Nintendo Cracks Down on Copying Devices

Adrian Lopez writes "Nintendo is cracking down on mod chips and copying devices with the help of the Hong Kong government. 'The Hong Kong High Court has intervened, at Nintendo's request, to help stop a global distribution operation involving game copying devices and modification chips that violate the copyrights and trademarks of Nintendo DS and Wii. On Oct. 8th, the court ordered the raid of Supreme Factory Limited facilities, through which Nintendo representatives seized more than 10,000 game copying devices and mod chips over the course of three days. The devices seized are used to copy and play Nintendo DS games offered unlawfully over the Internet, and the mod chips allow the play of pirated Wii discs or illegal copies of downloaded Nintendo games.'"

Comments

But they wont achive much

[Tainek]

Its like taking piss out of a swimming pool, you can make wii chips out of commonly availible materials for $5 (WiiFree, OpenWii etc)

Re:But they wont achive much

[Kamokazi]

That's all fine and dandy for the Wii, but for the DS it's not so simple. The sad thing here is I think Nintento is missing the opportunity for a new product.

What a lot of these 3rd party cartridges do for the DS do is allow people to (aside from copying DS/GBA games) play music and movies, and have PDA functionality. They also allow users to play NES, SNES, etc games on them as well.

Many of these cards sell for $80+ (or do once you add the removable flash memory). If they were smart, they would take a page from the Wii's online service, sell a cartridge for $20 that allows you to buy and download old NES/SNES games with Nintento points like you can on the Wii. They could also sell a cartridge with a flash memory slot and allow it to do multimedia playback.

Re:But they wont achive much

[jamar0303]

In Japan, they do- it's called the Play-Yan. Strange that they don't try to sell it outside Japan.

Re:But they wont achive much

[morgan_greywolf]

Many of these cards sell for $80+ (or do once you add the removable flash memory). If they were smart, they would take a page from the Wii's online service, sell a cartridge for $20 that allows you to buy and download old NES/SNES games with Nintento points like you can on the Wii. They could also sell a cartridge with a flash memory slot and allow it to do multimedia playback. Maybe that's exactly what they plan on doing and that's why they are cracking down. The Nintendo folks are pretty smart. They lost the king of hill spot in the video console market to Sony and Microsoft mostly by being fat and lazy, not by being stupid. They've managed to maintain their lead in portable gaming, even despite the onslaught of PSP.

Re:But they wont achive much

[Phisbut]

Making stuff illegal just drives it further underground.

And driving it further underground makes it that much harder for Joe Sixpack to access, which is exactly what they want. Nintendo (or any other company hitting hard on pirates) aren't dumb. They know that piracy will always exist, but they want to drive it underground, really deep underground. So deep most people won't know about it.

Re:But they wont achive much

[prezkennedy.org]

The PSP isn't much of an onslaught.

Re:But they wont achive much

[Lumpy]

on the DS it is that simple. you can walk into any walmart and walk out with a DS cart that will play copied games.

Datel games-n-music DS. I got several japanese import copies playing on that device with a 1 gig micro SD card in it.

$25.00 at walmart. Warez for the masses.

Re:But they wont achive much

[zerocool^]

I've just spent an hour looking on the web for information on this thing.

It would seem that it will NOT play any commercial DS roms, with very few exceptions. This is due to some weird limitation with the GnM where in order to play a rom, it needs to be able to be copied into the DS's RAM, which after loading the GnM stuff is around a measly 3.6 ~ 3.7 MB. Most DS roms are far bigger than this, even after being trimmed and compressed. The sole exception is supposedly Elf Bowling.

However, the GnM will appearantly work with a lot of SNES / NES roms, if you have the right software.

~Wx

Re:But they wont achive much

[im just cannonfodder]

I need someone to mod my wii in the uk so i can let my kids play the wii before i come home from work without the fear of the discs getting totalled!

Re:But they wont achive much

[flitty]

Does duct-taping 2 gamecubes together count as modding?

Slashdot 10 year Party?

[Anonymous Coward]

I can't help but notice that every article on the Main Page has been posted by ScuttleMonkey...where did everyone else go? Was there a party last night that Scuttlemonkey wasn't invited to?

Re:Booo!

[CRCulver]

Media-shifting is only a fair-use right when encryption is not involved. Under the DMCA, you cannot break encryption to media-shift. It's not just media hype, it's been US law since 1998.

Re:Booo!

