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Nintendo Asks For Government Help To Fight Piracy
Nintendo, in its annual report to the USPTO, has requested help in dealing with piracy overseas, both from the US government and from several other countries in particular. China, Korea, Brazil, Mexico, Spain, and Paraguay are listed as the greatest contributing nations to piracy of the company's products. Nintendo suggests, for example, that "Chinese customs officials must stop shipments of game copiers and other infringing products out of China, and China should work in the coming year to eliminate barriers to its enforcement laws," and that "the Spanish government implement laws protecting the creative copyright industry and enact laws against Internet piracy."
Most of the people who copy games for their consoles get the console and the necessary devices for copying games just because they know they can copy the games if they get it all.
There is no guarantee those people would get the console and any games if they couldn't copy them.
I've got a chipped gamecube and a DS with flashcart and could kinda get all of the games for both systems but then all I do is play WC3 on my computer anyway ...
I'm just not that into console gaming, I don't even play the games when they are free ffs, why would I play them if I had to pay for them?
Atleast Nintendo makes money on the consoles to so they have got my support anyway.
Parents getting said devices for their kids which would indeed get a couple of probably crappy games may be another story though.
Ithink I have enough of this. A toy company will make laws on my country? FUCK OFF NINTENDO!.
-Woof woof woof!
My heart goes out to Nintendo in these difficult times of record profits.
Nintendo, get a fucking life. Seriously, pirating is not costing video game companies much of anything, because not many people pirate new video games. Most of the "pirated" video games are games that can no longer be purchased and/or are out of print.
...I bet China will get right on it!
"I may be full of crap about this game, and I may be wrong, and that's fine." -Jack Thompson
.....if we piss off the Chinese by demanding they stop copying games or exporting copying hardware, they won't loan us 2000 billion in dollars. And then what will this poor, debtor nation do? No, no, we can't afford to make demands of the people giving us money to survive.
"I disapprove of what you say, but I will defend to the death your right to say it." - historian Evelyn Beatrice Hall
At least in brazil its the truth. Super Mario Galaxy, for example costs 46 dolars on amazon.com. If you try to buy it in brazil, it will cost 260 reais, which is about 120 dolars. Its costs 2.6 times more than if you were buying it on the US. Whats the reason for this? Taxes and filthy lucre. I dont know why it doesnt happen with computer games. Left 4 Dead for PC, for instance, costs 45 dolars on Amazon.com. If you buy it in brazil, it costs 99 reais, which is about 45 dolars. Thats why computer games piracy has decreased in brazil and console games piracy is still the same. Charge a fear price and everyone will buy the game. Charge a pornographic price and we will pirate it.
Why don't they wave their magic wand to make it all go away?
At least in Spain, where I live, it is not illegal to copy copyrighted material if it is for non-for-profit, personal use. More precisely, judges sistematically dismiss complaints by copyright owners in those cases.
Let us hope it remains so.
I suspect most people would be surprised by the sheer amount of piracy there is for games on Nintendo's platforms. So here's some background reading on the issue:
"In South Korea, many video game consumers exploit illegal copies of video games, including for the Nintendo DS. In 2007, 500,000 copies of DS games were sold, while the sales of the DS hardware units was 800,000." Yes, you're reading that right; the attach rate for DS software in Korea was at one point less than 1.0, fewer pieces of software were sold than hardware devices, which is a tell-tale sign of use of piracy devices.
As for why that is, Gamesutra has a short but insightful article on the matter. DS flash carts (what Nintendo is calling "game copiers") are cheap, and the South Korean people are turning to them in part as a solution to not being able to afford every game they want.
Nintendo's biggest fear here is that other countries end up like Korea, with rampant piracy and few legit customers. Nintendo does make a profit on hardware, but much of their profit is still on software. Furthermore their 3rd party game developers who don't make a profit on hardware would love to make a profit at all, and bad/no 3rd party support just makes Nintendo's hardware and software sales that much worse. I can't see why Korean piracy levels world-wide wouldn't kill the DS, or any other console for that matter. I understand Wii piracy through mod-chips is also pretty rampant in South Korea, although I do not know to what degree.
With that said I don't know why Nintendo is going to the US government about this. Certainly it's reasonable to ask the government to clamp down on this in the United States, and perhaps even apply some pressure on China where flash carts are made with relative impunity, but I don't see the point in listing the other countries. I don't see what stake the US government has on piracy in Spain, for example.
And I'll close this out by admitting I'm a pirate. I have an R4 flash cart with many games and exactly 2 legit games (1 of which came with the DS) when I could easily afford to be completely legit. I'm exactly the kind of person Nintendo is worried about. There are many more like me, I'm afraid.
Oh come on! What's he complaining about? Software is illegal to share in Spain as in any other civilized country. Media is something else, as the right of personal distribution without it being a lucrative activity is legal.
Also, Mod-Chips and the sort are illegal too, not that security agencies give a f*** about some teenagers buying them.
So what is it that you want Nintendo? A France like model of 3 strikes you're out enforcement? I think the government has (or at least should) more important worries, like almost a 4MM unemployeds.
So Nintendo, when you build a factory in Spain and some developers shops to help mitigate this problem, start whinnying about piracy.
....see mine. I have two kids (2 & 4), sometimes I play Wii Music / Wii Fit / Wii Play (Fishing!) with the older. It's too troublesome to lock all stuff away all the time (and sometimes I just forget to remove the disk from the console), so I've already thought a few times about modding the console to be able to backup the games before the kids manage to destroy the disks accidently.
As it is, they won't replace my scratched disks, so I don't have so much simpathy for them.
So Nintendo was all about hardcore gamers.
Then it said "fuck you you guys are too critic of games so we will go for casuals that eat anything we crap (looking at you wii)"
Now casual gamers start buying however they buy at lower rate then a hardcore fan.
Now the hardcore fan prefers to pirate CASUAL games cause he gets tired of them after 5 mins.
Now nintendo whines... You harvest what you cultivated DEAL WITH IT!!!!
Well, some of the stuff they say is true, at least in Spain. All parents I know that bought a DS for their kids also got the flash cards, R4, M3, Cyclo... you name it. You can walk on any small videogames shop (big chain retailer stay out of it) and you'll find them for about 30 EUR including a 2 or 4GB SD card which is less than the price you pay for an original game. There are many sites with bittorrent or emule links so you can get pretty much any game out there. All of this is LEGAL: copying and sharing copyrighted material is legal as long as there is no profit involved. On the other hand you have to pay a fee on every CD, DVD, flash memory you buy as a compensation for your right to make a private copy so everyone sees downloading games and movies as something you have already paid for.
I was in China recently and decided to look for a Civilization Revolution for Nintendo DS. While I found lots of Nintendo DS Lite systems on sale, I couldn't find anyone who had games for the systems. Eventually, I found one vendor who had a few games behind the counter. But he couldn't believe that I wanted to spend money on actual games. He kept pushing me to purchase a games copying device for a lot less.
Eventually he sold me a couple of games that looked interesting. But it seemed that he would be making more money if he had a nice selection of games, like the kind you can find in stores in the U.S., and if he actually tried selling them. The game copying device can only be sold once. New games come out all the time, so you can keep selling them as they come out.
