Nintendo Battles Makers of the R4 188
eldavojohn writes "A neat little device called the R4 allows for homebrew on the DS ... and as micro SD prices fall, it is becoming easier and easier to put on these cartridges binary dumps of games people don't have the right to play. Which is why Nintendo will see them in court. Note, it's not just the console maker pressing charges, it's also Capcom, Koei, Square Enix, Tecmo, Bandai Namco, and Sega. Is this truly a case of fighting piracy, or is it also an attempt to stop homebrew from stealing the market?"
Well, that's an easy one to answer (Score:3, Insightful)
Is this truly a case of fighting piracy, or is it also an attempt to stop homebrew from stealing the market?"
It is truly a case of fighting piracy. Anybody who thinks otherwise is severely delusional.
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Re:Well, that's an easy one to answer (Score:5, Interesting)
Well, I don't know anything about using R4 for pirating, but I do know that with the right homebrew software, the DS is a cheap portable art tablet par excellence.
Re:Well, that's an easy one to answer (Score:5, Insightful)
I have 10-15 DS games. Traveling with them is a real PITA. Either I am hauling around a manpurse or pockets full of cartridges.
The ARRRR4 would allow me to load all of my games to a single cartridge thus reducing the risk of theft, loss, or damage. Sure I can always lose it too but I find its generally easier to keep track of one thing, especially when that one thing "lives" in a larger one thing than it is to keep track of lots of little ones.
For the record I am not deluded. I know that one of the primary uses for these things is piracy, however that is not their ONLY use. Further arguments on that subject would be semantics.
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The question, though, was:
It's obviously the former. Nintendo doesn't care about your use of this device. You paid for your games. They're trying to stop the people who *don't* pay for their games. People like you are a small enough portion of the market that they really don't care if you can't media-shift anymore.
I use things like this for the same reason (I don't have one yet for my DS, but I had
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I have 10-15 DS games. Traveling with them is a real PITA. Either I am hauling around a manpurse or pockets full of cartridges.
The ARRRR4 would allow me to load all of my games to a single cartridge thus reducing the risk of theft, loss, or damage.
Wow. You want a lot, don't you? Next you'll be wanting to carry your entire music collection with you -- "hold everything", as it were. What a bizarre notion.
What do you think this is, the 21st century?!?!?
HAL.
Sure I can always lose it too but I find its generally easier to keep track of one thing, especially when that one thing "lives" in a larger one thing than it is to keep track of lots of little ones.
For the record I am not deluded. I know that one of the primary uses for these things is piracy
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Unless he's paying for access, then he's not "contributing" anything by using a site.
Also, given that somebody has indeed gotten the ROMS onto a computer, it is already proven that it's feasible to dump the ROM's - maybe not with this particular equipment, but to say that he couldn't do it himself is incorrect.
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While I'll agree, it is very dangerous to concede to the "It can be used for bad things... who cares about the legitimate uses".
I was taking no moral stand at all on its uses for any purpose. I was merely answering the silly question posed by the article: Whether Nintendo was suing to stop piracy or because it was afraid of homebrewers. The answer to that is blindingly obvious, no matter what you think of the worth of products like the R4.
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Interesting thing is though, that these things are used for piracy most of the time. Yes, I know that there are many many people who use it for homebrew, and I applaud them for it. But everyone I know personally who owns ones uses it exclusively for piracy.
If you check the forums you will see how so many morons can't figure out how to copy roms save files to an SD card.
I don't think they should have to stop making them, it's just that Nintendo has my full understanding wanting to do something about it.
I don
Re:Well, that's an easy one to answer (Score:5, Informative)
It is truly a case of fighting piracy. Anybody who thinks otherwise is severely delusional.
Wow, I feel personally offended by such comment.
I do develop homebrew programs for the DS. I am specifically developing a translator (based on the dicts.info dictionaries) using PAlib.
There are several *really good* homebrew apps for the Nintendo DS like Moonshell, DSOrganize or games like Lemmings (all the levels of lemmings for the DS, REALLY good). The DSLibris game is also a *very* good piece of software which allows you to read XHTML ebooks.
I am also in the process of doing a TIF image "reader", with the idea of converting PDF files directly to TIF multipage (monochrome for now...) via ghostscript and then being able to read them directly in the DS. This, after having played with the idea of porting xpdf or other programs... unfortunately the PDF and RTF are too complex for the tiny DS...
I don't have an R4 but a CycloDS Evolution and it is a really neat piece of technology.
So, as you can see, there are pleny of opportunities for a device like the DS. It is really a neat piece of hardware, and the touchscreen makes it more versatile.
Re:Well, that's an easy one to answer (Score:5, Insightful)
I really doubt Nintendo would go this far over homebrew.
