A Paris court has dismissed a lawsuit by Nintendo over the manufacture of homebrew DS carts, saying that the platform should be more open. The ramifications of this decision could be far-reaching throughout console gaming.

For years Nintendo has tried to stop the making and distribution of carts like the R4 for the DS that run homebrew applications and allow for software piracy on the platform. The French court however likened these homebrew products to the applications that Windows users create for that operating system, saying that any owner of the platform should be able to develop software for it.

This ruling could go directly against decades of software release policy on consoles and handhelds.

After the 1983 console game industry crash from gross oversaturation of poor games on systems like the Atari, Nintendo more or less saved the industry by requiring specialized development kits and licensing fees for software to be published. This method of quality assurance has been the standard outside of PC gaming ever since, but the ruling on DS homebrew theoretically nullifies it, or at least creates a loophole.

Through homebrew carts, just about anyone with a DS and the programming knowledge can develop software for the system without ever involving Nintendo themselves.

Homebrew and piracy software have affected other platforms like the Wii and the PSP. It is unclear however if the court ruling could extend to other platforms in the future.