Lady Geek

There’s no name more feared by the makers and vendors of video games than the “R4″, the cheap, popular add-on to the Nintendo DS that allows gamers to load approximately 100 illegally downloaded games onto a single ‘cart’.

Naturally for some, the allure of this technology is the ability to get something for nothing. There are others who claim that they only use this technology for legitimate ‘homebrew’ software. I think there’s another really good reason that gamers like these things:

As you can see from the demonstration above, the DS is not quite as portable as it’s makers claim. Users of R4 cards have the advantage of combining many games into a single package, effectively allowing them to carry an entire collection in a tiny handbag.

The thing that Nintendo seem not to have noticed is that the pirate product really is delivering a better user-experience than the legit product sold in shops. The R4 cards and their many imitators have freed DS gamers from constantly needing to swap easily lost game-carts.

As a gamer whose happy to spend money on games but really appreciates not having to carry a load of crap with me, I’d like to see Nintendo respond to this threat not by the usual litigation and threats to ban products which hurt their business model. How about some innovation?

Nintendo needs to release it’s own R4 killer. Imagine an official game-download service like WiiWare for the DS that allows affordably priced games delivered directly to the hand-held, plus it should allow a large number of games to be stored on one cart.

That would kill my R4 envy and make room in my over-filled handbag, which would be a real bonus for many women, considering the average woman’s handbag is now 40% heavier than 5 years ago.