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You're too kind. =)
Here's the Lemmings DS website, for anybody who wants a look. http://lemmings.mrdictionary.net/ [mrdictionary.net]
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Then you did not understand it. I'm sure you're doing all kinds of wonderful things with your R4,
haha
You really should read my post.
I don't have an R4 but a CycloDS Evolution and it is a really neat piece of technology.
:) :(
Other than that, yeah I guess I took it to personally. The bad thing about trying to take out R4 or any other similar card manufacturer is that they also hit us the homebrew developers
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Funny, the only people that I know that are sufficiently advanced game pirates are professionally employed game developers.
I sincerely doubt that the majority of the DS/WII demographic are all that interested in carting around everything on an SD card.
I've had the ability to carry around tons of backed up albums on different mediums for years now. Let's face it - piracy is a problem for the industry to solve when it comes to distributors, not end users nor content creators. As soon as you're illegally distr
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Did you have a point that was actually relevant to the question at hand?
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that doesn't change the fact that the vast majority of people use them for piracy
Is that a question? Not to you apparently. My post was pretty clearly in reply to this assertion. Of course Nintendo goes after stuff like this due to piracy fears. The question you apparently feel isn't a question is whether or not products like these hurt society more than they benefit it. Because as I alluded to in my post, Nintendo's use for a few extra bucks may not outweigh the benefits society and the industry receives f
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The question you apparently feel isn't a question is whether or not products like these hurt society more than they benefit it.
I specifically did not because that was not the question. The question was, and I quote, "Is this truly a case of fighting piracy, or is it also an attempt to stop homebrew from stealing the market?"
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Shitty games get pirated, but wouldn't have sold anyhow, and great games make tons of cash and are pirated by a small amount.
The shitt games sell alright, as they're usually the ones a parent buys for his kid.
The users who are prepared to spend 100$ or so to play pirated games OTOH will know better than to waste their time on shitty games. They're the ones who would buy the next installment of Final Fantasy because they want it, but would rather pirate it and save 30 bucks.
A freind of mine has 40+ PS2 games, most of them purchased at full price even. He didn't feel like modding his console and didn't like the idea of pirating ton
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Beyond that, is there some sort of document explaining how vast a majority must be to qualify something as "piracy paraphenelia" and make legitimate use unworthy of protecting?
Did I ever say anything of the sort? No, I did not.
I merely answered the question regarding Nintendo's motivations, and took no stand at all on the merits of their or anybody else's actions.
Re:Well, that's an easy one to answer (Score:4, Insightful)
I have to agree. On certain gaming boards/sites I visit with lax rules about content, it's not uncommon to hear people talking about their R4.
I can recall one time when someone asked about homebrew. This is contrary to the 500+ times someone has asked what games to load on it first (and sites to get them from).
I like the R4 as a product for convenience. I would love to be able to load up the info for my moderate-sized collection of GBA games (actual cartridges, not some ROM folder) and take them all with me in a convenient package. However, the primary use of the R4 is pirating and, as suggested by the OP, anyone telling themselves (or others) that the push against it is for its homebrew ability is delirious.
Honestly I'm surprised it took this long for Nintendo et al. to react. Though from what I hear, the R4 (and its close cousin, the M3) is on the way out and some other card with similar functionality is on the rise.
Homebrew is wonderful (Score:5, Interesting)
There is a long list [wikipedia.org] of homebrew software out there. And yes, you can even get your DS running Linux.
Re:Well, that's an easy one to answer (Score:4, Insightful)
So are blank DVD's then?
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I'll agree with you. I thought (and still think) that the reason is obviously piracy. At the very least it is the main reason in my opinion.
If you hadn't called 'em names your karma might still be intact after tonight. No worries, sometimes you have to say what you have to say and I, of all people, fully agree with doing so even if it means a karma hit.
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My company recently produced a single-purpose application for the DS, best described as a "virtual schedule" for a conference our client was holding. Since it was for a private customer as opposed to a retail application, we made it entirely using homebrew software and distributed it on M3 flash carts - almost identical to the R4 ones. Shipped about 1,500 of the things as I recall.
If those flash carts are now banned, I doubt there would be legal repercussions for our company distributing them - but the pr
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That would be a shame, but I'm not sure I see how that is relevant.
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To an extent, I agree that these cards are for piracy.
I have an M3DS Real, and the launch menu clearly has a slot named NDS for commercial games and MyCard for homebrew stuff. (It also has one called GBA, which can be used for both commercial and homebrew.) It is clear that one of the purposes of these cards is to run commercial software. Depending upon the owners actions and the definition of piracy, this card is made for running pirated software. If it's purpose was to run homebrew, they would not hav
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It is truly a case of fighting piracy. Anybody who thinks otherwise is severely delusional.
