Capcom joins R4 lawsuit

According to a report on Game Politics, Capcom is the latest company to join in on a lawsuit against R4 flash cartridge makers using Japan’s Unfair Competition Prevention Act as the hammer.

Capcom joined Nintendo and 53 other game publishers in this lawsuit that hopes to curtail the use of this game copying device for the Nintendo DS. While Nintendo managed to get an injunction against the makers of these devices last year in a Tokyo court, that doesn’t seem to have had much impact of the situation.

“We are expecting the entire society including users to recognize that our company and other software manufactures have extremely sustained damages from proliferation of illegal instruments, such as the Game Copying Devices,” said Capcom is a statement today. “..and the computer industries have sustained serious damages because of those vendors, and we expect to influence the society to eliminate such illegal instruments from the market.”

It will be interesting to see if Nintendo and friends can do anything to curtail the use of the R4 in Japan. While it’s not impossible, it won’t be easy either. It will be a lot harder to deal with the use of the R4 in places like China where piracy and black markets are an integral part of the consumer shopping experience.