Gasp...were we the paperclip maximizers all along?!
This is clearly Nintendo's punishment for aggressive copyright enforcement.
It is in no way a punition, it wouldn't even be far fetched to consider it a lucky event.
It's a good justification for them to kill classic cartridges, and sell so-called "key-cards" and through eshop exclusively, while keeping the price as it was. This is sure to make their benefits explode.