Nintendo Bans Pokémon Pirates on 3DS

Nintendo 3DS users who have played pirated versions of Pokémon Sun & Moon have found that they have been banned from Nintendo’s servers. The two Pokemon games are due for release tomorrow (18^th November), but pirated ROMs of both Sun and Moon have been circulating for weeks. Those who have played the games while being online have found that they have been prohibited from accessing Nintendo’s online services, while those who played the games purely offline have noticed no ill effects.

“As a result of a number of Nintendo 3DS users using unauthorized versions of several games, and connecting to the official game servers in violation of our terms of service, these users’ Nintendo 3DS systems that stored the unauthorized game code have been banned from Nintendo’s online network effective immediately,” an official statement from Nintendo reads (via Ars Technica).

The method by which Nintendo is banning Pokémon pirate users is not yet clear – presumably, Nintendo has a way of telling that these versions of the game are illegitimate since, despite the game not being released yet, review and preview copies of the games have been sent to a number of news outlets, and there have been no reports that playing these versions has led to any bans. If Nintendo has a way of telling pirated games from genuine ones, this could spell trouble for the popular ROM-sharing and jail-breaking mod community.