[Junior J. Junior III]

That's OK; in another generation or so, physical media will be a thing of the past, and instead of shipping a "thing" that you use to install/load the game, everything will be digitally distributed over broadband, "software as a service" will be the business model, and you'll either rent playing time or have a monthly subscription fee. Backups will be limited to your account data, and will be automatic as the information will be housed on their datacenter, but you won't truly own the data beyond the right to access it and modify it through in-game actions; the service vendor will reserve the rights to alter the binaries at their discretion for any reason, and once they push updates the game-that-was will no longer be available for anyone to play. There will be no replay option once they determine that a game is no longer profitable enough to continue serving, and there will be no right of resale, because there will be nothing to sell -- there'll be a black market for selling achievements such as special items a la the Everquest economy, but that's about it.

It's a lose-lose.

[TripMaster Monkey]

If Nintendo is 0% successful at this, they will have wasted a lot of money and time for nothing.

If Nintendo is 100% successful, on the other hand, they will save some revenue, but at the cost of pissing off a lot of users, legitimate and otherwise, who might decide to take their business elsewhere.

Odds are pretty good that their actual success rate will fall somewhere between 0% and 100% (most probably close to the low end of the scale), making this endeavor slightly annoying to the users, while being in the main a big waste of time.

Any way you slice it, it's a dumb idea.

Re:It's a lose-lose.

[Anonymous Coward]

Copyright thieves? Who is falsely claiming copyright over the property of Nintendo? And what in the name of FSM does "violating the use of their software/hardware" mean? Surely if Nintendo have sold the hardware to others its not theirs anymore, and its up the new owner to decide what they do with it. Is owning property illegal? How did this scam come about whereby corporations sell stuff to you, then claim they still really own it - and the right to control what you can and cant do with it?

As near as I can tell, Nintendo are the ones actually stealing the physical property of others - chips, consoles, and a whole heap of stuff that isnt theirs. Fuck them and the corrupt legal system that helps them commit crimes against people.

Re:Booo!

[toQDuj]

Yup, but not in the rest of the world.

So I still don't see why people shouldn't be allowed to use these mod chips and play their copied games here.

Misread that..

[EveryNickIsTaken]

Heh. I misread the first sentence as:

Nintendo is cracking down on mod chips and copying devices with the help of the Donkey Kong government. Need more coffee.

You can't do anything but admire...

[toQDuj]

...the way this article is spun.

Yes, mod chips could be used for illegal activities, but also for good. The article really fails to highlight that. With a tone like this, you'd wonder how tape recorders ever got sold.

B.

Re:You can't do anything but admire...

[beatmania]

Well, being absolutely, 100% honest, it's also not fair to expect ME, as the CUSTOMER to simply do nothing (or buy another Wii here in the USA) because Nintendo made a poor marketing decision when they decided to region lock their console.

Re:You can't do anything but admire...

[dattaway]

I used a mod chip to flash DSLinux on my Nintendo DS. I just wanted a small computer that I can play with, not to play commercial games. If Nintendo cracks down too much, the community is going to be a much stronger.

But it's CHINA!

[NealokNYU]

This is China we're talking about. It's not hard to find information about their almost total disacknowledgment of international copyright laws. Let's start with a Google search.

Software piracy is the norm. You can acquire scandalously cheap, perfect-looking copies of everything from Office to Everquest for dirt cheap, i.e. cents, not dollars. The Chinese government has been remarkably slow in taking action to support the authority of nations seeking the enforcement of copyright laws, and while I doubt this action will have any real effect, if it's the sign of a larger commitment to action-- and it well could be, what with China's footprint in the global economy increasing every day-- this could well be a major sign of things to come.

Chasing users?

[ilovegeorgebush]

I've always wondered if those that use R4 cards (I don't have one) for the DS and play online are at risk of being caught and having their doors knocked down by the SS..err I mean Police. Surely they're logging users and have means of identifying legitimate/illegitimate users?

Re:Chasing users?

[FlopEJoe]

have means of identifying legitimate/illegitimate users

I'm assuming sarcasm but I've always wondered what is legitimate with the DS. You can use R4 (and others like it) to play movies, read ebooks, listen to music, and play homebrew your DS. That's hours of entertainment without touching an illegal, downloaded ROM or altering your rig in anyway. The R4 isn't like plopping an EPROM in a console or rerouting wires since it doesn't alter anything the DS was sold as... not even the firmware.

Then the step further, you can buy ROMs, dump them and, and put multiple games on your DS. Most would find the convenience in traveling without all the ROMs or the chance that your kid drops it down the air duct shaft. But is that legitimate to Nintendo? Seems the same as ripping my own CDs and putting them on my MP3 player.

