Although Pokemon Sun and Pokemon Moon don’t officially launch until Friday, November 18th, countless players got their hands on the games in advance when they leaked online earlier this month. Unfortunately for those players, Nintendo has taken notice, and many of them are being permanently banned.
DON’T MISS: Pokemon Sun and Pokemon Moon review
Dozens of pirates on Reddit, 4chan and elsewhere claim that not only can they no longer go online with their illicit copies of Pokemon Sun and Moon, but they can’t even access the Nintendo eShop to download new games to their 3DS.
Pirating games is never a smart idea, but going online with those pirated games is an incredibly easy way to get your account banned. If any of these players ever want to play online or download games to their 3DS consoles again, they either have to hope that Nintendo eventually lifts the bans or buy a new 3DS.
Nintendo provided the following statement regarding the bans:
“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.”
So if you’re still trying to decide whether or not to pirate Pokemon Sun and Moon: don’t. The new entries are some of the best in the series, as we explain in our review, and will be available to purchase in less than 24 hours.
