Nintendo blames piracy for large drop in European DS sales

Nintendo blames piracy for large drop in European DS sales
According to Asahi, Nintendo is blaming piracy for the huge 50 percent drop it has seen in DS software sales over the past year in Europe.

The company says it loses "trillions of Yen to piracy each year," with flash carts such as the R4 or the M3 blamed for most of the piracy.



Flash carts are used to run homebrew and other legal features on the Nintendo DS handheld, but also allow for the easy playback of pirated ROMs.

The company says there were about 238 million illegal downloads in 2009 of software, with the main offenders coming from Spain, France and Italy. If the numbers are accurate, Nintendo forecasted $10.7 billion in losses due to the piracy.

In contrast to Europe, the software giant says piracy in the U.S. and Japan were limited, leading to only 11 and 7 percent drops in sales, respectively.

Written by: Andre Yoskowitz @ 21 Apr 2010 18:17
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  • 11 comments
  • beanos66

    yet more made up numbers

    21.4.2010 18:24 #1

  • nonoitall

    I think it's amazing the way piracy can make a company lose more than they have potential to make sans piracy.

    21.4.2010 22:02 #2

  • jos22

    lol in the same period there was about 9 games for the DS worth paying for or at least 9 that could be found buried in all the shovel ware companies like ubisoft crap out.

    surprised they don't put gamestop on this list can't buy a game from them with out being nagged to buy a used title

    21.4.2010 22:24 #3

  • KillerBug

    I can't believe they are still selling games for that thing...I thought the only reason people bought the unit in the first place was for piracy...and even if all the games were free without piracy, I would not be willing to spend the money for the DS itself.

    Nintendo needs to take a long look at what they are offering the publishers, what the publishers want, and what they can do to bridge the gap. The recent hardware improvements are nice, but the underlying hardware has been the same for ever, and it was not high-tech when it came out...there are not a whole lot of different game types you can do with the DS hardware, and most of the combinations have already been done...making all the new games feel just like the old ones.

    21.4.2010 23:39 #4

  • av_verbal

    maybe people are sick of paying £30 to £40 for a game that should cost no more than £10!

    22.4.2010 05:41 #5

  • bluedogs

    Originally posted by av_verbal: maybe people are sick of paying £30 to £40 for a game that should cost no more than £10! I agree

    Vista HP 64 bit,AMD 9850 x4, 4 Gig Ram,2 x LG DVD Burners, xFx 8800 GTS 640mb, 2x80 and 2 x 120 Gig Hdd SATA, 24" LCD LG Monitor

    22.4.2010 10:23 #6

  • spin54

    If it wasn't for the R4 I wouldn't have a DS at all. Well that and if I hadn't gotten the DS for free.

    I don't know of a single game worth paying for the hardware and price of the game on the DS. They are all as gimicky and useless as the Wii.

    Nintendo is a joke for anyone above the age of 12.

    And how is piracy causing lower DS Hardware sales? If anything R4 and m# cards are helping hardware sales. The use of those cards are the ONLY reason I would buy a DS if I didn't have one.

    But the above statements are also correct. The games are so stupid overpriced it makes me want to puke. There is no excuse to pay 30-40 dollars for games that are so limited and small (length and content small, not hardware small).

    And the other poster up there is kind of right... These numbers may not be entirely made up but they are HEAVILY exagerated and vague. They include EVERY little thing they can squeeze into a catergory to make numbers look ginormous.

    22.4.2010 10:37 #7

  • Chanta

    Piracy huh?...Oh yeah, and I guess the fact that they announce the NEW XD an then shortly after the development of the 3DS HAS NOTHING TO DO with deterring users from investing in a DS/and related games??

    I have a DS but it's true, very few games are actually worth buying. The carts sell more units, because the games definitly dont.

    And yeah, where are they getting these figures from? Proyections of what they had estimated to gain?? hahaha very, very, "best case scenario" proyections if you ask me...

    Life is a trip! Enjoy the ride!

    22.4.2010 11:40 #8

  • jos22

    Originally posted by spin54: If it wasn't for the R4 I wouldn't have a DS at all. Well that and if I hadn't gotten the DS for free.

    I don't know of a single game worth paying for the hardware and price of the game on the DS. They are all as gimicky and useless as the Wii.

    Nintendo is a joke for anyone above the age of 12.

    And how is piracy causing lower DS Hardware sales? If anything R4 and m# cards are helping hardware sales. The use of those cards are the ONLY reason I would buy a DS if I didn't have one.

    But the above statements are also correct. The games are so stupid overpriced it makes me want to puke. There is no excuse to pay 30-40 dollars for games that are so limited and small (length and content small, not hardware small).

    And the other poster up there is kind of right... These numbers may not be entirely made up but they are HEAVILY exagerated and vague. They include EVERY little thing they can squeeze into a catergory to make numbers look ginormous.
    there are plenty of very good games worth buying on the DS the problem is there too hard to find buried under neat all the crap ones. nintendo nintendogs and brain training make a lot money. so the other developers like ubisoft decided to crap out hundreds of crapy knock offs charged full price for a game that not even worth 5 euro.
    the price point applies to all systems tho the 360 has far too many of the same games lasting from 6-10 hours with a high price tag.

    22.4.2010 14:01 #9

  • Mr-Movies

    It's always price point and the economy that determine the amount of piracy for something popular. If the price is too high more piracy and hack’n, if the price is reasonable much fewer hacks and piracy. And that’s without spending millions for anti-piracy schemes.

    22.4.2010 15:40 #10

  • domie

    Yup - piracy and sky high prices are a powerful combination for losing sales

    25.4.2010 04:48 #11

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