It seems Nintendo's effort to squash down piracy on the DSi won't be as easy as one, two, three as the EZ-Flash Team has revealed that it only requires a firmware update to bypass the recently released DSi firmware 1.4 using the EZVi flashcart.

Surprisingly, we've got quite some bare pickings from the industry this week. Guess what comes down must go up. If last week we've had software/hardware dilemmas in terms of quantity, this week, we've got them updates by the truckloads, and the Industry News section takes the backseat.

Ubisoft is hell-bent on putting its foot down against piracy as they are targeting this year to come out with a piracy solution for their games on the various platforms. The publisher has admitted that their products have been dealt a heavy blow because of the piracy, and they are now working on a tool that should cushion the impact of the said problem.

Lots of big news for this week's recap, so you'd better stay comfy. There's a hell lot of games coming to the Wii and DS in 2009, and we have news on the biggest that the two platforms are gonna get - whether they're the Pokemon remakes, Monster Hunter 3, and a bunch of retro WiiWare games, we've got ya covered. With a lot of games coming, it probably explains why the DS sold a million last April, so the new DS owners will have a lot to play and choose from. Quit wasting your time reading this babble, 'cause you're gonna read them again in the full article. Or not.

Piracy is distressing. Metaforic CEO Andrew Mclennan said as much in an interview with Gamasutra, referring to the plight of piracy, particularly on the DS via the R4 cards. Echoing this sentiment is Nintendo, who as of last year has filed a lawsuit in the Tokyo District Court for an injunction of the R4 as it causes "severe damage" to them. Since then, Nintendo has been hard at work on a plan, and we just might see it come to fruition by this holidays.

The ESA board must have been reduced to tears of joy yesterday - to them, I'm sure, they now believe there is a god. This week, the Swedish court has found the four operators of torrent site The Pirate Bay guilty as charged for copyright infringement and illegal activities (digitally distributing illegal copies of games and media content). Of course, ESA is more than happy with this victory against the ongoing war on piracy - so happy, in fact, that they had to come up with an official press release about it!

With the DSi now available across all major markets, numerous reports have surfaced telling of certain bootleg games not working anymore. Could the DSi have sturdier anti-piracy measures implemented as one of its other upgrades? We have heard, after all, of how the European DSi seems to be well protected against the Acekard 2i flash cart. Though Nintendo's always exhibited a strong effort to fight piracy, they seem to be mum on the matter of DSi's anti-piracy measures.

It's the weekend so it's time to take a look back through the week and see what Nintendo has been up to. And to be quite frank, news has been pretty quiet at the Wii and DS blogs. Let's keep it nice and easy this week and let's talk about all them nostalgic games coming and the piracy that's really getting to Nintendo.

Originally posted on Feb 28, 2009 at 07:39PM

The efforts of Nintendo (and 54 other game developers) to stop piracy are finally getting some results. Japan has now officially - and legally! - banned the selling and importing of R4 flash carts for the DS.

Nintendo's going on a swashbuckling offensive, asking the US Trade Representative for help on making pirates walk the plank. They also sent out a press release, calling out certain countries where "piracy is rampant," and China is at the top of their list.