Dear Future Gamer

For the record, I never attempted to insinuate that the Action Replay was a piracy tool (FG69); far from it. I merely drew attention to the fact that the PlayStation was later sold without the required serial port because of other third-party people marketing a chipping device that used the slot, making certain cheat carts unusable on the new machines. I in no way meant to infer that Datel are in favour of piracy and have no hesitation in making this clear. Alas, unscrupulous hackers will use the same principles as cheat cartridges to evade software protection and this was the point of my remark. I did not state that Datel made these illegal cartridges but accept that it may have been inferred if you only lightly read the piece.

I actually feel the same annoyance as you must that a perfectly legitimate product that only enhances the machine (depending on your point of view on cheating) was forced to be redesigned due to the actions of a collection of thieves, and it was this that I hoped to put across, not your interpretation.

I appreciate your drawing this interpretation to my attention (though it has to be said that nobody else made this connection) and regret any distress this has caused.

Michael Foster

FG: Apology accepted.