I also noticed that the software and games that were available in China seemed primarily targeted at Westerners. Very little software is designed for the Chinese themselves.
Game copying devices, and piracy in general, hurts the Chinese. Their retailers run on razor-thin margins while content producers generally don't tailor content for the Chinese.
A new Nintendo DS game usually sells for $40 USD in the U.S. How much does it cost where you live?
Nintendo, get a fucking life. Seriously, pirating is not costing video game companies much of anything, because not many people pirate new video games. Most of the "pirated" video games are games that can no longer be purchased and/or are out of print.
You poor misguided wretch. That makes it even worse doesn't it? When people are busy playing old games there is less profit to be made from selling them new ones.
Only to idiots, are orders laws.
-- Henning von Tresckow
good to see government is being asked to tackle the big issues, like teenage girls pirating "Animal crossing".
If you mod me down, I will become more powerful than you can imagine....
Simple: Stop putting games on a media which can be copied in any home PC.
Make game CDs a bit bigger or something so they don't fit in a standard drive for recording.
PS: "Spain"? Oh, sure, Spain is a major international cause of lost profit. Not. Spain has a sensible law regarding copyright, that's all.
No sig today...
No, you are not right. In Spain, where we both live it's illegal to copy software, even if it's non-for-profit.
But Spanish judges dismiss charges against people modifying their consoles or copying music or movies for personal use.
What Nintendo wants is to make illegal devices like R4/M3/WiiKey and blocking webpages that give access to pirated games (software).
Good luck with that, but I don't think it would be possible here.
IÂm from Spain, a video game for Nintendo Wii cost here 55â (~70$).
I donÂt want to justify piracy with this one. But I would suggest them to try to lower the price in this country, and IÂm sure more people people will take to buy the game as an option.
they think they don't win enough money.
In several of those, BTW, piracy is not illegal. So FUCK YOU Nintendo.
As a company that's having it's software copied and pirated of course they have to do something about it. However, unlike the RIAA, or MPAA, they aren't going after individuals but rather the large scale counterfeiters on a nation wide basis. Sure they could turn a blind eye to all claims of piracy, but at least in this case they're going about it the right way and not suing tons of people downloading hacks or copies of software. I'd say this is a check + for Nintendo with how they're handling this.
The musings of just another geek and his junk.
I've already thought a few times about modding the console to be able to backup the games before the kids manage to destroy the disks accidently.
What does your (in)ability to play personal legally backed up games have to do with industrial piracy?
What Nintendo is asking for is to stop the *for profit* piracy business. For example, specifically in Mexico (the scenario I know) where the sell of pirate Game/DVD/CD is rampant in public markets (say, Tepito or Pericoapa in Mexico DF, Mitra in Monterrey, etc).
OTOH what they are asking is completely unenforceable (at least in Mexico), because the few resources that government has are being used to fight other more important issues (e.g. drugs, for which the USA has the solution [i.e., decrease the demand you junks]).
Last but not least, Nintendo *has* the potential to reduce piracy in some of these countries (again, at least in Mexico) by setting game prices to a reasonable amount.
When they understand that selling a game for $40 in Mexico means taking about 10% of the MONTHLY* salary which a family uses to live, then they may see why is it that the majority of people can *not* afford their consoles.
Of course, I hear people saying "if they can not affording, just do not use it". But the problem is that these companies continue advertising their product to push it in a market outside their range.
* Considering that a monthly salary is around USD$400 (from average salaries in Mexico).
Ubuntu is an African word meaning 'I can't configure Debian'
Could you name these "out of print" Wii games because I'm not aware of any that aren't still available.
The top four most downloaded Wii games at the pirate bay were all released in the last month, the fith is Mario Galaxy which certainly isn't out of print.
How can you fight piracy in a country where a Nintendo DS game costs more than US$100 a piece and salaries are much lower than in the USA and Europe for the same job?
So say we all
Exactly. These products are only infringing upon the DMCA which is vehemently against Fair Use.
You have the moral high ground, along with millions of other people. You purchased the game, gave Nintendo and other companies the money. Why on Earth don't you have the right to make Fair Use backup copies?
I think you do have the absolute right to make backup copies. Thank god for the talented people that can create products to bypass copyrights restrictions so that you don't have to pay these #$&#*#*$ 10 times for the same product.
Hmmmm, paying 10 times for the same product? Maybe that is a huge financial incentive to lobby governments for laws against the ability to make copies? Nahhhhh! Their motives must be more pure than that right?
Chinese customs officials must stop shipments of game copiers and other infringing products out of China, and China should work in the coming year to eliminate barriers to its enforcement laws
They better stop selling the Twilight Princess and any future games for which an exploit is discovered and while they are at it they might as well stop selling Wiis. The Wii itself is an infringing product with the mistakes they made which allowed people to hack the system.
so they stop physical devices and all that changes is that people choose to download PDFs(etc) and build there own.
In fact I see a good business opportunity "will build anything from PDF(etc), no questions asked, good rates".
reminds me of http://www.nealstephenson.com/diamond/
ERR 411[Max number of witty sigs reached]
The office in question is the Office of the U.S. Trade Representative. No patents involved, thank god.
Wouldn't know, I still haven't gotten my kids the Wii Console due to A.) Nintendo artificial creation of a scarcity and B.) My unwillingness to camp a store.
I've already thought a few times about modding the console to be able to backup the games before the kids manage to destroy the disks accidently.
What does your (in)ability to play personal legally backed up games have to do with industrial piracy?
(Not the GP). It has EVERYTHING to do with it. The same chip that would let andi75 play backed up games so that it could be a $.35 DVD-R that gets the PBJ treatment instead of a $40 game, is the chip that allows people to play the industrially-pirated mass-bootlegged games from Mexico.
Nintendo wants to screw over andi75 for the sake of slowing down the Mexican pirates.
This is the only real sympathy I have with making copies. Children scratch the hell out of discs. Please go back to cartridges with the next consoles. I hear 8GB NAND flash (the same size of a dual layer DVD) is now about 40$
With the next consoles, please allow the cartridge to be copied to the console itself.
I doubt Wii games are what the O.P. was talking about. I think he/she/it was talking about older systems.
For instance, how many people signed the online petition to have Nintendo translate Mother 3 and release it in the US? I believe well over 100,000 people signed it. Yet Nintendo refused to translate and release the game over here. So, fans of the series took matters into their own hands and translated the game themselves. If Nintendo would have released the game, they could have made a ton of money off of it, but instead, it is now being "pirated," instead.
I have a bad feeling about this...
"Chinese customs officials must stop shipments of game copiers and other infringing products out of China"
Why doesn't Nintendo go after customs of the importing countries? It's because on both sides of the import/export equation are a very small number of people who actually inspect what is going on. Why don't they get the piracy sniffing dogs out? That's right, they can barely handle the drug trade.
"Chinese customs officials must stop shipments of game copiers and other infringing products out of China" The problem is, all you need to copy games is a wii and an early edition of Zelda: Twilight Princess. Stop piracy by banning the legitimate product?
