Nintendo and Sony have sought to address piracy with the latest iteration of their handhelds, the Nintendo DSi and the PSP 3000. Both have different means of preventing free psp games and free ds roms from being playable on the new units. The PSP Brite uses new motherboard and battery that’s virtually immune to homebrew (for now) and the Nintendo DSi removes the GBA slot (for carts).

Months after release, the PSP 3000 is still piracy free. On the DSi front however, although existing flash carts don’t work with the new model, enterprising companies have already prepared sdhc flash carts for the DSi, R4i and AceKard.

While Nintendo has no direct statement on the issue of how to prevent piracy on it’s new DS model, they did have this response ready:

Nintendo vigorously fights the illegal copying of video games around the world. All of our hardware and software includes technological features that combat video game piracy, but we do not disclose what those specific features are.

The specifics of how Nintendo will implement their anti-piracy outfit on the DSi are still unknown although some recent news may shed some light into that. As of the moment the European DSi seems to be well protected against the Acekard 2i flash cart although the Japanese and US versions work flawlessly. Difference in software versions? Security patches? You name it.

Now, if you’re still go on purchasing a flash cart for homebrew purposes. Make sure your flash cart will be able to update it’s firmware. Why? The moment Nintendo releases a patch against your flash cart, your homebrew enabling hardware will be rendered useless.

Nintendo vigorously fights the illegal copying of video games around the world.