Re:Chasing users?

[jamar0303]

How? Once the game is loaded into the card's RAM, for all the DS knows it's just a regular DS game card. There's no other way for those to work (not sure about the ones that used to run from the GBA slot, though, but we're talking about the R4).

Well it can be fixed.

[Shivetya]

The requirement should be, create a back up copy for the end user which cannot be used; easily; by anyone else. Granted many companies won't like that either but it may be easier to keep it off their radar if the system truly doesn't make it easy to just copy and distribute paid content.

The problem comes down to the fact that the "innocent" users are being lumped together with the abusers. Yet who do people bitch about? The company being negatively affected. Do you know people who have pirated games? Have you told them to take a hike? If not, why?

"Blatant Stealing."

[Aladrin]

"It can destroy years of hard work by a team of very talented software developers, who strive to create games consumers enjoy playing."

It -can-, but it doesn't. Instead, it allows people that don't have the money to buy the game to play it anyhow, and get their friends excited, and get them interested in sequels and spinoffs. Instead of forcing the penniless gamer to go out and play in the yard for free, it keeps them addicted to video games.

On the other hand, people that -can- afford the games buy them, for the most part. I'm not talking the teenagers that have to skip lunch this month to buy a game, but the people with full-time jobs and disposable income.

And when it comes right down to it, the only difference between someone "stealing" a game using a modchip and that same person buying the game used is the timeframe. The developer doesn't get any money from either way. (Of course, GameStop gets some money on the used route, but that's irrelevant to this discussion.)

My current tactic? Rental. Any game I don't absolutely have to have right away, I just rent it. For 1/3 of a game per month, I can rent 2-4 by mail. For 3/4 of a game per month, I can rent 4-8. Since I lose interest in most games after a few hours anyhow, this works great for me. I've had some games that I thought I'd love that I spent less than an hour playing them before they were back in the mail. GameFly (and probably other services) will even let you buy the game at a reduced price if you want to keep it. That makes it really hard to justify buying it brand new.

So in the end, Nintendo can rid the market of these devices and it won't change things for the better. That isn't their goal, though. Their goal is to remind people that they are illegal and 'wrong'. And they did that.

Re:"Blatant Stealing."

[brkello]

Wow...what a rosy little world you live in. Pirating games means that everyone is going to make great profit! Pirates are such nice people that when they don't pay for a game and like it they become an advertising agency that just pours money in to the company. It also keeps these pirates off the streets where they would be causing trouble. I never knew how fantastic pirating could be!

Fact of the matter is...if companies don't at least make some attempt to make it difficult to pirate something, then everyone would do that instead of paying for it. Then games just would not be made.

If you are too poor to buy games, then you really should be doing something about that rather than sitting around playing video games. You even give a good alternative (GameFly) to pirating.

Re:"Blatant Stealing."

[RyoShin]

You can argue that those who steal games wouldn't buy them in the first place, but then why steal them? Why get something that doesn't have value? Okay, you can extend that to say this is true for those below the poverty line, and I'd agree, but we both know that is not only poor people that pirate. I'd think that some (more than a tiny fraction) of those who pirate can afford (or at least save without much effort) and would buy the game if it was the only way, but would rather be cheap/fight "the man" and pirate it instead.

For shits and giggles, let's run with your idea of a copying device. If everyone could easily make their own duplicate Ferrari*, then very few people would pay. Why therefore, would Ferrari want to continue making cars? Some argue that is their problem, not yours. Alright, so now you have your own Ferrari, sweet. And every day your drive your Ferrari. And now it's getting kind of dull, even when you invite friends over to ride your Ferrari... (remember, this is about entertainment, so practical uses are irrelevant for the analogy).

So now what? You keep using the same Ferrari, over and over? I sure bet you'd like a new Ferrari to copy and use. Maybe something with a new built-in holographic projector and hooker bot (this is the future, after all). But, because no one was buying their cars, Ferrari had no interest in creating new cars with more auto advancements and interesting/innovative features. If they still exist at this point, they're probably surviving on a service model. Upgrade? What upgrade? Aside from fixing some mechanical issues in the car, giving extra features in upgrade packs usually get copied as well, so why bother.

But you have your Ferrari. Too bad no one cares, because now everyone else does too.