But it seemed that he would be making more money if he had a nice selection of games, like the kind you can find in stores in the U.S., and if he actually tried selling them.
Game copying devices, and piracy in general, hurts the Chinese. Their retailers run on razor-thin margins while content producers generally don't tailor content for the Chinese.
Paragraph 2 also applies to paragraph 1. Games are the same way (moreso possibly than the grey-market copiers). You don't know he made more money on the games than the copiers. He might have been doing what gamestop does here: Pushing the used copies to "save you money" (heh heh).
Straying from the topic, but actually the solution is LEGALIZE LIGHT DRUGS (such as cannabis), so they can be produced and traded by honest, non-violent entrepreneurs, and certified for quality.
Circumcision is child abuse.
I have got a Wii and I'm very mad at Nintendo over their region restrictions. I cannot buy games even I want it. What options do you leave people? Some people will of course enhance their Wiis with Modchips. I can fully understand it. And then there different times for game releases. I can tell you and your licensing companies a big FUCK YOU. I hate to see US-versions on YouTube of people playing their games 11 months(!) before the release started in EU.
This is not the correct way to treat gamers, really! Get rid of regional restrictions or go down, I really wish you this, dear Nintendo.
I just want to add that I've only bought Nintendo consoles so far (5 platforms). But I will rethink my opinion about the company, if they don't change their bad attitude.
Because Much like the music industry the single person(s) backing up legally bought games, is who they go after. Or some 13 y/o that downloaded GTA4 because mommy and daddy said no.
Personally I cant ever recall seeing in the paper, a story about a Mob or group of counterfeiters that is being sued for copying games and selling them.
I for one would like a refund for every single copy of a game or music that has ever been destroyed because I was made unable to make a backup of my legal copy.
Don't get me wrong I know full well that "Some" people pirate games for personal use. Typically these are the same people that would of never of paid cash for the game in the first place. So damages are kind of a joke.
Then the answer would seem to be to make new games that are actually more fun to play than the old ones. People wouldn't be playing the old ones if the new ones were that much more fun. I think the biggest problem with profit in the game industry right now is that nobody focuses on playability aka controls and game mechanics. The few companies that do for example blizzard make record profits whenever they release a game.
The majority of games played on cracked wii consoles in my experience are NES SNES and Genesis games. Games created when it was about gameplay instead of about attaching basic controls to the newest graphics engine.
...they had custom media, sure, but they didn't make it expensive enough to clone/copy.
No sig today...
"We want [country A] to change their laws, so that if a person in [country A] breaks our [country B] laws , we can prosecute them."
If [country A] != America and [country B] = American then GOOD
If [country A] = America and [country B] = !American then BAD
It's amazing to me that in all the rhetoric, from both sides of the piracy debate, among seemingly educated people, that nobody emphasizes the most basic principal that taking something that does not belong to you is wrong. It matters not what country you're from, the price the company charges, old or new game, etc. If you take something without paying for it, your stealing, and breaking God's law.
Is stealing not an offense in the Koran? In Bhudism? In Hinduism?
Look, I donwload music, but I would never claim that it's my right to do so. One day I will answer for all of my actions here on earth, as will everyone. At least be honest about what you're doing.
Keep in mind that nobody EVER "gets away with it". Don't fear people that can take your money/house/life; fear Him who can take your soul.
dgower2/FuzzyLogic (so as to not post as AC - forgot my pw)
How in the world is Nintendo (a worldwide known manufacturer of Video game consoles) is going to fight Piracy (the Commandeering of ships at sea and the killing of the crews - and then asking for Million of $ to give the ship back).
And will someone tell me how running bootleg copies of games (a petty offense) relates to pirating (a capital crime) ?
Yer right matey ! let's send Nintendo to Somalia !
--Ivan
I can absolutely dig Nintendo's position on large-scale bootlegging, but isn't Nintendo a Japanese company? Let them ask their own country for help leaning on China. We already have enough people bitching about America acting like the world's policeman.
Never approach a vast undertaking with a half-vast plan.
It seems to me that China is such a shithole, that it would be completely unethical to waste time dealing with piracy at this point. Let's stop slavery, let's stop human rights abuses, let's enforce workplace health and safety standards.
Moaning and whining about how a few people are getting games for free in a country like China is like complaining that Hitler stole your parking spot.
It's been a long time.
Nintendo takes a calculated risk with the "piracy" when they move manufacturing to China. Cheaper labor compared to low oversight causing a lot of bootleg material. Then, they pressure the governments (the tax payers) to foot the bill to enforce the IP laws to cut "the losses" they have from the cheap labor. They get the best of both worlds. Cheap labor and tax payer funded enforcement. Cisco does the same thing. EVERYONE in the world knows that the China government has little regard for IP. Normally, you would not do business with a government or manufactorer that screws you over but the tax payer enforcment makes it worth while to take the risk. If their games were made in another country that had more IP oversight, this would not be a problem.
I say FUCK you Nintendo, its your own damn fault for choosing a company in China to package your games. BTW, Cisco does the same exact thing. OMG!!! These "bootleg" gbics made from our supplier in China might by hacked and the US government is using them causing a security risk! Lets get the FBI to track these down and protect our income. How about this Cisco, stop using that cheap ass labor and supplier in China and stop using tax payers money to protect your income?
http://www.businessweek.com/magazine/content/08_41/b4103038201037.htm
Obviously the security risk is FUD or they would pull out of China.
When will the Government raise taxes and fix this mess!
if you don't want to buy the games (for whatever your reasons may be) then don't play the games.
I want to buy the games, but Nintendo doesn't want to sell the games for any of several reasons. One is the No Export For You mentality even if there's a fully translated prototype (Earthbound for NES) or even if it's been released in another anglophone market (Kuru Kuru Kururin for GBA; Pinocchio for Wii). Another is that games from a smaller developer can't get published unless the developer has already released another commercial title on Windows, and some developers aren't fans of the genres that Windows gamers have historically preferred. What is the alternative to piracy in this case?
Yea Nintendo is not coming after you are they? I am willing to bet if NES America knocked on your door with the police and a court order and you said "yes here are the copies, i burned them on my computer, here are the originals" you would be fine. You know the reason why they are complaining about the lack of law enforcement -- too many people are acquiring pirated copies and do not have the originals. Just scan the posts here on /. where people believe that as long as they bought they console they have done their due dilligence to support the company (they forget the consoles are typically loss leaders) and they are not entitled to pirated games.
I do not support "The Man". I also do not support your irrational stupidity
1 - "Anti-piracy" Tax and price hike
2 - Repentant Pirate Completely Voluntary Contribution (Tax)
3 - "International" Anti-Piracy Authority Support Incentives (Bribe)
4 - "Anti-Piracy Development" Sting Operations (Provocation (Fr))
5 - Increase (1) to meet mounting expenses
6 - Goto 2.
