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ELSPA misquoted on Nintendo DS R4 chip figures

by Steven Williamson on 4 February 2008, 09:05

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ELSPA claim foul play

Last week we told you that the The Sunday Post reported that the manager of ELSPA's Intellectual Property Crime Unit claimed that “90 percent of Nintendo users are playing pirated games because of R4”.

According to the newspaper John Hillier was referring to the North American market where the chip is currently used to play illegally downloaded DS games for free.

ELSPA has today told Games Industry.biz that at no point during the interview did Hillier quote any figures.

“ELSPA would certainly never presume to comment about America or anywhere else outside of the UK," said the spokesperson.

ELSPA say that the questions directed at Hillier by the newspaper were purely about the availability of the chip in the UK, but instead "the quotes from The Sunday Post were ascribed to his name from another article which originates from a website in Singapore. This, it appears, is where The Sunday Post first found out about the supposed R4 situation and for some reason unknown to John have quoted him on what this article said."

Of course, it isn’t the first time , nor will it be the last, that a mainstream media outlet makes things up just for a juicy story.


HEXUS Forums :: 1 Comment

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Gotta say when I saw those figures I was dubious from the start.

The reason being that the DS is used by far more casual gamers, who wouldn't have a clue where to look for pirated games or even have an interest in getting an R4 chip to use them.

Sure, it happens, but no where near on the scale being claimed… the vast majority of DS users just go and buy the games they want.