You see, it's not just economics and legality that are at issue here, it's innovation and incentive for those who produce these things. It's why we have things like Madden '08 and Tony Hawk Ultra Super Neat Skater 7, but no Skies of Arcadia 2 (or any number of original properties that never saw the light of day). Companies are banking more on established games that will reach the masses rather than new material or indie stuff, because apparently a lot of people who would actually be interested in newer stuff are the same kinds who have the ability and desire to download instead of pay for them.

So before you pirate, think of the Ferraris.

* I've ignored a whole other part of the requisite auto analogy that would cause it to break down, such as other immaterial things that can't be copied like insurance, registration, etc.

Speaking of scrathed disks

[wannabegeek2]

I've not made a habit of backing up CD / DVD media based games or content, primarily due to the hassle. For the adult stuff my wife and I are careful enough with the disks that the risk of the disk becoming damaged through normal use is reasonably low. (read as not worth the hassle and cost of obtaining technically illegal software and quality media)

An incident last weekend however has me reconsidering my current practices, at least where my kids CDs, DVDs and games are concerned.

Over the course of the last few years I've had to use the furniture polish trick on a few game CDs. Usually after one of the kids left them sliding around in a drawer and the PS2 or 'puter couldn't read them anymore. With I think one exception, so far I've been lucky and they've all be playable.

Last weekend however my son had a friend over for cooperative HALO3 fest. On the second evening they're setting up the friends system when my son decides to "stand up XBox so it can get some cooling". After this the system says the disk is unreadable, and it's discovered that their is a perfectly circular series of scratches about a quarter inch from the out edge and an eighth of an inch wide.

After multiple attempts with the furniture polish and toothpaste tricks I finally get the disk to read. I have NO doubt I'll be buying the young man a new HALO3 disk in the near future.

The moral of the story?

It should be EASY and LEGAL to make backups of your media. It doesn't matter whether it is music, a video or a game!

    Oh, by the way, anyone have any favorite, tried and true, game disk restoration tips? :-)

Re:Speaking of scrathed disks

[FlopEJoe]

For the adult stuff my wife and I

Your lucky... I wish my GF liked pr0n :(

Re:Speaking of scrathed disks

[xtracto]

Your lucky... I wish my GF liked pr0n :(

I'll give you a tip, it depends on what kind of porn. I know that in stores like Ann Summers they sell "adult movies" which are "suitable" for girls, or at least, they like them. You could always also start with "Pirates" which has a pretty funny story.

Btw, the first porn movie I saw with my girlfriend (we had a really good time as the movie is hilarious these days) was Deep Throat (the original). My GF got interested after the documentary was released, so I got it and we watched it...

Re:Speaking of scrathed disks

[Alaria Phrozen]

I thought they give instructions on how to receive a replacement disc for like the cost of shipping and maybe $5? It's in the back of the manual of every game you buy. I've done this with multiple computer games, even 5+ year old titles like Descent 3.

Re:Speaking of scrathed disks

[Kiuas]

Your lucky... I wish my GF liked pr0n :( Your lucky, this is Slashdot after all... Most of us just wish we had a girlfriend :(

Typical lies

[foreverdisillusioned]

The devices seized are used to copy and play Nintendo DS games offered unlawfully over the Internet, and the mod chips allow the play of pirated Wii discs or illegal copies of downloaded Nintendo game

They're also used to play games that aren't available for sale in the USA (and won't run on a North American Wii even if you import them legally), and they're used to play legal ("Fair Use") backups of game discs that have been damaged.

All of you MAFIAA shills can whine "oh but that's not what you guys are REALLY using them for!" all you want, but my both my sister and my girlfriend like Japanese date sims (weird, yes), and I've known several people who've had a game disc damaged beyond playability--usually by dogs or small children.

Re:Typical lies

[rabiddeity]

I'll back you up, except that I go the other way. I have a Japanese Wii that I've bought here in Japan. Sometimes I want to play a game that I see on the shelf at the local stores. But sometimes I just want to sit down and play a game in English. Unfortunately, since Nintendo released their system region locked, a mod chip is the only way I can reasonably do that. If the MAFIAA broke down my door today, they'd find a chipped Wii and a bunch of legally purchased Japanese and US games, and no "backups". Yeah, I actually do buy my games. But what, does Nintendo want me to buy two systems which are identical except for the region lock? Sorry, no quack. I want to play games ON the system, not play games WITH the system.

The DS raids I can kinda understand their reasoning. DS is already region free, and there are no discs to scratch, so that nixes the two main legitimate reasons to install a modchip. But that doesn't mean it should be illegal to mod a system you've purchased. I would hope if they continue to attack the modchip makers instead of the illegal software distributors the doctrine of first sale is going to eventually come around and bite them in the ass.