Although I don't own a DS, I can say I do know some owners and they are using hacks to allow the use of pirated games. Sure one or two of them are using the hack to use Linux, but I doubt that's what most people are using them for. One of the reasons cited is that if they were to pay for all the games they played they would be broke.
If SD chips are really getting that cheap, why don't magazines start including them wi
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The entire library of DS games available in all countries may get hefty, but the cards themselves weigh, what, three paperclips? My cat could carry all the DS games I've ever played and not break a sweat. Although I don't think he's ever sweated.
Re:Well, that's an easy one to answer (Score:4, Insightful)
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Any amount of cartridge swapping creates new oppurtunity for misplacing of said cartridge.
Which creates opportunity for you to buy it again. This hurts the company how?
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Of course they want to reduce competition from actual creative and innovative games.
Yes, but what does that have to do with the homebrew scene?
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To be fair, Final Fantasy IV for the DS is a complete remake of the game. It is presented in 3D (vs the 2D sprites of the previous incarnations), and features full motion video and voice acting. It does stil follow the same story and characters, and is probably one of the best FF stories (though I'm still very partial to FF6).
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(How it got that high a score I'll never know, but since almost all the Sqeenix games on the list got good scores it's fairly safe to say that the reviewers are biased in favor of Squeenix.)
Or the simply think S-E makes good games. Shocking thought, I know.
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I like homebrew as much as the next guy, but they're hardly beating the pants off the industry in creativity and innovation. I'd say the vast majority of quality homebrew games tend to copy pre-existing ideas. I mean, what have other posters in this thread put forth as an example of quality homebrew? Lemmings. A copy of a commercial game.
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But it's clear and obvious; why should he? The only people who argue against it are deliberately ignoring the truth, or misunderstanding him. (Really... it is both clear and obvious).
He's not saying that's the only use for it, just that that is the obvious primary purpose, and that is the reason Nintendo and all th
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*goes to Wikipedia to add that and cite /. as the source*
SuperCards for All! (Score:2)
I had bought a MiniSD SuperCard for my Gameboy Advance SP some time ago. Due to the SP's form factor I can take it just about anywhere, so I always have a robust arcade in my pocket. GBA games, Gameboy and Gameboy Color games if you like, as well as full NES and Game Gear emulation!
Avoiding the pitfall of the PSP (Score:3, Insightful)
I just see this as Nintendo seeing what happened to the PSP and homebrew and getting it under control before it's too late.
It's sad - both systems should have some level of a 'code pack' that lets people write apps and such for their portable toys, but the level of flat piracy that the homebrew community has created for the PSP is really affecting it's viability as a game platform for developers.
http://www.pspfanboy.com/2008/03/09/ridiculous-psp-piracy-numbers/ [pspfanboy.com]
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Its already too late. At this point, the PSP has it -better- than the DS... There -is- a reason why the PSP made a "come back". It was originally the one of the two that was pirate-land... but now that the two are (and the DS doesn't even require custom firmware), PSP looks better from a publisher's point of view than it did originally...
You're right though. I'm sure console makers would like nothing more than to give us a cool SDK and tools... it would raise the value of the machine enough to sell it at a
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Point 2 stands, though it came -after- the big come back of the PSP (plus its not like the DS Lite... if you look at the demos in stores, the 2 PSPs look the same from a couple of feets away unless you look carefuly =).
Mind you, I do have a PSP2000, mostly because component support kicks ass, so it still helped at least move one unit.
The other 2 are -results- of what I was talking about :) first party aside, the good games came -after- (MUCH after, too) the DS got piracy-pwned.
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And the developer announced GoW was their last PSP game before the game was even released, so piracy of GoW itself was not a factor in their decision.
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I hate to break it to you, but it's the other way around. The warez kiddies are making it easy for the homebrew hackers.
I did a lot of hacking on the N64 back before I was old enough to be tried as an adult. I know a lot of what I did was used for homebrew, but the reason I wrote it was 'cause I couldn't afford the games, and I wanted to download them instead. Most of the people doing the heavy work to get around the N64 security back then were the pirates, and the homebrew coders came along for the ride.
As
Seriously? (Score:4, Insightful)
I can't tell if the article summary comment is tongue-in-cheek or actually serious. I should hope that it isn't the latter, its tough to believe people are really that delusional. How can a game written by 3-4 teen/early 20 year olds hope to compete against games that REQUIRE dozens of designers/artists? The cost and man-hours necessary to complete a modern game have effectively shoved small time developers out of business. Its not like they were muscled out, the technology and cost just ran away from them. Today, an amateur game maker can realistically hope to make games equivalent to those seen 15 years ago. How much market share will the 800th clone of pong or snake or RPG Maker-esque rpg really take away from licensed games? How fun is it, really, to play yet another generic 2d platformer?
Don't lie to yourself, nobody's clamoring to buy this to play any of those games. This is designed for piracy. I guarantee >95% use it exclusively for getting non-homebrew games.
