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GameCube ISOs Released?
Mister.de writes "An online piracy group called "StarCube" has made ISO's of games like The Legend of Zelda: The Wind Waker available for download on the net. They are not publicly available to everyone, but are said to be hosted on private warez FTP sites. As of yet (6/14/2003) there is no way to actually play the games after burning to a mini-disc, but reliable sources say that there will be a hack for the GameCube released soon so that these illegal copies can be played. Also rumors do have it that the copied games can be played on the Panasonic GameCube, but that is unconfirmed. " The story came from Console-Gods originally.
I loved Nintendo when i was a kid, and i still think they release some of the best games on the market. But when it comes to shooting themselves in the foot, they never learn.
They released the N64 as a cartridge based system to prevent piracy; but in doing so alienated their 3rd party developers and customers. Not only where the games far more expensive to produce, they could not support the wealth of Video and Music easily contained on a CD.
With the GameCube, they decided -again- not to go for the mainstream option and instead use small psuedo-DVD's -and for what? The only thing the have been successfull in achieving is eliminating any wavering interest in the gamecube as a competitor to the "home-entertainment style" PS2, whilst at the same time, retaining the piracy that they went to so much effort to prevent.
Steve
On one hand this could help make the GameCube more popular, which it is bound to do if mod chips and ripped games are released, then this could mean more games available and better games available due to the increased interest.
On the other hand this could kill sales of the GameCube because of the piracy and the already small library of decent games for the system. I for one hope the first is true because I think the system has amazing potential.
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I usually don't bitch about what the Slashdot editors run, be it duplicate stories or typos--we're all human, we all make mistakes.
/all the time/ in the console world these days--coupled with the write-up that got posted, it seems like a 1337 plug for the ISOs.
/act/ like pirates, the big content companies will /treat/ us like pirates.
But I have to wonder what the hell was going through Hemos's mind when he decided to post this story. It seems like he posted a story about illegal copies of an unreleased game.
What was the point? Are you trying to get Slashdot shut down? Piss off the readers? Game developers? It's stuff like this that makes all computer geeks look like skeezy software pirates, and it's on the front page, no less. This stuff makes everyone here look like hypocrites and asshats when we preach about fair use and how the content publishers and distributors should treat us as their customers.
So this story didn't link to an illegal ISO. It didn't give a BitTorrent link. But with no real reason why it should have been posted--this stuff happens
If we
Or did I miss something at 9:00 in the morning?
Mikey-San
Karma: +Eleventy billion (mostly affected by watching Celebrity Jeopardy)
I just sent a letter to the NY Times yesterday because they framed the argument about SCO in the same terms as SCO, saying that OSS developers "shun intellectual property". I asserted that we rely on intellectual property to defend our GPL rights just as much as the proprietary software market relies on proprietary software to defend their rights, and that OSS developers in general had no interest in shunning intellectual property.
Guess I was wrong about some OSS folks, huh? Mod chips and making your own games...that's cool and nerdy. Warez...that's doofus leet bullshit. I'm not interested in leet bullshit. Too bad I can't mod the original story.
I find it funny how this article is on so many different sites, yet there is no proof of anything.
So what? Therea are a few cd dumps of the Wind Waker. The only way possible to get them on an actual system would be to totally replace the drive with one that doesnt just read Nintendo's pseudo-DVDs. It's just like those DVD players that ONLY read dvds, they dont have the physical capability of even reading anything but the GameCube Disc, no audio-cd, video dvd, nothing.
Someone said that GameCube piracy would be much like the Dreamcast, but they forgot that the Dreamcast has the built-in ability to read any kind of disc, the GameCube's laser can ONLY read Nintendo's custom DVD-like discs. So, without a GameCube SDK it's not possible.
Other people are comparing it to the Xbox, with ISOs being released and modchips later. There's an issue with this as well. Every other system has legit, somewhat legal reasons for using modchips: importing games from other regions. It just so happened that those modchips had an alternative "feature" of letting the system read burned discs as if they were real games. The Nintendo has the ability to play other regions built-in, just a little jumper change on the inside and you have a Japanese Cube, change it back and you have a US cube. There is no legal reason for a company to make modchips and therefore anyone mass producing them can be shutdown by Nintendo in a second.
Let's say for a second that these ISOs do exist, and that some moron figures out how to play them on the Cube. It will be more expensive to mod the system, burn the game (10 bucks for a normal sized blank DVD, not sure how much mini-dvds are or if they even exist yet), etc than it would be just to buy the damn thing.
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I just saw at Sam's Club the GC with Starfox and a memory stick for $148, Target's GC deal is $150 with a mail-in coupon for 1 free game (Zelda was one of the games).
The gamecube is the cheapest system, games are reasonably priced, so what drives this? Is it the thrill of the hack?
