Piracy and the Nintendo DS 261
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."
As a CycloDS owner (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.
Learn and evolve (Score:3, Interesting)
It won't help much, but it would be a step in the right direction to offer the comodity of having all games in a single cartidge (or simply to a static internal memory).
Maye a system like Steam that downloads any game you own to your DS from any computer with internet access.
Just an idea.
Industry greed vs consumer greed? (Score:5, Interesting)
If someone wants more games than he or she can pay for, isn't it fair to call that consumer is greedy?
Re:well it is expected... (Score:2, Interesting)
Excesses of the industry? We're talking about Nintendo handhelds here. You're probably the only one in history who has considered that market "excessive". (Whatever that's supposed to mean.)
Did you miss the part where we were talking about a handheld console? Right of first sale is NOT impeded by encryption of DS game cards any more than the NES lockout chip impeded the right of first sale. And you're going to have to backup your comment about "headaches" with some solid data here. We're not talking about PCs. We're talking about a ROM-based handheld game console. You know, the things where you plug the game in and it works right the first time, every time?
Normally they don't. But in this case, they do. Nintendo has produced seven generations or so of handheld game consoles. Not a single one supported region codes until the DSi. It stands to reason that if Nintendo wasn't trying to lock out pirates with new protection technology, there's a good chance the region codes never would have made it into this system.
Way to stick your head up your ass. If we were talking about PC games you might have a point. But not a single comment you made applies to this particular market. Which means that you've just gone from having a potentially reasonable point to becoming an apologist for illegal and immoral behavior.
Hypothetical case (Score:1, Interesting)
What Nintendo should do is find a way to meet the demand and profit from it. They should put out their own flash cartridge and set up an online downloading service to allow customers to download games at a reduced cost, like what Amazon did with MP3's.
Amazon's DRM-free service has taught me that I really don't mind paying a dollar to own the right to play a song I like, in a format I prefer. I'm simply unwilling to pay $15+ for a CD that probably only has a couple of songs I want. Similarly for DS games, I'm simply not willing to pay $20 to $30 for a hard copy of a game, if the hard copy is less "functional" and more inconvenient to obtain and own than the pirated ROM version of it. Give me a $5 to $10 downloadable version of DS games I want, and it's a no brainer.
Re:Is there anything actually worth pirating? (Score:4, 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
Re:Nitendo DS (Score:3, Interesting)
Just my opinion though.
Re:Missed one (Score:3, Interesting)
I hear ya. The question isn't about whether or not there are people who will go out of their way to avoid spending money, it's whether or not the number of people is very big. There's this industry-wide suggestion that a downloaded game equals a lost sale. I've yet to see anything that actually supports that. Well, I take that back. There was one number that I thought raised a few eyebrows. This isn't exact, mind you, but it was something like 800,000 DS's were sold in Korea and 200,000 units of software. Piracy? Even I'd admit that's a strong possibility. So why don't we have a number like that in the US?
Well, I'll tell you this: We wouldn't be in this economic problem right now if large numbers of people were penny pinchers. Heck, look at the success of Starbucks. $3 for a cup of coffee that even the place that changes my oil gives away for free? Oil changes!! I actually know how to change my oil, but I never do. It's just $20 away! Okay okay, I'm getting anecdotal here, but hopefully you catch my meaning. For all we know lots of people pirate games, that keeps them excited about playing, so they go buy other games. Provable? No. But consider how singles were popular for a long time, singles of songs played all the time on the radio. This is, mind you, after it became trivial to record radio transmissions.
I may be thinking on larger scale than you are, and I apologize if that's creating some unnecessary drama for you. The FA basically says that Nintendo launched the DSi to fight piracy. Frankly, I do not believe that. I think they released it because of virtual console sales on the Wii. That's the whole BFD of that system and why the lack of a GBA port isn't causing a frantic waving of torches and pitchforks.
My piracy (Score:1, Interesting)
Im not saying that it justifies piracy, but the only reason that i bought my ds was knowing that i could drop around 60$ and hold all of my games on one cartridge. If Nintendo simply dropped the cartridge and added a micro-SD slot with an xbox live/steam download system it would be great. My Greatest pain with portables is that once you begin carrying multiple games they are suddenly less portable due to needing a case or holder for the games
Re:Missed one (Score:3, Interesting)
It's when, in addition to your condition, you remove from someone else the good.
Consider: when you steal a stick of gum from a store, you are both obtaining something for free AND depriving the store of the good. Essentially, you are committing two crimes. Suppose you merely copied the gum. You still didn't buy it, but the store can sell it to someone else.
An alternate argument: If you weren't going to buy it, how is the seller actually harmed?*
They're definitely related, but it's a gross oversimplification to claim it's the same thing.
* Personally I'd argue you always "were" going to buy some portion of the number of media you pirate, and hence it's still wrong. But assuming you *actually* wouldn't have taken it if you couldn't have it for free, then I fail to see any direct harm the same way stealing a car from a dealership is. You have a car that isn't yours AND the dealership is out one.
I wonder what RSA has to say about this (Score:2, Interesting)
When the Nintendo DS came out, RSA made it well known that its code protected the games [rsa.com] Now I don't hear so much from them about this. Maybe it's not their best example of protecting data?
Re:Industry greed vs consumer greed? (Score:1, Interesting)
If I can afford 5 games and pirate the rest, is that any worse than if I only buy 5 games? How is it not a victimless crime?
Re:Missed one (Score:5, 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!
Re:well it is expected... (Score:3, Interesting)
"People tend to forget that emulation, possibly even if you own copies of the software you're using, can still count as piracy."
I have never heard that. Breaking copy protection under the DMCA is but even then I think you would be hard pressed to convict someone playing games they own on an emulator.
I have been meaning to pick up a flash cart for my DS. I do not want to pirate any games. What I want is to not have to carry around a bunch of carts with me every where I take my DS! If I can carry all my games on one microsd cards then I will be happy. I am also looking to try out some homebrew software. I admit I am probably a small a member of a small minority of potental fashcart users.
Here is a question, what is the best best flashcart for the DS and where can you get one?