Actually, it's always been about attaching controllers to the newest graphics engine. But if that is the excuse, here you go - if you can buy super mario brothers, for the NES, then you can buy pretty much any of the other games. BTW - it's nice and cheap:
http://www.google.com/products/catalog?hl=en&q=super+mario+brothers+nintendo&safe=on&cid=16603037394614279608&sa=title#ps-sellers
http://www.google.com/products/catalog?hl=en&q=super+mario+brothers+nintendo&safe=on&cid=16603037394614279608&sa=title#ps-sellers
http://toytraders.ecrater.com/product.php?pid=2615801
Or you can stop making excuses and realize that its about people who are too cheap to buy and they want it for free. Also, if it's that the new games suck and people are only downloading the old games why are the new games rated in the top slots for pirated software?
I do not support "The Man". I also do not support your irrational stupidity
Nintendo, get a fucking life. Seriously, pirating is not costing video game companies much of anything, because not many people pirate new video games. Most of the "pirated" video games are games that can no longer be purchased and/or are out of print.
Could you name these "out of print" Wii games
For one thing, where do you go for "video games" in grandparent to "video games designed for Wii" in your post? But more importantly, can you try to give a North American release date for Earthbound (NES), Kuru Kuru Kururin (GBA), or Pinocchio (Wii), all of which were fully translated into English and then never released in the United States and Canada?
A.) Nintendo artificial creation of a scarcity
:-\
Yeah, producing and shipping more than a million consoles a month is artificial scarcity.
Just go to your store every Sunday when they open. You'll get one, ya whiner.
DS flash carts (what Nintendo is calling "game copiers") are cheap, and the South Korean people are turning to them in part as a solution to not being able to afford every game they want.
I have an R4 copier. If I use my R4 to play OGGs and videos in MoonShell on a DS Lite, am I gypping Nintendo out of the sale of a DSi, which doesn't come out until April anyway? If I use my R4 to play DSOrganize, which has web and IRC functions in it, am I gypping Nintendo out of the sale of Nintendo DS Browser, which is out of print anyway? If I use my R4 to play Lockjaw Tetromino Game, am I gypping Nintendo out of the sale of a copy of Tetris DS, which is out of print anyway? And when I use my R4 to run things like MegaETK, Colors!, Setsuzoku no Puzzle, or a lot of the other stuff from pdroms.de and gbadev.org, I don't even know what close substitute Nintendo sells.
It was my impression that they don't want to go after the distributors of illegally made copies (which I don't have a problem with), they want go after the tools. Modchips & drives that can be used for ripping the original DVDs.
By limiting the availability of these tools (hence making them more expensive to obtain), they're in fact worsening the situation. If I buy the modchip & pay or find someone to install it for me (I'm no good with a soldering iron) and buy a special drive to backup my games, I have spent at least the amount of money to buy two more games. In order to recover the amount I spent for what I regard as 'fair use', i.e. which should be essentially free for me, I would have to 'skip buying' two games at least. Mod chip makers: 2, Nintendo: 0
Yeah, that's right. Here in Spain, it's simply legal to download, upload and/or share music and films, if it's non-profit. Also, it's been ruled that pages that encourage sharing films and music and have revenues from ads are also legal, in part because otherwise google would be illegal, as google also has links to torrent files (try searching for "filetype:torrent" in google).
Unfortunately, Spanish Law makes an exception with copyrighted software. So it's legal to share music and films but not software. Anyway, I'm PROUD to say that software piracy is also widespread here in Spain (the exception is that businesses don't use pirated software).
One thing that I feel should be said about the translation is that a lot of people (although I am not stupid enough to say even 20% of the 100k people, but let's leave it at "a lot") purchased the Japanese version and imported it. They played it well before the translation patch with a guide in a text document.
That's how much people love this game; that's how little Nintendo cares.
Starmen.net
How can you fight piracy in a country where a Nintendo DS game costs more than US$100 a piece
By reducing the prohibitive (>100%) duties on imports of video games. I detailed them in another comment.
Yup, and online petitions are soooooooo effective. Try starting a real campaign next time instead of a "click to sign my 'petition' online" if you want to be taken seriously.
Right on. I've had an R4 since day one, and freely admit to downloading NDS ROMS. The only one I've bought is Zelda.
1) Convenience. I have at least a dozen games on a 1 GB MicroSD. That's the ONLY way I'm going to be able to carry around a variety of games without losing half of them.
2) Quality. A lot of DS games really suck. I don't even keep most of the games I try. If I had paid for them, I'd regret it.
Mother 3 is awesome. I ordered a Slot-2 flashcart just so I could play it. I can see why Nintendo didn't bring it over to the US... if you're expecting Earthbound, the style is just as cute and bright, but the story so far is dark and tragic.
Playing a game for free that can't even be bought in your country will not cause the games industry to die, so get over it.
Of course it does.
Playing a game for free that can't even be bought in your country will not cause the games industry to die, so get over it.
It doesn't matter how it affects their product - they, for whatever reason, are refusing to do business with you and guess what they are entitled refuse it. This does not give you a right to go in and steal their product. Let me give you an example. So how about you get over it.
I do not support "The Man". I also do not support your irrational stupidity
That's laughable as an example SMB shipped with almost every NES and was sold on shelves there are tons of copies of that game and what console am I going to play said game on assuming I did purchase it? The consoles are no longer manufactured so supply has a finite limit.
Also you say people are too cheap if these people are the majority the people are not cheap the prices are just set too high the product is overvalued. And before you go on about how people are still buying them. The price point isn't so high as to be unavailable. It is however far too high to be optimal for the market. A non optimal price point in combination with a readily available alternative is a formula for failure. Software is a near infinite resource. I say near infinite because in this case the minimal price of stamping and man hours do set a minimum profit margin to break even. However this is significantly below the current price point.
I doubt Wii games are what the O.P. was talking about. I think he/she/it was talking about older systems.
For instance, how many people signed the online petition to have Nintendo translate Mother 3 and release it in the US? I believe well over 100,000 people signed it. Yet Nintendo refused to translate and release the game over here. So, fans of the series took matters into their own hands and translated the game themselves. If Nintendo would have released the game, they could have made a ton of money off of it, but instead, it is now being "pirated," instead.
NES not releasing a game into a specific market does not justify people pirating the game. And EVEN if this game was in the market it would still be pirated. So again, stop attempting to justify this fud. People pirate because they don't want to pay the cost of the game. Not playing Mother 3 will not cause you to die so get over it.
It also does not justify Nintendo counting unauthorized copies of said game as lost revenue as they never intended to sell it to these people in the first place.
"the exception is that businesses don't use pirated software"
Jajajaja... sorry... Hahahaha... where do you work? At the BSA?
Piracy is morally neutral, neither good nor bad. The intellectual monopoly faction has utterly failed to produce a single solid argument for the alleged immorality of piracy. Their appeals to property rights consistently ignore the factors that justify rights to actual property in the first place.
Lay off the moral posturing. Consequentialist arguments are all you've got, and even those are pretty weak.
AEIOU: open-source anonymous internet currency
It's all pointless. Eventually all games will just be downloaded over the Internet and stored on the console(s) (think Steam).
And then get bought by the kind of idiots who cancel a nearly complete Ghostbusters game because they can't figure out how to make it into a franchise like Madden.