There is the question of whether it is worth discussing the issues you put forth, if they are the opinions you hold. What's wrong with that? /. isn't condoning it or condemning it in the article, just making people aware of this.
Not only is it an interesting topic of discussion, but for geeks, it is interesting to discuss and explore the possibilities of emulation - being able to create something that can not only play the games of a console, with completely different hardware, at a playable rate.
But as people have pointed out, it's not even really an issue at the moment given the computing power it would take to do so with this gen of consoles. So we have the questions of modifiying the consoles themselves, also interesting.
It's not wrong to make people aware of the changes in technology and what people are capable of doing. If you are worried about the illegality of the act itself, don't partake of it, but you can't preach that we don't mention it somewhere where the majority of readers would find it at least interesting to hear.
I don't condone piracy but this is the way most geeks learn about stuff they don't teach in school - by seeing if it can be done.
Seeing whether it can be done, and providing the tools for others to easily and cheaply pirate software are two totally different things. Hacking on such things is good if all you're doing is trying to learn, imho. If you're setting out to make, or deprive others of money, then I can't see how anyone can claim it's right.
If systems really sell because of modding, than the Dreamcast Wouldn't be dead today now would it? I really hate when someone tries and makes this arguement because it makes piracy look like a good thing. All piracy does is take money from the developers who are struggling to make a buck to begin with.
Frozen Insanity
http://frozen-solid.net
But even if this thing cost £200, you'd still be saving money after your 5th game.
:)
IMHO, you didnt save any money, you stole it.
Why is it that people don't consider pirating stealing?
Arguments for pirating such as: "I wouldn't have bought the game if I hadn't pirated it, so they didn't loose any money of me" simply do not hold. I rarely hear someone say: "I stole a game today by downloading it of the net, but I have no moral problems with this"
If you wouldn't have bought the game, then don't copy it and don't play it. If you want to play the game, then buy it.
I don't really care if people copy stuff, I know I'm not 100% legal myself, even though I try to be. Sometimes I just cant afford it, in which case I knowingly steal from the company that made the app (don't really copy games, as they are cheap enough to buy). Just don't try to justify piracy.
The try-b4-buy argument is fairly useless too, as there are either demos you can DL, or you can try the game in the shop.
BTW: I know you didn't try to justify copying in your original post, and this is not ment as a direct response to your post, just seemed to be a good one to hit reply on
Guess it's time to get modded down, but what the heck, atleast I got to state my opinions...
I agree with you that it's gotten a lot harder for emulator programmers. However, I think the situation is even more bleak than you realize.
I have heard of emulators for these systems: MAME, NES, Gameboy, SNES, Sega Master System, Sega Genesis, several minor consoles and N64. I don't know of workable emulators for any console released in the past 10 years aside from the N64 (correct me if I'm wrong on this) - I've heard of projects for dreamcast and gamecube, but neither one actually works for anything significant yet.
So I'd say the current situation is far from Gamecube being the _only_ console which hasn't been emulated--rather, it seems to be a trend that it takes much longer for modern consoles to be successfully emulated due to their complexity. Even consoles as old as the Sega Saturn have proven very difficult to emulate. I mean, when you're working with single 8- and 16-bit processor architectures, you're dealing with a project for emulation that is similar to projects most students might tackle in their first college computer architecture class. However, more sophisticated architectures present enough of a challenge that most wouldn't even bother with the task.
"I may be quite wrong." - Socrates
You may want to pay for your fun instead like others do. Alternatively, you can find fun which is free of charge but within the boundaries of the law.
In general I agree with your post wrt free speech, but the above is just not reality -- by posting it (esp. on the front page, which is how I got here), Slashdot is implicitly condoning this.
"First you gotta do the truffle shuffle."
This flies directly counter to the usual arguments about fair use being derailed in the over-reactive world of anti-piracy technology... If this site cares so much for Your Rights Online, makes sure stories discuss rights we *do* have, not those we don't... such as theft of games.
Piracy on Nintendo systems has always been a fickle topic. Back in the day Nintendo dropped the CD and stuck with the cartridge right up through the N64. Their choice to stick with proprietary optical media on the cube is obviously because they want to have the ultimate defense against piracy.
This seems pretty good for Nintendo. Nintendo makes more profit per unit on games and systems than either MS or Sony. This is how they stay in business despite not being number one. However, I think one of the reasons they aren't number one is because you can't pirate their games.
I know lots of people with Playstation 1's and 2's. It's hard not to. Almost all of these people have modded a system for various reasons, import games, piracy, etc. However, they all have one thing in common. They bought the hardware legitimately, and they all have at least a few legitimate games. Everyone who owns a gamecube has had to buy all of their games and hardware legitimately. People who can't afford to do so, don't buy a cube.
