into. In addition to game piracy the R4 allows “homebrew” software, games, and music to be played on a Nintendo DS

Out of the game companies participating in the lawsuit an interesting fact is Square Enix has already implemented anti-piracy measures against the R4 in their latest game Drgaon Quest 5: Hand of the Heavenly Bride. Pirated copies of this game do not work properly when used with the R4.