If their friggin DS Lites werent so poorly built - between myself and my kids and wife we own 4 of these damn things, three of them have busted hinges - and the screen on one has become wonky over the months we own it. Nintendo charges like 70 bucks to get them "fixed" by replacing them with refurbed units. I view the product like Cyclo DS Evolution as a form of compensation for my headaches. Also it does a bunch of other things that the DS Lite is capable of but Nintendo doesnt implement. Sorry but sympathy is just a word in the dictionary between shit and syphilis.
I will not be pushed, filed, stamped, indexed, briefed, debriefed or numbered. My life is my own.
not releasing a game into a specific market does not justify people pirating the game.
Why shouldn't people pirate it? Give me one good reason. There's no actual consequences for Nintendo, so you're going to have to either trot out your flawed understanding of property rights (which will then be summarily debunked), or fall back on appeals to "THE LAW" (in which case, who the fuck cares?).
AEIOU: open-source anonymous internet currency
Exactly. I have found that the vast majority of "piracy" is due to lack of a particular game being released in a particular market. If video game companies really wanted to prevent this so-called piracy, they would release games that people actually want.
I have a bad feeling about this...
Yeah atleast we're getting one more Diablo and Starcraft that's worth playing before they become part of the sequel machine.
You poor misguided wretch. That makes it even worse doesn't it? When people are busy playing old games there is less profit to be made from selling them new ones.
Then perhaps companies should stop selling us new games that are exactly like the old games, but with a different graphic layout.
Although that's not a quite fair argument since you get original titles like World of Goo claiming a 90% piracy rate, which is appalling.
and it will happen again.
Nintendo needs to realize that there's no way piracy will stop in Mexico unless they lower their prices. A Wii is almost twice as much in Mexico as it is in the USA, costing the equivalent of over 350 dollars here. Games aren't much cheaper. And Wii Points cards are also twice as expensive here.
It's also pretty hypocritical of Nintendo. Wiis are plentiful in Mexico, even at times when news of shortages elsewhere were common. The reason is that, since the Wii is so heavily marked up, Nintendo does profit more by selling here in Mexico than in the USA (similar to how they diverted shipments to Europe because higher prices there gave them more profits). However, while there are those mexicans (like me, sadly) who would indeed pay twice the price for the console, which is very convenient for Nintendo, the vast majority of the population can't afford those prices. So they resort to piracy in order to get their games; buying stolen for their consoles; and (worst of all) buying an XBox instead, because the XBox is 60% the price of a Wii here in Mexico.
This will continue, however hard Nintendo tries to push mexican authorities, because they don't care; Mexico is a land of impunity, where drug dealers get away with murdering and torturing, often in broad daylight. Obviously the authorities have their hands full and no time for a game company crying wolf because their products are getting pirated. And anyway, it's too easy for the "pirates" to bribe the police officers who come to seize their goods and try to arrest them; they, too, are starving and would welcome a few thousand pesos in bribes (or, why not, a shiny new stolen Wii for their kids).
So if Nintendo wants to reduce pirating of their products in Mexico (they can't stop it altogether), they need to make sure their prices are more in line with what they charge internationally (The USA, specifically). That way more people can afford them legitimately, and there will be less incentive for piracy. However, culturally, legally and politically, the complete erradication of piracy in Mexico is an impossibility. Just ask Microsoft.
You're joking, right? There was a ton of reskinned crap on NES/SNES/Genesis too. They've just been largely forgotten over time as we canonized the great titles.
And EVEN if this game was in the market it would still be pirated. So again, stop attempting to justify this fud. People pirate because they don't want to pay the cost of the game. Not playing Mother 3 will not cause you to die so get over it.
This is incorrect. If there was a legit English copy, there would be far fewer pirated copies, simply because people might not want to go through the hassle of setting up a chipped system to play one game.
Look at TV piracy. If every show I watched showed up On-Demand a day later, I wouldn't download any TV episodes. Case in point: I didn't download a single episode of Dexter, because I could watch them all On-Demand. I download every episode of Dollhouse because I can't.
I download Dr.Who, because I don't want to wait for months for my next fix. If I could watch Dr.Who legally less than a week later, I wouldn't pirate it.
Availability decreases piracy.
Yes, but there may be a difference between what I want and what you want.
Stupidity only gets you so far, then you've gotta try
and they WILL all buy nintendo products, if piracy is prevented. they are that rich. they are pirating, only because they are just greedy. nothing else. its not like they wont be able to ever buy nintendo products if they cant pirate.
Read radical news here
It doesn't matter how it affects their product
Of course it does. Since the effect is zero either way, why don't you get off your high horse already?
This does not give you a right to go in and steal their product.
Copyright infringement != stealing, dumbass. Do you also tell people that break the speed limit to stop committing arson?
This is not about "piracy." Nintendo is lobbying governments. That's the boring headline.
All mass-market corporations lobby governments to have the playing field tilted in their direction. The only way to justify the cost of the lawyers and bribes it takes to get that playing field tilted is real gain. Piracy is only one aspect of that effort.
And all of them have been doing it for decades now so it be pretty darn lucrative.
Wait? What now? The Dow's in the 7000's? The Soviet Union collapsed? So did the global economy?
Strike that. Replace "lucrative" with "ludicrous." Government is a lousy way to run a business.
-- ;^)
Toro
I actually am anxiously awaiting my wiikey2 I just ordered for my Wii for just this very reason. My wife and I have purchased maybe a dozen games for our Wii, most at $40-50/game only to see about a quarter of them rendered unplayable thanks to several scratches my 8, 7, and 6 year olds (and possibly 2 dogs) have ended up creating. We try to watch the kids and make sure that they always put the disc back in their case, but kids are kids and accidents happen. Several of the games that are unplayable have seemingly very light scratches that I'm very surprised actually cause the discs to be unreadable.
I only wish the Wii came with an hard drive like the XBox did where I can just save the disc to the drive and play everything off of that.
People wouldn't be playing the old ones if the new ones were that much more fun.
Err... except for nostalgia, perhaps? Some "Cranky" people refuse to take off their rose-coloured glasses, if you get what I mean.
It doesn't matter how it affects their product - they, for whatever reason, are refusing to do business with you and guess what they are entitled refuse it. This does not give you a right to go in and steal their product. Let me give you an example. So how about you get over it.
Having an idiotic sales policy doesn't give you a right to complain about lost sales to government either. You can choose any sales policy you like - but when it fails the reality check, it's up to you to face consequences instead of complaining that the world doesn't suit your personal needs and doesn't work like you'd like it to.
Legalize all drugs, especially crack cocaine and heroin. Stop all government support of addicts - if you are addicted you are on your own. We will breed the addict gene out of the race before long.
I'm kind of suprised that none of the console makers haven't taken to copying the disk to a hard drive. I know that they are not going to do anying without copy protection, so they could just just use a usb dongle as a key. You could technically have up to 256 keys plugged in at a time, so you could load up you console giving you the convenience of installation to a hard drive as well as protection from disk scratches.
No one is going to take your post seriously when it is laden with ethnic slurs.
