Nintendo made a major move today in its ongoing fight against piracy. Joined by 54 game publishers, including such giants as Square Enix and Capcom, the company filed suit in Tokyo District Court seeking the halt in import and sale of Majicon devices, as well as damages from vendors who continue to sell the devices.

The term "Majicon" refers to flash cartridges that users can plug into their DS cartridge slot to play pirated games. The most common example is known as R4 Revolution.

The lawsuit follows a series of moves taken by the Kyoto gaming giant and those 54 publishers to kill off the devices in Japan. In February, the companies successfully sued to halt import and sale of the devices. However, to this day, they continue to be sold online and in smaller game shops. Nintendo sent warning letters to retailers in April demanding that they halt sales and also seeking damages for previous sold devices, but the company says that these letters were ignored in many cases.

According to Impress Watch, today's legal motion targets four companies for damages totaling 479,700,000 yen. A group led by Nintendo is demanding $4.4 million in damages against four importers of devices used to play pirated software on Nintendo DS handhelds.

Outside of this legal move, Nintendo today created a piracy snitch line of sorts at its Japanese corporate site. Those who have information about piracy can fill out an anonymous form at the site. The form seeks information on locations (internet, retail, and auction) where Majicon devices are sold, and URLs for sites that offer game downloads.

Nintendo's statement on the matter:

"Through the spread of majicon and other illegal devices, our company and software makers have suffered grievous harm. We hope that, though this suit, recognition will grow among users and others in society at large of the great damage these devices have caused the computer game industry and start a wave that will sweep away these illegal devices from the marketplace."