Authorities in southern China have recovered around 300,000 counterfeit Nintendo games in factory raids, including copies of the recent released Pokemon Sapphire and Ruby for the Game Boy Advance.

This latest batch of raids - on factories in the Guangdong province, which borders the notorious piracy hotbed of Hong Kong - marks one of the most successful operations ever against Nintendo pirates. Last year over a million counterfeit Nintendo games were recovered over the course of 135 raids.

Nintendo estimates that it lost around $649 million worth of sales last year through counterfeiting of its products, much of which takes place in China. The company has traditionally been heavily targeted by organised pirates, although it's not thought that any piracy groups have yet managed to duplicate GameCube discs successfully - choosing instead to focus on the significantly easier to duplicate GBA cartridges.

© zgamesindustry.biz