Playing Pirated Copies of Sun & Moon gets Users Banned

Of course, a lot of amazing games are coming out this month, including the highly-anticipated (and Pokemon Go-boosted) next chapter of the Pokemon saga, Pokemon Sun and Moon, which whisks players away to a tropical paradise where the can train, battle, and grow their Pokemon under the shade of ridiculously stupid aloha forms of the original 151 Pokemon. It looks to be a good time, and possibly a necessary escape from a cold, hostile reality, but if you happened to be one of those folks who got impatient and decided to escape before the official release tomorrow, well, I've got bad news: if you've connected to the internet with your 3DS with a pirated copy, you've officially been banned from Nintendo's Online network.

Specifically, this is what Nintendo had to say:

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.

Now, Nintendo didn't come out with this: rather, the news was 'reported' by salty members of /4/chan and reddit, who were asking about the sudden lack of connectivity to the Nintendo Online Network. There's been a lot of anger and confusion, so, it's good that Nintendo came out and admitted what was going on... although just trying to avoid a flood of support tickets may have been a contributing factor.

Still, if you were boneheaded enough to try going online with a priated copy of the game before release... well... that's just Darwin in the works. Sorry fellas. Enjoy your single-player Pokemon game.