Re:Booo!

[ozmanjusri]

I think we have bigger problems as well as the DMCA.

Fixed that for you.

Re:Booo!

[shawn(at)fsu]

And personal backups of your own media so that you don't have to buy a new copy when your friend/pet/child/"significant other" scratches it.

Yeah that or... you could learn to start taking care of your stuff in the first place. I lost a few CD's to scratches when I was a kid. My parents never said, well you should have made a back up copy, they were more apt to say "GD it! When are you going to learn to take care of the stuff we buy you", so fast forward a decade later and how many DVD's or games have a lost to scratches. None.

Come one people take responsibility for your stuff. If your friend scratches them your friend owes you a new disk, if your child scratches them, well if that's the worst your child does to your stuff you got off easy, if your significant other scratches them, you have to take the good with the bad. If your pet scratches them... Wait what?!? Thats just stupid. I can't see any good reason why your pet should come near your media... Media has cases and those cases should be stored some where that Rover can't get to.

Re:Booo!

[Eccles]

We have Bill fucking Clinton to thank for that.

Uh, didn't it pass the Senate with 99-1 votes for vs. against? It wasn't particularly Bill Clinton's baby. Not that he would have vetoed it even if the vote was closer, but there are few politicians out there that show much opposition to increasing copyright restrictions. And Rich Boucher isn't running for president.

Re:Booo!

[Von Helmet]

I'd bet a lot of money that use of these devices for the purpose of personal backups pales in comparison to their use for playing copied games.

Sure, it's a bitch, especially as I was hoping to pick up an R4 for Homebrew purposes, but you've got to admit that Nintendo have a point with this.

Re:Booo!

[Mathinker]

In such a consumer dystopia, I'd think that open-source games would start to gain a foothold in the old off-line, infinitely replayable niche, and eventually the proprietary game producers might partially return to produce games for that niche. Look, we're not talking MS vs. Linux here, you don't use games to run all the other programs on your computer.

Of course, by that time widespread use of computers as general purpose computational platforms might be dead, so the open-source games couldn't compete (e.g., Linux on Playstation 3 cannot use the GPU). I would hope not.

GBA Flash2Advance / eBay / ESA Tale Of Woe

[pandrijeczko]

I recently sold my Gameboy Advance & two Flash2Advance backup cartridges on eBay (all of them separately). Along with the F2A cartridges, I threw in with each a DVD full of **ONLY** GBA PD ROMs.

Fortunately, the auctions ended & the buyers had paid me before eBay informed me that they were taking the F2A listings down due to software piracy. When I questioned eBay as to why this had been done when I was not advertising any commercially copied software with the cartridges, they told me to get in touch with the ESA (Entertainment Software Association) who had asked for the listings to be removed.

So far, I have emailed the officious tosspots at the ESA four times & demanded an explanation as to why they insisted the F2As be removed when eBay can still advertise writable CDs & DVDs, USB flash keys and DVD writers, all of which can be used for piracy in a similar fashion.

In over 4 weeks now, I have not received one reply from the ESA who, as far as I am concerned, have accused me of being a software pirate & been heavy-handed in their attitude - even though I made it clear to them that the F2A can be a legitimate developer tool for homebrew GBA ROMs.

All these heavy-handed corporations are just assholes!

Re:Booo!

[ThirdPrize]

Trouble is that there is no physical difference between your "back up" and a copied version of the game. One may come on a dodgily photoshopped CD but they are essentially the same (as the original). You probably even have the serial written on the front as well.

The software industry is slowly realising that the concept of selling physical CDs and of those being of some worth is a joke. It is what is on the CDs that matters and that can be copied with ease. Eventually everything will be downloaded via Steam/Xbox Live and you will have to log on to run it. At that point you can make as many back ups as you like.

Re:Soooo much homebrew

[jamar0303]

Yep- I use DSOrganize and MoonShell on mine. Makes a decently priced MP3 player. I am guilty of pirating games too, though- mainly because I live in China and the DSes are region-locked to only play Chinese games (of which there are less than 10) due to some idiotic decision. But, they left the GBA slot completely unprotected, because the GBA game library consists mainly of fan-translated games flashed onto blank cartridges and sold commercially; from big department stores to small street vendors, none of them are official.

Re:What kind of excuse is this?

