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Piracy and the Nintendo DS

Posted by Soulskill on from the portable-but-not-too-portable dept.

Graffitiwriter writes "With the average DS game weighing in at about 30-60MB (well within the reach of anyone with a half-decent broadband connection) gamers now have an alarmingly easy route to free games — a fact that Nintendo is all too aware of. Pocket Gamer takes a look at how piracy affects the Nintendo DS console, along with the reasons so many gamers turn to piracy to play their games — including the slew of inferior games, availability of flash carts and industry greed."

22 of 261 comments (clear)

  1. well it is expected... by powerspike · · Score: 5, Informative

    People are going to pirate your software, no matter how hard you try to protect it, there was even devices for the original gameboy.

    People are going to copy software, and find an excuse for it, they always have, and always will.
    company X is bad, Company x charge to much...

    1. Re:well it is expected... by AKAImBatman · · Score: 3, Insightful

      People are going to pirate your software, no matter how hard you try to protect it, there was even devices for the original gameboy.

      Thus the release of the DSi. Not only will it lock out R4 cards for classic DS games, but Nintendo has added significant upgrades to the protection on DSi games. They've even added region coding to round out the new protection bundle. (Thanks a lump, ya bunch of pirates!)

      I doubt these changes will completely eliminate piracy. As you said, there are always those who will make the effort. However, it may stem the rather rampant degree of DS piracy and bring it back down to reasonable levels.

      I imagine these protections are particularly important for the DSi since it has downloadable titles that can be saved to an SDCard. If Nintendo failed to encrypt these games like they did with the Wii, everyone could give their friends copies just by swapping SD Cards.

      --
      Javascript + Nintendo DSi = DSiCade
    2. Re:well it is expected... by calmofthestorm · · Score: 4, Insightful

      It's kind of naive the way you blame pirates for the excesses of the industry. As if any kind of "lock out" can stop people in it for the thrill combined with nearly endless freetime, or an audicence of many people who are willing to pirate because they just want nice things for free.

      On the other hand, such lock out can easily prevent honest customers from exercising their rights (first sale), and create difficulties for them that they just won't easily resolve. May even drive some to piracy to avoid all the headaches.

      Region codes have nothing to do with piracy, they exist solely to support price discrimination by region and prevent first sale doctrine. There's a reason Australia's otherwise-draconian DMCA-equivalent explicitly allows disabling DRM to eliminate such structures.

      My solution to the crap the industry pulls is more on the stop playing games side than the piracy side, but it's pretty easy to see how this goes.

      Way to drink the flavor-aid.

      --
      93rd rule of Slashdot: No matter how obvious my sarcasm is, my comment will be taken seriously by someone.
    3. Re:well it is expected... by rm999 · · Score: 4, Insightful

      Its a very wide spectrum. I know very few people who modded their Xbox 360s, because if they get caught MSFT disables them from playing online - a pretty severe punishment. Most consoles are similar - they require you to hack hardware (i.e. soldering) with expensive mod chips that void the warranty.

      The DS, on the other hand, is ridiculously easy to pirate. A 15 dollar cart from dealextreme, a 10 dollar microsd card, and a 1 hour bit torrent download can get you 50 of the most popular DS games - built into your DS. It's more convenient, far cheaper, and you can play games even before they come out. It doesn't void your warranty and isn't traceable.

      I personally bought the DS because of its ability to be hacked, but not for pirating. I run a lot of homebrew on my DS, including a very capable Nintendo emulator, an e-book reader, and a few open source games.

    4. Re:well it is expected... by __aatgod8309 · · Score: 5, Informative

      Well, the card developers have already come up with a working flashcard for the DSi, so Nintendo has lost that battle. http://www.dsfanboy.com/2008/12/02/acekard-produces-first-dsi-flash-cart/

    5. Re:well it is expected... by calmofthestorm · · Score: 4, Insightful

      True. But morality and legality never have been identical and never will be. One more case study of how the best we can only hope for is a crude approximation.

      But then again, pretty much everybody is committing hundreds of "crimes" per day, the justice is all in the enforcement.

      There's nothing immoral with ROM dumping a game YOU own and playing it on your computer, no matter what industry propaganda may claim otherwise.

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      93rd rule of Slashdot: No matter how obvious my sarcasm is, my comment will be taken seriously by someone.
  2. As a CycloDS owner by Duradin · · Score: 5, Interesting

    As a CycloDS owner, I can say that exactly zero (0) of the roms I have are pirated.

    Why did I get a flash card if not to pirate?

    Primarily, my upgrade to the lite left the gba cart sticking out, which made it less than convenient to carry with anything but the plug in the gba slot. Next was the convenience of not having to bring anything more then the DS itself while still having access to all my carts. Also some used games can't easily be restored to a clean state. The ripping process and separate save files solves that problem.

  3. Re:Nitendo DS by rolfwind · · Score: 3, Insightful

    Or, you could actually take a few minutes to look up online what the good games are which aren't. Or just grab a top 10 list from someplace. Just the same concept of using rotten tomatoes to avoid dropping money on bad movies.

    I don't think ignorance is really a valid excuse anymore. At least 90% of any media has always been crap.

  4. Missed one by dexmachina · · Score: 5, Insightful

    Pocket Gamer takes a look at how piracy affects the Nintendo DS console, along with the reasons so many gamers turn to piracy to play their games â" including the slew of inferior games, availability of flash carts and industry greed."

    Which sort of leaves out the obvious. People are cheap, and given the choice between having something for money or for free, many opt for free.

