Lee, I don't really follow. I think you're just muddying your sentiments against Nintendo with a genuinely interesting, broad point about privacy settings on digital content and personal data. Care to repost what you mean with a bit more clarity?

Or do you mean R4-type devices in the same way some people refer to MP3 players as iPods?

If you do just mean R4 specifically, who cares? You'd be a little silly to buy them nowadays considering the competition unless you're *really* tight on budget.

If you've classed all flashcarts as simply R4 devices, then this is big news. It would essentially make all homebrew impossible if you wanted to stay in line with the law.

"The company adds that in the UK alone there have been over 100,000 game copying devices seized since 2009." Is that legal? If they've only banned them from being imported, sold, and advertised, but NOT used or owned, then how can they seize them? Or is it just ones that they've prevented from getting into the hands of normal people?

Developers defended... except the homebrew ones, natch.

i feel sorry for nintendo this is gonna come as a big blow to them but those people that do play on backup cartridges wouldn't necessarily buy that game that they downloaded. now they're gonna find something else to bitch about. "Our games aren't selling because something is happening."

The statement “Nintendo promotes and fosters game development and creativity, and strongly supports the game developers who legitimately create new and innovative applications...” is a joke. They have attempted (understandably) at every turn to prevent homebrew with targetted Wii updates and revisions to the DS hardware, and not necessarily as a side-effect of blocking pirates. There is NO legitimate homebrew route to creating software, such as XNA (360) or iOS SDK (iPhone); both paid for and earning $millions for the parent companies, despite supposedly widespread piracy with mod chips and jailbreaking. Several apps that are now legitimate started off as homebrew on these platforms.
Sony has similar problems but has no legit route to homebrew, although to its credit at least offers PSP and PS3 dev kits to universities, even if there is no "budget" access to SDKs suitable for bedroom programmers.
NOTE: Buying R4s is not illegal, as far as I am aware. Only selling them. Making your own copies of ROMS that you own is not illegal; it's legitimate backing up, and there is homebrew software that will do this easily available. Only downloading ROMS (even if you own the games) or uploading ROMS for others is illegal. It is only this last stage that should be the target of legislation. Doing so would be far more effective.
I've gone on the record and in print defending the R4 technology; not piracy BTW even though I know that most users of R4s are just playing illegal games. :-( What would help would be easy, convenient, affordable ways to download games legitimately. Look at what iTunes (based heavily on the earlier, illegal Napster) has done. It has not eliminated illegal downloads, but has provided a legit route that is so straightforward that it is simpler than flashing hardware, ripping ISOs, etc, and has, therefore, been successful. It has also embraced a financial model, a new form of marketing, that is as much a threat to traditional games companies as MP3s were to the Music Publishers. Music is thriving. Companies stuck in old (once lazily lucrative) business practices are not. Nintendo and the like need to beware. They need to change. R4 technology is the start of that change. Banning it is putting your finger in the dyke.
P.S. I own R4 cards, as well as 3 DS/DSi handhelds. I have never even downloaded an illegal ROM. I have enjoyed many homebrew apps, as well as coded enough to know that homebrewers are worth encouraging. When the 3DS version of the R4 comes out. I will be buying one. And then I will be sat down trying to code 3D graphics.