Good point. Please mod #26997793 as Redundant if you must, in favor of the following correction:
DS flash carts (what Nintendo is calling "game copiers") are cheap, and the South Korean people are turning to them in part as a solution to not being able to afford every game they want.
I have an R4 copier. If I use my R4 to play OGGs and videos in MoonShell on a DS Lite, am I conning Nintendo out of the sale of a DSi, which doesn't come out until April anyway? If I use my R4 to play DSOrganize, which has web and IRC functions in it, am I conning Nintendo out of the sale of Nintendo DS Browser, which is out of print anyway? If I use my R4 to play Lockjaw Tetromino Game, am I conning Nintendo out of the sale of a copy of Tetris DS, which is out of print anyway? And when I use my R4 to run things like MegaETK, Colors!, Setsuzoku no Puzzle, or a lot of the other stuff from pdroms.de and gbadev.org, I don't even know what close substitute Nintendo sells.
I would be willing to pay $5-$10 (includes shipping) for a replacement disk. I send them the original scratched disk and they send me a replacement. They can even send it back in a generic box.
http://mother3.fobby.net/
It's great game and has a damn fine translation, too.
Ever thought of teaching the kids to take care of their things instead of whining about Nintendo not releasing an "ADD ADHC Ritalin Riddled Negative Five Second Attention Span Ultra Reinforced" edition?
You probably don't live in one of the countries mentioned.
I do, and piracy of Wii games is staggering. There's more sales of pirated games than official games.
And that's not even counting the people that download and burn games.
Do you really think that it's as simple as there being an "addict gene"? Are you saying that if you took crystal meth, that you wouldn't soon become addicted?
It's better to vote for what you want and not get it than to vote for what you don't want and get it.
- E. Debs
I paid $129 for a Nintendo DS ONLY because of R4DS card. I totally agree with what Aliquis is saying. Without the said card, Nintendo wouldn't get a single penny from me and I wouldn't even think about getting the stupid system. Over the years I bought several DS's in various colors, and encouraged friends and family to get them as well, and I even bought some DS games for my friend as a gift. So, how was the R4DS card bad for their business?
The real money is in the software.
They create the hardware so they'll have a platform on which they (and others) can sell software. Nintendo gets a licensing fee from everybody who makes games for the system, and in exchange Nintendo provides a popular platform and does their best to impede piracy.
Now, all that said, I own an R4DS. I originally bought it so I could do dev and homebrew but I've also used it to play pirated games. It's great that the R4DS is so convenient, but it's kind of unfortunate that this also makes piracy so easy. I believe in my own right to do what I want with my own hardware but I also believe Nintendo is right to protect the technical means they've used to try to stop piracy. If end-users were more honest then the two interests wouldn't conflict...
It's true that not every pirated game equates to one lost sale. However, someone who got themselves a DS and an R4 and a memory card along with a couple hundred games might have instead spent the same money on a DS and two games. Even if the "lost sales" were bargain-closeouts or used games, that still represents a reduction in the overall demand for legitimately-purchased games, and thus a reduction in the value of the games.
And then on the flip side: the value of the R4 is greater because you can use it to easily play pirated games. The manufacturers and resellers of that device are profiting off of software piracy. That's not fair, really.
I think people put a lot of effort into rationalizing their own software piracy - but really it just comes down to self-gratification. Nothing is worth paying for if you're willing (and able, with low risk) to take it for free. If these people forced themselves to play by the rules, they might find that these games are worth paying for.
Bow-ties are cool.
It's an interesting catch-22-like situation, though one that has a definite start in any sales drop that could be attributed to piracy.
Company releases new, innovative, and/or fun game. Because of that, it likely gets little marketing (there are rare cases like LBP), meaning it's only well known in gaming circles. Half of those who want it pirate it, the other half purchase.
The end result is that the publisher sees much lower sales numbers than expected, even for a new property. Being able to track piracy numbers roughly, they believe that the massive number of pirates are part of the reason, and so they are less likely to release another new/innovative/fun game, because the more standard fodder/sequel gets much more attention from the "casual" gamer community and thus more in sales.
While I bemoan the lack of originality in the industry, I can't blame companies too much--even if they're gamers first, they're still developers second, and to make a game you have to spend a lot of money (especially today) and plan to make money off of it. The less risk, the more likely the plan of action is. It's smart business, and no number of whining gamers will change that (especially a hardcore market that is seen as full of pirates).
The other point is it's not like they even seemed to try hard to prevent piracy. Their systems are some of the most easily hackable out there so if they don't even invest in anti-piracy measures like Sony and Microsoft do then why should they expect anyone to help them if they wont help themselves?
I think you're not familiar with the history of the Nintendo DS... Nintendo's ability to patch these systems is limited because the old ones (before the DSi) didn't have the ability to download firmware updates - and online play wasn't big enough when the system was launched to enable Nintendo to "strongly encourage" system updates, the way they (and Sony, etc.) do with their more recent systems...
But the first hacks to be able to run homebrew code worked by spoofing a DS game header, via an add-on device (and later, wi-fi), to launch code from the GBA slot instead of loading it from the DS card. And then, due to hardware limitation of how the GBA slot is memory-mapped on the DS, the bootloader code had to be crafted to avoid certain operations until the software was up and running. Admittedly, Nintendo could have protected themselves better against this with more aggressive use of cryptographic signing, etc. but what's done is done.
Anyway, they went through a few iterations of blocking specific measures like that - rejecting headers that had jump addresses in the GBA ROM region, and so on - but because they couldn't push updates to the system it was mostly limited to new hardware releases which would include the block.
Then somebody worked out how to do the whole thing via the DS card slot. (If you want to talk about Nintendo not trying hard, or how their system is super-easy to hack, think about how many years it was from the release of the DS until this was accomplished...) That made devices like the R4DS possible. Dealing with that was less straightforward, since these devices were much more similar to normal DS game cards than previous methods. They finally addressed that with the DSi - I think by specifically blacklisting the R4 and similar devices... The DSi has to remain backward-compatible, of course, which limits Nintendo's options somewhat, but since online stuff is a bigger part of the new system Nintendo can finally push firmware updates...
So I'd say they've been trying pretty hard. Bear in mind they also have to balance this effort against other concerns (for instance, making this all run within the limitations of economical hardware, etc.)...
Bow-ties are cool.
Why shouldn't people pirate it? Give me one good reason. There's no actual consequences for Nintendo, so you're going to have to either trot out your flawed understanding of property rights (which will then be summarily debunked), or fall back on appeals to "THE LAW" (in which case, who the fuck cares?).
You, sir, are an idiot. Bet you don't have those kinds of balls in a court of law. Would you tell a judge "THE LAW...who the fuck cares?" No didn't think so. Until you are willing to tell that to a judge in his courtroom STFU troll.
I do not support "The Man". I also do not support your irrational stupidity
I don't even have time to play all the games I've bought.
The only reason I'd ever consider buying a Dreamcast is to play 1 or 2 old games with friends that I'd just burn a copy of. Like Power Stone 2. I'd actually buy that game on 360 if they added it to the arcade.
I'm getting hard nipples right now just thinking about Power Stone HD.
I have a friend who has every Dreamcast game ever created burned and in a giant CD case, I think he's played like 3 of them more than once.
