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New Hardware Models Highlight Nintendo's No-Transfer Policy
An article at Wired discusses the difficulties involved in transferring games that were purchased and downloaded online when users replace their Wii or DSi. "Neither the Wii nor Nintendo’s portable DSi consoles have an upgrade path for downloadable content, since games are tied not to user accounts but to specific machines. It’s impossible for a user to copy content from an old console to a new one. Even some Wii owners whose machines have malfunctioned said it was difficult, or impossible, to get Nintendo to transfer the software licenses at its headquarters." One gamer, who bought the recently released black Wii console, explained that she got Nintendo to transfer her games, but needed to "mail both of her Wii consoles to Nintendo, and wait two weeks," hardly a convenient solution.
I'm surprised that there aren't hacks available yet that would take care of that issue.
But at least Nintendo could have resolved this in a more user-friendly manner if they wanted to make it easy and still limit piracy. HASP modules is one solution. Each console equipped with a key allowing the user to move the key to another console in case there is an upgrade or a warranty problem.
If builders built buildings the way programmers wrote programs, then the first woodpecker would destroy civilization.