On the Nintendo DS

Apr 21, 2010 09:09 GMT  ·  By

Piracy is one of the biggest problems the videogame industry faces at the moment. The phenomenon, which has gained Steam since the launch of easy-to-use peer to peer and torrent services, is blamed for the falling sales numbers on the PC (although those statistics might be skewed by publishers and by not counting digital distribution services) and now Nintendo is saying piracy is to blame for 50% losses in sales on the Nintendo DS line-up of devices on the European market.

The figure is quoted in an article in The Asashi Shimbun and comes from internal Nintendo projections. Apparently, the company lost trillions of yen because of piracy. The Japanese firm started to crack down on pirates, especially those who are selling R4 cartridges and other hardware enablers and those who are distributed recently launched titles, like New Super Mario Bros. for the Nintendo Wii.

Satoru Iwata, who is the president of Nintendo, said earlier in the year that the company was looking to “enhance the ability to combat piracy in Europe through both legal and technological means.” Interestingly, the announcement came just as the company was putting out financial results and projecting that the Nintendo DS line-up might register a fall in terms of sales for the first time since it was launched.

The drop in sales for the Nintendo DS handhelds can, of course, be attributed to a variety of other causes. The outing of the iPhone from Apple has offered mobile gamers a new platform where games cost much less than on the DS while the economic downturn reduced disposable income for players and mobile titles were first line casualties.

Nintendo has already announced that it plans to release a Nintendo 3DS early in 2011 and will probably include tougher anti-piracy measures in the new hardware.