According to Alain Corre, Ubisoft's managing director EMEA "the last 24 months the market for DS has collapsed for software, but people are still buying the hardware." The collapse would partly be a result of the increase in piracy on the platform. "On the DS it was really the very first time that Nintendo software was pirated, so it took us all by surprise very quickly," Corre told GamesIndustry. 

Apart from piracy Comte (vice president at Nintendo) also named the large number of mediocre games as a reason for the collapsing DS market. The release of a large number of crappy titles has dented consumer trust in the platforms according to Comte.

"Nintendo understands that it has lost so much money with piracy on the current DS that it is working on something to prevent that on future hardware." According to Corre new PS hardware will be less easy to exploit and copy. Rumor goes Nintendo's upcoming 3DS is hooked up with all possible new anti-piracy measures. 

Last month the UK High Court made it illegal to buy and sell the R4 memory cards, popular for pirating the DS.

Source: Gamerzines, GamesIndustry