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ELSPA DS piracy story "completely false"

Whoops. The ELSPA story doing the round a few days ago concerning R4 carts and US DS piracy is, to be blunt, a load of old bollocks. The newspaper piece claimed that manager of ELSPA's Intellectual Property Crime Unit, John Hillier, had said, "The implications are massive. In America it’s thought 90 percent of Nintendo users are playing pirated games because of R4s."

The organisation spoke to GI today, claiming, "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."

"[John] didn't quote The Sunday Post on any figures whatsoever," the spokesperson added.

GI goes as far as to say the report is "completely false". That's that settled, then.

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Patrick Garratt

Founder & Publisher (Former)

Patrick Garratt is a games media legend - and not just by reputation. He was named as such in the UK's 'Games Media Awards', the equivalent of a lifetime achievement award. After garnering experience on countless gaming magazines, he joined Eurogamer and later split from that brand to create VG247, putting the site on the map with fast, 24-hour a day coverage, and assembling the site's earliest editorial teams. He retired from VG247, and the games industry, in 2017.
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