[Anonymous Coward]

I own the fucking hardware. I put a modchip on it if I fucking want, fer crying outloud.
Nintendo[or]Sony[or]Microsoft sold the console to you. The hardware, after the sale, is not theirs, it's yours to do whatever the fuck you want to.

R4

[tepples]

In the case of DS games, that somewhat depends on whether or not these chips are the ones used by homebrewers. Yes, the R4 card that's popular with pirates is the same R4 card that's popular with homebrew users and even developers such as myself. Likewise, on PCs, pirates and legit users use the same DVD burners.

Colors!

[tepples]

I'd bet a lot of money that use of these devices for the purpose of personal backups pales in comparison to their use for playing copied games. Some people on the gbadev.org forums have stated that they bought a DS and a homebrew card just to use Colors!. So I have only one thing to say about your assertion: Citation needed.

Re:Booo!

[maxume]

Nothing, but in a world where it is (from a technical standpoint) trivial to duplicate digital media, banning said duplication because forcing people to take care of their things because it is a good moral character builder is insane. I like to examine insanity, so I asked the OP a question designed to elicit further insanity.

Re: What kind of excuse is this? - This one!

[gabrieltss]

My family owns an original Nintendo NES, Super Nintendo, Nintendo64, Nintendo Gamecube, and a Nintendo Gameboy Advanced. We are a Nintendo specific game family. We have purchased litterly hundreds of ORIGINAL cartridges and CD's for these systems that totals up to A LOT of money spent. I was able to get ahold of a Super Wildcard for my super nintendo a few years back and yes I did backup ALL my cartridges for my Super Nintendo and I am glad I did. I now have two that won't work anymore becuase the contacts on the cartridge are so worn. Even cleaning them didn't help. Do you know how HARD it is to find OLD nintendo cartridges to replace them? Even GameStop is slowly phasing out nintendo stuff to put in more XCrock shit! I don't own an XBox, I WON'T own an XBox. I'm starting to think Microsoft bought up GameStop too. At least I can still play my LEGALLY purchased Super Nintendo games on ZNes on the PC in Linux. At this rate I don't know if I will buy a Wii. Anyone know of a legit place that won't rip you off to purchase backup devices for the old nintendo NES, nintendo64's and gamecubes. I have one gamecube Cd that is starting to have problems now too! I want to be able to LEGALLY backup my games damit! Fuck the RIAA, MPAA, Nintedo et al.. If I won't be allowed to backup up my LEGALLY purchased stuff I won't be doing anymore purchasing. It will save me a lot of money at least and less in the pockets of the media outlets that seem to think it is their god given right to get my money!

My thought is that the game console makers should produce their own game backup units that would allow you to legally backup your games. Even if it put like a serial number into the backup of the game so it could be traced back to the original owner if they decided to "pirate" them. This I think would protect BOTH the consumer and the media outlets rights. The consumer could legally backup his legally purchased media and if they gave out a copy to someone else and the meida outlet found a copy floating around they could trace it back to whoomever gave it out and prosecute them. Simple I think.

At least I have my old Amiga 2000 system and all the tons of games I bought for it. Oh that's right I am glad I made backup copies of those too so I could play them on UAE under Linux on my PC, since my Amiga 2000 floppy drive died and try to get a replacement for one of those!

Starting to see the LEGITIMATE need for backup software/devices??????

Re:Booo!

[toleraen]

You had mediocre parents and have had the good fortune (thus far) to be in complete control of your stuff. Not everyone (e.g. Greensboro KS, Louisiana, and various random people who've been burgled or robbed) is so lucky.

Having/maintaning good backups is part of "taking care of your stuff." Please provide a method on how to backup my TV, my couch, my oven, etc, so when I'm robbed I'm good to go. Oh wait, that's right, it's called home owner's insurance, which applies to everything you own (as long as you chose to cover it). When my wife's apartment burned down I had my PS2 games back within a week. Backups are for irreplaceable information, not material goods.

Homebrew development earned me a career

[Anonymous Coward]

When I was in high school, I bought a Flash2Advance for gobs and gobs of money because I wanted to play NES games on my Gameboy Advance. I did that for a few days, and then got sick of it. A few months later I decided to try my hand at GBA game development, and made a few demos and a complete game over the course of a few months. I entered the game in a Homebrew GBA competition and got an honorable mention... My parents thought it was the biggest waste of money and for a while I did too, until three years later when I mentioned it on my resume. I got a job at an embedded engineering company, and my boss later told me that the whole reason they called me in for an interview was because of they downloaded my GBA game and tried it out. Before that I had never even heard of "embedded engineering," and now it is my passion and specialty.