I'm not advocating piracy. I think that if you want to have the privalege of playing all the great cube games you should have to pay for it, like I do. However, I think piracy does increase market share a great deal. By having pirateable games your system becomes prevalent in low income countries and households. Outside of US, Europe, Japan and Australia getting video games is difficult. Often the only option is to get a PS1, which is easily acquireable and pirate games which are un-affordable.
By switching to a pirateable media format like CD or DVD Nintendo will lose some money to decreased software sales to suburban kids and college students. But they will make that money back by selling hardware to low income households who will pirate all their software.
In summary. No piracy causes lower market share, but higher software sales figures. 2 million copies of Zelda as opposed to 1.5 million otherwise. Pirating allows higher market share through more hardware sales, but causes fewer software sales.
The other reason is that Nintendo makes a lot of first party titles. Piracy would cause direct loss of dough to Nintendo. The other systems thrive mostly on third party software. So piracy doesn't hurt Sony or Microsoft as much as it hurts Capcom or EA.
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There is always some yahoo who chimes in with this.
Yes, it is theft. You are depriving the owner of value by diminishing it. You are stealing their profits by obtaining one of their works that you should have paid them for. Taking money they should have, but don't.
Why is this so hard to understand? Is there just something about the word "stealing" that gets Slashbots in a fuss?
"Sufferin' succotash."
Excuse me, but isn't posting to a majore news outlet the details of video game piracy a little, well, dumb?
/. in trouble, but none of you all should disagree about this type of activity (pirating GameCube games) being illegal.
/. crowd is pro-piracy when this shit gets posted, and it gets posted at least once a month.
Not dumb in the sense that it is going to get
It's just stupid that it seems that the
You are associating yourselves with illegal behavior by posting this crap. Leave the warez posts to warez sites.
But what the hell are you talking about Open Source for? I didn't see Open Source mentioned anywhere, and given that the majority of Slashdot readers use Windows as indicated in a recent poll I think it's kind of funny to refer to the whole of Slashdot as "Open Source culture."
Please give us a source for your information. Frankly I don't believe it. The so called "Attach Rate" is higher for Xbox than for GC, the sales are far higher, so forth. Look up your own source for this: everyone knows it. Given that the user base in the USA is at most 1/6th the base of the PS2, I believe that you are entirely and completely wrong.
"My God, this must be a truly remarkable corn chip, to be so widely and confidently touted."
So somebody does a dump of a CD and posts the resulting image online. And this is news WHY?
Theft of product is an excellent way to save money. For example, shoplifting is a traditional way for kids to save money. Just because it's illegal doesn't mean it doesn't save you any money. Heck, that's why you steal it.
Because it's not really theft. It's copyright infringement. When you infringe copyright you do not deny the original property owner access to their property. (If you steal my book, I can't read it any more. If you copy my book and return it, I can still read it.) If you get caught you'll be in civil court instead of criminal court. You'll only face fines instead of jail time. They're very different beasts. By using language that implies that these two very different things are the same you're encouraging incorrect and silly comparisons like the RIAA's extremely silly "Downloading music off the internet is just like stealing a CD from a store."
To be fair, that's why I refuse to consider the two thing equivalent. Some people don't see an equivalence because they want to justify to themselves doing something that is illegal and widely considered immoral. Don't get me wrong, I support copyright law and am against copyright infringement. But we need to educate people on why copyright infringement is wrong, not incorrectly label it as identical to theft.
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You "steal" money that they don't have? But you don't end up with money yourself...makes no sense. There is hypotetical money being magically stolen, money that never was in the pockets of those who it is "stolen" from and does not en up in the pockets of the "thieves"
Clearly, this is because money is the only thing in this world that has value, right? So the next time you go to the doctor, don't pay. The next time you ride the subway, don't pay. The next time you take guitar lessons, don't pay. This "magical money" was never theirs, so you're obviously not stealing anything.
Let's take a different example. You write a book. Random House offers you a $200,000 deal plus royalties. But a day before you sign the contract, I release the book onto the web so Random House cancels the deal. Now look me in the eye while I laugh at your misery, and tell me that you have not been deprived. Tell me the people downloading your book owe you nothing.
This is the kind of double talk only an economist or lawyer can follow.
Right, because once again "money" refers only to cash, and never investments, potential earnings, opportunity costs, interest, or capital. Yes, this is economist vocabulary, but I'm not an economist. I'm an average joe who understands that ignoring how the world actually works is a good way to be penniless and bitter when I retire.
Do you think the $10 trillion US economy is based on goods? 80% of it is based on services -- things you claim cannot be stolen because they do not represent money.
and you wonder why people don't see it?
Because the majority of people believe that deliberate ignorance is the same as intelligent understanding? If you want to live in a goods-based economy where you don't have to think about such difficult concepts, move to Angola or some other country where war has regressed the economy to 19th-century standards. (Most other "third world" nations won't fit the bill. They're all services-based too.
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Dum de dum.
Freedom is not the license to do what we like, it is the power to do what we ought.