After getting a 360 a few months ago, my Wii has been collecting dust. Its only redeemable quality to me now is the Homebrew Channel, which Nintendo is *really* against. If they took that away from me, I'd basically be done with it... until the next Mario or Zelda game...
Really though, it seems like their primary market right now are gaming families, the Wii probably being their first console. These people don't even know *how* to pirate games, so who cares about a few stragglers? Suck it up, Nintendo.
Man you sure sound like a dumb, childless cunt who never held a Nintendo DS in his hands. They are poorly made. Maybe you should look at your uninformed bitch face in the mirror and see if you are the one with the ADD problem?
But you are missing on on the tried and true recycle... cycle.
It seems that a good 25% of any system's catalog consists of updated oldies.
Nintendo seems worse but I suspect that is because their catalog dates back much farther than Sony's or MS's.
Ahh, I see someone's had their "spawning induced stupidity" switch thrown. I wish people would stop trying to make Idiocracy into a documentary.
Of all the DS Lite owners I know personally, they've never had problems with the hinges. Of course they know well enough that it has a certain range of motion and that range shouldn't be exceeded. Their kids know that too. Your kids may think it's cool to try controlling it with their butt or by throwing it under a tire or lighting it on fire but I'm not going to blame Nintendo for their device not withstanding that sort of (ab)use.
My Lite has survived both home and travel use with my only concern being the inevitable speck of dust that always ends up under the screen protector no matter how cautiously you cleaned and applied it. When used and stored properly their construction is more than adequate. Not nearly as indestructible as a WiiMote but nowhere near poorly made.
So why did projected sales in Europe justify the costs of rating and localization, yet projected sales in Europe justify the costs of rating and reprinting the already localized title?
The second "Europe" should have been "North America not".
Nintendo moved away from a great piracy deterrent, cartridges!
Sure they probably cost just a smidgen more to produce, but maybe it'd be balanced by what they lose out on from piracy.
Why, if not because?
Well, honestly, I don't believe they have a right to deny me use of their intellectual 'property' entirely and I don't see why they should. (Obviously they do in a legal sense)
is that nobody focuses on playability aka controls and game mechanics. The few companies that do for example blizzard make record profits whenever they release a game.
I'm not hating on blizzard entirely but I have played almost all of their games. Game mechanics is where they are *finally* getting into tolerable. SCBW was good, WC2 was good, then they tried to "polish" their mechanics and throw heroes and spells and cooldowns into WC3 and removing the ships and destroying the game mechanics (in my eyes WC3 was a huge flop, and to all the DOTA fans upset, get a real rpg game).
WC3 was just a test for WoW. They saw how they can make more money off an MMO and chased that route immediately after (it is now a company for profit, not innovation, mostly because they don't know how to innovate, look at Starcraft Ghost, I will give them points for trying at least). From my understanding, WoW had plenty of faults when it started, and they are still fixing them (I still wouldn't mind getting rid of that "parry" "miss" shit whenever you are 3 levels less than something, but save that long winded discussion for another day).
There are plenty of good games with good game mechanics out there, just don't get upset over not state of the art graphics. You were right about there not being many new good games, but that's because company's have stopped innovating (economy possibly?) and started chasing green. Valve would be a good example for a company that listen's to the community and still after years of release, adds new content (with no expectation of further funds). Just wish the company produced more games, because all games do get boring after a few years.
If you found a way to completely alter your game (upgrading graphics only extends the lifespan another year maybe) every few years without pissing off the veterans, you would be gauranteed a constant fan base.
Disclaimer: I am not god.
We may not be created equal
But we can be treated equal.
Yeah, that's kind of the problem. Drug addicts are ALREADY on their own. Once they burn through their savings and lose their ability to find work, they turn to crime to support their addictions. That hurts the rest of us.
Publisher: "Okay, we're going to introduce copy protection in our products as a deterrent to copyright infringement." /.: "When TF will you ever learn? Everything is breakable, don't punish innocent customers with your DRM."
Publisher: "Okay, we will enlist the support of lawmakers to enforce their own laws." /.: "CRYBABIES!"
Publisher: "Okay, we will remove all copy protection and cease all attempts to protect our IP." /.: "Finally you get it! Now if you'll excuse me I have a ton of games to download; keep up the great work for as long as your industry survives. But if you don't mind I will continue to whine about the quality of games until the day every last commercial game company dries up and withers away, at which point I will ridicule your pathetic attempts to make money through the production of something as stupid as video games. For you see, I am a hardcore gamer with no tolerance for any of your bullshit."
"Jajajaja... sorry... Hahahaha... where do you work? At the BSA?"
I'm pro-piracy, so no, I don't work for the BSA. I just look around and see that normally, businesses don't normally use pirated software. I haven't finnished my studies so I have no proffesional experience yet, but I look around and this is what I see: the faculty buys original software, the administration uses original software, my mum's company uses original software etc... The price for not doing so is too high (â). On the other hand, at home, everyone uses pirated software, fortunately.
or fall back on appeals to "THE LAW" (in which case, who the fuck cares?).
You, sir, are an idiot. Bet you don't have those kinds of balls in a court of law. Would you tell a judge "THE LAW...who the fuck cares?" No didn't think so. Until you are willing to tell that to a judge in his courtroom STFU troll.
Well, looks like I called that one right.
Do you have any idea what your chances of being prosecuted for copyright infringement are? Not even 1%. For casual piracy, copyright law is irrelevant, as is your "TELL IT TO THE JUDGE" posturing.
AEIOU: open-source anonymous internet currency
> The alternative is to not play the game or hope the manufacturer will release it to PCs. If they don't want to produce a certain game on the console for your market you can write your letter of complaint, you can get a petition and you can then boycot Nintendo console products in the future.
Tell that to the fans of Mother 3. Not only did they ban all talk of piracy in their midst for years, they wrote petitions en masse. They made a huge gift package for Itoi & several others with hand-made figurines, fan-created works that were translated into Japanese professionally (for a cost--Mato didn't do it all himself), fan-music, fan-videos and many other things I've forgotten all of which cost several hundred dollars just to ship to Japan. They even arranged delivery via an acquaintance of his.
But Nintendo never translated it. Nor will they. The fans finally made a translation patch and resorted to piracy. Many of them bought a Japanese copy of M3, even though they didn't understand Japanese at all (though some made a guide for them to follow). So they had to play a game they couldn't even understand. Mind you, having a Japanese copy was completely useless if you were waiting for the translation patch (which itself took over a year). So they did that just to support the series.
Yes, it won't affect our lives that much not to play it. But it won't affect their lives that much for us to pirate it, either. You said it's their choice if they want to release it. Well, it's OUR choice if we want to do something about that.
If we have to, we will. We'll take that choice away from you. And we won't even feel sorry.
Has Nintendo ever considered that getting feedback on their recent crap might illuminate why people make the price zero? Renting is probably the best try-before-you-buy that you can legally get, and even if Nintendo makes % on that, the crap will always become much slower in making money, and the good stuff will result in a fresh sale.
