There has been plenty of discussion lately on how Nintendo can recover from its downward spiral, but none of the potential solutions have included allowing users to hack their consoles. Nevertheless, this might be a future Nintendo has to face if a recent European Union court ruling is upheld.
Nintendo isn’t happy right now. A ruling from the Court of Justice of the European Union on a lawsuit between Nintendo and a retailer called PC Box states that circumventing protection on a game console is not, in itself, illegal. PC Box was distributing software that allows users to view movies, videos, and play music files on the DS handheld and Wii game console. Nintendo filed a lawsuit stating that this software also allows, of course, the playing of illegally acquired video games. It is not unlawful, according to the court, to simply circumvent the protection; you have to actually do something illegal once you get in.