I never thought a $500 video game would change the direction of my life, but I will never doubt that homebrew is great. Certainly it can be used to steal games, but it is also one of the cheapest and most effective ways for a novice programmer to get into a booming industry. And, yes, developing for emulators is also valid, but testing on real hardware was an invaluable experience that an emulator cannot replicate.

Re:Booo!

[Trelane]

Please provide a method on how to backup my TV, my couch, my oven, etc, so when I'm robbed I'm good to go.

Sorry, physical goods and electronic goods are not the same. Now, when you have a matter compiler, we can talk more about it.

Oh wait, that's right, it's called home owner's insurance, which applies to everything you own (as long as you chose to cover it).

Yes, homeowner's (and renter's) insurance is a fallback for some major disasters like I outlined. However, there are caveats:

• It covers stuff when it's in your home (What about your DS games or CDs or whatever? Remember, O Strong Copyrighter, that making MP3s of your CDs are illegal--you must use the original media!)
• It usually has a considerable deductible.
• Your insurance agent will ding you (i.e. raise premiums) when you take it, so you have to choose carefully when you cover a loss, so a minor theft is most likely in your pockets, not theirs. (In fact, they will drop you if you file too many claims!)
• Flooding can and will happen, but flood insurance is a separate (and costly!) option to add. Say you're in a 500-year flood plain (most places are in some sort of flooding area; the question is how often it occurs). The chances of you getting flooded any time in the near future are small. Would you elect to pay the (rather costly) insurance for everything, or just a set of things (which likely excludes games and music)? Why pay extra if you could back it up?
• Choosing to cover stuff is a trade-off. You can cover more (and increase premiums) or cover less (and decrease premiums). So you're saying we should have to increase premiums, because backing up a CD should be prohibited?!

So your reasoning to ban all backing up of your legally-acquired copies of music, games, movies, etc. is because you can get insurance which may or may not completely cover the loss (if you chose to pay the higher premiums to get the coverage), if it covers the loss at all?. I'm afraid I just don't agree with you.

Region Codes

[kisrael]

I might be on Nintendo's side for stuff like this if it wasn't for the #$&(U@#$ region lock codes.

Re:Region Codes

[SonnyJimATC]

Most of the time (I believe) the region lock codes exist for the games publishers, not the console manufacturers. Nintendo have to prove to the publishers that they can provide a secure platform for them to develop for. Also there is the issue of copyright. A game published in Japan by a company may only have the rights to use that character/music/theme in that specific region. Nintendo have to offer them a mechanism to make sure that the game publishers can assure the copyright holders that it won't just get exported to another country where they don't have copyright permission. If you think about it, it doesn't do any favours for Nintendo to region lock stuff, it's just to placate the publishers.

Re:Region Codes

[kisrael]

Yeah, but Nintendo does it too.

The current bee in my bonnet is the way they cancelled a US version of Puzzle Collection for GC.
So the only reason I have a Free Loader is to play that damn game.

And I guess I still don't buy it. As long as the publishers don't publish in places where they don't have copyright, do they really care if someone can play the software there? So that means we're at least 3 steps removed from the people who might care.

Re:What kind of excuse is this?

[jgoemat]

If you were actually serious about being worried that your game would break, you simply would have gone to GameStop or Toys'R'Us or the local equivalent and gotten one of their game warranties.

Which does little good for the saved games it's taken you hundreds of hours to create. With the R4 and M3 DS Simply, you can backup all your games and saved game files by dragging them to your hard drive. You also can play any of your games and not have to carry around and swap out all of your cartridges. The R4 also has a built-in cheat system to allow you to play the games by your own rules. I buy games if I like them. I have a legal right to make backup copies of software I own.

Having lived in a college dorm, I can tell you the real use of mod-chips is for downloading games that you don't own and playing them.

That is sad, but the answer is not to destroy a product that has many legitimate uses and fills a need that Nintendo was unwilling to fulfill itself. The movie industry tried to kill the VCR when it came out because of fears of copyright monopoly violation. Later they started making more money from movie rentals and sales than they did from theatrical runs, due to a technology they tried to have axed, but that's not the point. You can't only think what's good for copyright holders, the important thing is the public good. The public good is the whole reason for copyright's existence, we shouldn't let this limited government-granted (non-natural) right trample on our natural rights.

Re:Booo!