I broke away from the Nintendo addiction I acquired as a kid, and have come to view them now as every other mega-corp. That is to say, yes, people need to eat, and money is what the food chain demands, but if your company is sitting on billions in excess (profit) each year, some 'lost revenue' for an easy, less costly try-before-you-buy system cannot be justifiably contested with such zeal. Not everyone does it, or company X would have been broke on the street. Take your profits, be happy.
The small game publisher who goes hungry from piracy activity gets my sympathy, companies making good profit despite piracy don't. And I'll tell you why: No one's, not even Nintendo's, market base is saturated with enough technical savvy to pull off a total piracy saturation. Anyone who's sought instructions on a Pandora battery knows this. Lop-sided? Yeah, but the tax system (as well as many other people/institutions) in America would treat them no differently; make more money, pay more of a share to support your consumers as a large group (country).
Playing games without paying for them isn't stealing, you haven't actually TAKEN them. However, you're mooching off someone else's work without giving them anything in exchange. That's not sustainable. If everybody does it, the game-maker goes bankrupt (and an awful lot of them do, lately.)
Does it harm anybody if you copy a game you would never in a million years have paid for, or that wasn't legally on sale to you? No. But if you intentionally refuse to support game-makers whose works you like, then whine about them not making the games Bigger Better Faster, then whine more when the game-makers go bust and don't make any more games, you really have only yourself to blame.
I've gotcher 'Women In Gaming' RIGHT HERE!
Those are per month, in MXN, right? I only ask because the page on average US salaries notes that they're in USD, yearly. Leave it to us assholes to steal your money symbol! :P
for a second I thought THEY were asking for a bailout too.
doesn't matter how it affects their product - they, for whatever reason, are refusing to do business with you and guess what they are entitled refuse it.
That's a ridiculous blanket statement. That to which they are (or are not) entitled is entirely up to the laws of any particular country.
The higher the technology, the sharper that two-edged sword.
(Obviously they do in a legal sense)
China would probably have a different opinion on this matter.
The higher the technology, the sharper that two-edged sword.
Yeah, that's kind of the problem. Drug addicts are ALREADY on their own. Once they burn through their savings and lose their ability to find work, they turn to crime to support their addictions. That hurts the rest of us.
So, a readily-available supply of cheap government certified drugs offered along with counseling/treatment would seem to be a solution. Expensive you say? Sure, but probably not as expensive as the War on Drugs, and in the long run would do much more good, save many more lives. Still, any such plan would involve disbanding or dramatically scaling back the DEA, ATF and other government organs dependent upon the illicit nature of recreational drugs ... and that's unlikely to happen no matter how many of our lives it costs. Bureaucrats like their jobs, and their perks, and they don't go down without a fight, or a really good reason. That they may be completely unnecessary, or in fact detrimental to society, is not a sufficient reason.
There's also the matter of the religious right, those self-appointed guardians of Universal Propriety, who staunchly oppose anything resembling a rational approach to this problem. And it is a problem. To them, it is better that a million die of a drug overdose so long as the government is sending the right "message." To them, I will say this: your message is killing people by the thousands. Is that really what your God wants? Apparently, religious intoxication is just as dangerous as an honest-to-God chemically-induced high... probably more so.
The one thing that governments never seem to understand (or, perhaps they understand all too well) is that when there is a demand, there will be a supply. It's that simple, and if there's sufficient demand there's really no way to prevent people from getting what they want. It's not just the United States: every country on Earth has a black market for something that the citizens want but the government wishes to deny them. Usually it's many somethings.
To put this back on topic, what Nintendo wants is for government(s) to consider video games as contraband, as important black-market items. That way, said government(s) will redirect considerable law enforcement efforts to curbing what Nintendo so blithely labels "piracy." And should Nintendo succeed in this effort, I think they'll find that it will be just about as successful as the DEA has been in eliminating the consumption of illicit drugs in the United States. That is to say, not very.
Frankly, we do not need a GEA (Games Enforcement Agency.) We have enough three-letter outfits already, thank you very much.
The higher the technology, the sharper that two-edged sword.
Do you really think that it's as simple as there being an "addict gene"? Are you saying that if you took crystal meth, that you wouldn't soon become addicted?
No, but there is a stupidity gene. Think of this as evolution in action.
The higher the technology, the sharper that two-edged sword.
I would be willing to pay $5-$10 (includes shipping) for a replacement disk. I send them the original scratched disk and they send me a replacement. They can even send it back in a generic box.
Why should they care? They already suckered you out of the fifty bucks you originally paid, and don't consider it their responsibility if the media fails. And that would be okay, if you were able to make copies for your own consumption, but of course the DMCA makes that difficult.
If there was ever a legitimate application of fair use, this would seem to be it. Of course, in order to permit you, a legitimate customer, the exercise of your legal rights they'd have to grant the same to (ahem!) "pirates." Now, if games cost ten bucks instead of forty or fifty they might have less infringement on their hands, but they want to have their cake and eat the damned thing too.
The higher the technology, the sharper that two-edged sword.
Why not just steer your shipload of Wii's around Somalia so the pirates don't take it over?
J
Do you really think genetic predisposition to drug addiction doesn't exist?
http://findarticles.com/p/articles/mi_m0847/is_n3_v14/ai_11129865
I think a 'steam' like service for consoles would solve this.
I will never buy a game system where I lose all my games when the service shuts down. Me and my family rotate through our XBox, Genesis, NES, 2600, Amiga and a few other game systems. A steam like service is a rental service at purchase pricing. For that kind of service I use GameTap. They are honest about the fact that they are renting you the games, and the service is priced appropriately. There is no way that MS, Sony, or Nintendo would consider for even a second of offering rental pricing for rentals. GameTap is $60 a year for access to over a thousand games. Many console games are $60 for just one game. So, a steam like service would not only NOT solve the problem, it would actually make the system even less of a value to me and my family.
Yeah, that's what I meant by "doesn't fit".
If the disk was 16cm and started reading from the outer edge, inwards then copying it would be an expensive proposition for most people.
Changing the size of the hole in the middle won't help much because it doesn't raise the cost - there'll be some CD plant somewhere who'll see that as a marketing opportunity.
OTOH, even a major manufacturer would have a hard time justifying a plant to produce special-size CD burners.
No sig today...
Changing the size of the hole in the middle won't help much because it doesn't raise the cost - there'll be some CD plant somewhere who'll see that as a marketing opportunity.
Changing that doesn't change the cost of the CD - but it makes it hella-hard to find a drive to read it. The CD has to spin, and there is a little motor with a piece that goes down into that hole to spin it. If the whole is too big then the motor won't spin it in balance (or at all depending on the design) and it'll be virtually impossible to find a drive to use the discs with.
"People who think they know everything are very annoying to those of us who do."-Mark Twain
No, I don't think it doesn't exist. I don't think that it's something that could easily be "bred out", either.
Regardless of which, I wouldn't just say "shoot all the addicts, that'll solve our problem", which is functionally the same as that was suggested earlier.
It's better to vote for what you want and not get it than to vote for what you don't want and get it.
- E. Debs
Actually we're getting one Diablo and 3 3rds of a Starcraft game last I heard.