Japan brands DS carts 'information terrorism'

Speaking to Japanese gaming magazine Famitsu, president of the Association of Copyright for Computer Software Yutuka Kubota has raised serious concerns over the damage DS Flash carts are doing to Japan as a nation.

"This is an issue that affects our national interests, and personally, I see it as a form of information terrorism that is crushing Japan's industry," he says, in an interview translated by 1Up.

Flash carts have been a matter of much legal consternation in Japan recently, with Nintendo leading a consortium of game companies in an effort to ban the memory cards that are capable - but aren't limited to - playing pirated DS ROMs.

"I want [gamers] to be aware that unless we do something, nobody will be able to make the games they love to play," Kubota continues. "Not only will gamers wanting to play new games not be able to play anything, but people who want to join the game industry in the future will have their dreams trampled upon."

While piracy on all platforms is a serious issue, it's become quite a tired chestnut attempting to pin the DS's woes on Flash carts (do we really want to spark up the old conversation about Flash carts having other uses, that maybe Nintendo should charge reasonable prices for its games, or that the R4 device is Satan's PDA? Nah), but it does appear that matters are coming to boiling point in Japan.