[Just Some Guy]

Please provide a method on how to backup my TV, my couch, my oven, etc, so when I'm robbed I'm good to go.

Good point. I am now ripping the tape drive out of my server because if I can't make backups of my kitchen table then I shouldn't be allowed to make backups of my home directory.

Does your logic truly make sense to you, or are you just being an ass for the sake of it?

If you don't provide for backup/homebrew/etc...

[sjonke]

... you get piracy. We have a modchip in our Gamecube and primarily (by far) it is used for homebrew, backups of our purchased games (sorry, but I do think I should be allowed to backup our purchased games), and to play games from other regions (region-coding is extremely irritating and stupid - why make it hard for us to buy and play games we want to play?) Have I ever downloaded a game ("pirated")? Yes, I have. I've only done it a handful of times, and have always ended up tossing it out (or buying the game), but none-the-less, when the possibility is there, you're bound to try it at some point. And some will continue to do it and won't toss out their pirated games.

If Nintendo et. al. provided a means for backing up games, free tools for developing and running homebrew (or for a very nominal fee), and eliminated region-coding, then modchips wouldn't be necessary for these legitimate purposes, and there wouldn't be the temptation to try pirating games at all. They choose not to provide these things. Wouldn't it be easier and less costly to them to provide this stuff? It would also make customers happy.

Re:Booo!

[delinear]

Well then companies could resolve both these issues by:

1) Offering free replacement media for disks which will no longer play due to scratches/warping (these could be offered via standard retail outlets so there is no issue of "Send us your disk and wait 3 months for a response", which could then be another legitimate reason to make your own backup). Media is cheap and if you can show proof of purchase, what's the issue for not issuing a replacement, other than greed?

2) NOT imposing region locks - in this day and age where markets are global via the internet and the world is shrinking in terms of travel, region locks are an archaic method of locking users in. If I buy a bunch of games on a shopping trip to NY I should be able to expect them to play back in the UK, or if I go online to buy games I shouldn't have to risk getting a non-PAL version.

If these are the two major legitimate reasons for mod chips, then the games companies could remove both reasons with ease and leave little excuse for mod chips and remove the debate. The problem is, even if they are a minority, some people ARE using mod chips for entirely reasonable purposes, and rather than taking the sledgehammer approach to the issue, companies could work with those customers to solve their issues and people may then be more understanding when those same companies ask for help to reduce piracy.

It would also go some way towards removing the perception of corporate greed in these areas - after all, why should we be sympathetic to companies crying about greedy pirates when those same companies are hurting their paying customers for the same reason?

Re:Nothing New

[Asky314159]

Yeah, that'd be great, if there were actually any open-source games that were, you know, fun. I don't know about the rest of you, but I play games to have fun, and as much as I despise EA, they have entertained me far more than all the open-source games I've tried, together. Not to mention they're a pain in the butt to get working in the first place.

Re:Shooting the messager

[steveo777]

There are two side to that coin, sir. And they're both ugly... Either there is socialized care, or commercial. Either way, you'll pay for it (taxes or pocket).

If the US went to socialized care, I have a feeling that a lot of hospitals would slow their growth, and eventually become under-funded because people don't like to pay taxes. (look at our education system).

The average US citizen is so damned irresponsible with their money (government isn't much better) that they don't know how to pay for things they need first. I live in the Twin Cities (MN). What you have is tons of people who basically expend their credit to the point of breaking with expensive cars, TV, stereos... And kids that they can't feed on their welfare checks, and houses that were purchased on a First Time Buyer's or Low Income program (some are literally better than most people with excellent credit can get) who don't/can't pay their mortgages, and they're losing these houses at an alarming rate. This is becoming 'normal'. The average US citizen is $8562 in debt (2004). These are not the only people who don't want to pay the taxes for better schools or better health care... but they don't know how to spend the money they do have and vote down anyone who mentions taxes. Nobody likes taxes, but when the people who are served by them don't want them, it's a problem. Burden on society? Yeah. But some how they need to be educated and helped. Or it just gets worse.

THAT is why social health care cannot work in the US. We already see the ugly side of commercial health care in the US. Reform is needed. But so is education, responsibility, accountability...

Huh?

[Besna]

Well I'd like to be able to play multiple games on the DS without swapping. What does that have to do with pirating? I think this is just flamebait.

Come on! This can't be real!

[urcreepyneighbor]

"Supreme Factory"? Did the HK police have to fight the "Final Boss", too?!

Why didn't they

[AntiRush]

just brick all the modded Wii's?