    1. Re:Missed one by calmofthestorm · · Score: 4, Insightful

      Yes. But rather than focusing on the needs, wants, and desires of those who would never give you money and will get it for free no matter what you do, the companies would do better to make better products.

      Though I've always wondered how even the most pro-piracy people could claim 'slew of inferior games' is a justification to pirate...if it sucks, wouldn't you /not/ want to waste time playing it?

      --
      93rd rule of Slashdot: No matter how obvious my sarcasm is, my comment will be taken seriously by someone.
    2. Re:Missed one by dexmachina · · Score: 4, Insightful

      I agree with you, I just get a little annoyed when people say things that make it sound like piracy is a natural and defendable consequence of the actions of the industry, ie "industry greed". It's true, there are definitely measures companies could take to try to minimize piracy, ie making great products that people will think are worth the cost. But at the end of the day, there's no reason why anyone has to have (insert hot name game title here), and so citing industry greed is just dumb.

    3. Re:Missed one by Opportunist · · Score: 4, Interesting

      Why can't the people who buy games just read review magazines?

      I stopped taking reviews serious when I started working for a computer magazine. Take a wild guess why.

      It's not so much that you're outright "bought" to write a good review for a shitty product. It's more the psychological pressure. After all, you get nice stuff from them, ya know? You get all those "test samples" and other goodies. They sit down with you for a lenghty interview. And you got to fill those pages, you really, really have to, because first of all, you're paid by the page and you have to provide some content for your reader or they'll wonder why they should drop their five or even more bucks on a mag that's more the thickness of a leaflet and contains a few full page ads with little in between them.

      And then there's this super-nice company that gives you all that for free. Free! You don't have to go out and buy their crap to write a review, no, they hand you a ton of pics and even an interview that's good for a page or even two, and they also give you those test samples so you can easily (and cost free!) write a couple more pages.

      And then you should go and call it a stinker? Where do you think you'll get your next test sample from? Certainly not from those guys, that much I can tell you!

      --
      We used to have a Bill of Rights. Now, with the rights gone, all we have left is the bill.
  5. Re:its not the same by KDR_11k · · Score: 3, Informative

    You actually use all 50 carts? I've got enough room for 12 in my bag and rarely ever use more than 1-2 of them.

    --
    Justice is the sheep getting arrested while an impartial judge declares the vote void.
  6. Re:Nintendo DS by Kryptonian+Jor-El · · Score: 5, Funny

    ('about $60 on 4-5 games is about $7 a game)

    Where did you learn math?

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  7. I know I'm not supposed to say this, but... by TheVelvetFlamebait · · Score: 3, Funny

    along with the reasons so many gamers turn to piracy to play their games -- including the slew of inferior games, availability of flash carts and industry greed.

    Not to mention consumer greed. It's all the industry's fault, or at least those damn flash cart manufacturers. They provide a product like that, how could we possibly have the free will to say no?

    --
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  8. Industry greed vs consumer greed? by ChienAndalu · · Score: 4, Interesting

    If someone wants more games than he or she can pay for, isn't it fair to call that consumer is greedy?

  9. Is there anything actually worth pirating? by Plazmid · · Score: 3, Funny

    Do I really want to download "Strawberry Shortcake: The Four Seasons Cake?" I think not.

    1. Re:Is there anything actually worth pirating? by MemoryDragon · · Score: 3, Interesting

      The problem persists with every Nintendo console. The DS had amazing two years. Nintendo brought out quality games, third party developers were toying around with the new input controls and brought ought amazing games. Year three. Nintendo reduces a lot of its output down to the usual annual pokemon shit... Third party developers flock onto other consoles with their better developers, the rest is up to Disney and Co... That means 1-2 excellent quality titles per year which are drowned in a flood of my horse farm, cook yourself a bread, pink pony games...
      If you look at the shelves you will only see the cheap cash in games, because they flood the games, the 1-2 excellent games drown and often do not even reach the shelves anymore.
      It was like that with the Gameboy, the GBA, it is like that with the DS and to some smaller extent with the Wii.
      But the situation still is better than on the PSP, the PSP currently only gets 5 shovelware games per year and not even a single good one, or one if at all.
      For me I am rather sick of this entire situation I reverted back to PC gaming, the situation on the PC has changed a lot, you do not have to do yearly upgrades, and a mid range card does it mostly!Also the games are way cheaper than on the consoles. Also the games are not abandonware once the next upgrade cycle comes, like it was with the case PS2->PS3

  10. Re:Learn and evolve by erwanl · · Score: 3, Informative

    You should give your idea to Nintendo, I'm sure they will love it. Unless they already had the same idea...

  11. Re:Free mod points! by rm999 · · Score: 3, Informative

    Nothing wrong with that.

    A flash cart, short for flash cartridge, is a device you place in your DS. The flash cart contains a flash card, which stores the games/data. This is (was?) the most popular flash cartridge when I got my DS: http://r4ds.cn/

  12. Re:Nintendo DS by Bozzio · · Score: 4, Funny

    I was thinking the same thing!

    His Brain Age must be, like, a MILLION!

    --
    I just pooped your party.
  13. Re:DSi's effect on homebrew by Goaway · · Score: 4, Insightful

    The vast majority of people who use flash carts use it for piracy, plain and simple. Trying to deny this is just naÃve. They may also try a homebrew app or two, but they would never have bought the thing if it wasn't for piracy.

    Furhtermore, Nintendo has absolutely no obligation to support homebrewers.

    And I say this as a homebrew developer myself.