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Far more fun than to play yet another FPS, a genre that hasn't had anything new to it since deathmatch.
Look at the kind of numbers simple games like popcap, yahoo games, and similar flash games sites get. Those can easily be written by 1 man in a few weeks. And people play them like mad. So yes, there is a market out there for simple yet fun games that the majority of publishers ignore. Graphics and art are not required for fun gameplay.
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> they don't require a dedicated piece of gaming hardware along with
> a specialized cartridge for it
They do if you want to play away from a PC. Zillions of people play simple flash games. It stands to reason that some non-trivial number would play them on a handheld if it were easy. The reason vendors don't sell games like that is Nintendo/Sony/Microsoft demands a large fixed price per title on all of the locked consoles and simple games like that would have to sell for $5-$10 to have a chance of s
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I have an older Motorola RAZR V3x that I hacked the crap out of just so that I'd be able to run small games. It was just sitting there and the battery was still good so, why not? It gets used when the wife drives, in doctor's offices, when I'm bored, and I don't look like an adult with a facination for toys. So, yeah, what I'm saying is that there *is* a market for these small games that someone writes in their basement.
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How can a game written by 3-4 teen/early 20 year olds hope to compete against games that REQUIRE dozens of designers/artists?
I'll play Devil's Advocate here, but I've played the crap out of Line Rider [wikipedia.org], Porrasturvat [wikipedia.org] and Desktop Tower Defense [wikipedia.org], all games made (initially) by a single person (or a very small group). DTD is a lot more fun and challenging than most blockbuster games.
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I'll play Devil's Advocate here, but I've played the crap out of Line Rider, Porrasturvat and Desktop Tower Defense, all games made (initially) by a single person (or a very small group). DTD is a lot more fun and challenging than most blockbuster games.
Would you have paid $35 per title to purchase any of those games as a commercial cartridge, without having had the opportunity to playtest them first?
If not, homebrew can't really be considered a threat to the game publishers. Which leaves concerns over pir
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> Would you have paid $35 per title...
Who cares?
> Which leaves concerns over piracy at the motivation for Nintendo,
> et al, in filing suit.
Who cares? By your logic the Supremes would have ruled against Sony in the Betamax decision, because most VCR use was piracy. Especially if you buy the argument that recording TV was infringing use. And thus the whole home video revolution would have been stillborn. You can't ban technology because it MIGHT be used for ill, you can't even ban it because MOST
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I think you might want to qualify that a wee bit more.
Look at, for instance, the death of many of the P2P clients being sued for enabling copyright infringement successfully.
Not saying that it is right or anything but, well, they managed to do it.
It isn't that they can't, it is that they shouldn't. They *can* if they get the right judge it would seem.
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> Look at, for instance, the death of many of the P2P clients
> being sued for enabling copyright infringement successfully.
A few differences. Most of those cases involved arguing that the operators were actively encouraging infringement. Screenshots on Napster's old site filled with copyrighted works didn't do em much good. Note that there are still a lot of P2P networks still operating. It required a fair amount of greed and stupidity to get into legal trouble.
> They *can* if they get the righ
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I agree entirely but, well, they *can* which was my idea. They may very well do so. Didn't Sony do something about mod chips (again not entirely the same but who knows what a judge will understand and then rule on) a few years back?
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Well, it would be a real shame if that 95% ruined it for the rest of us. I have an R4 and I'll be using it exclusively for a VNC-like application I'm writing so I can run programs on my desktop computer remotely. (Originally I wanted to use DSLinux, but it turns out that without a GBA cartridge to expand the memory capacity, it can't run very many programs--not even ssh. And the web browser in DSOrganize was a letdown as well.)
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I suppose they should also sue anyone who makes the microSD cards since they are the medium stores any copyright code the R4 may use. Now let's expand that to include Sony, Maxwell, and all the other companies that make blank CD-R's and DVD-R's because they can be used to copy copyrighted material.
This is utterly ridiculous.
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I suppose they should also sue anyone who makes the microSD cards since they are the medium stores any copyright code the R4 may use.
The "should" not do that, because they'd lose in an instant. They are going after the R4 because they actually have a chance of winning that one.
You speak as if this was some kind of question of ethics. It is not, it is simple business.
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Perhaps Nintendo thinks it can go around and sue anyone for anything because they lost that ridiculous law suit over joysticks?
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All I said was it doesn't make sense to sue someone who makes something that can be abused and used for something it wasn't intended for (eg microSD cards). The R4 was not designed for piracy, it is a developer tool plain and simple. It is simple common sense.
Er.
1. It makes perfect sense to sue someone for making that, if you think you can win, and if you want to prevent piracy, both of which are true here. Intent doesn't matter to the party that is trying to prevent piracy, the damage (perceived or real) is done no matter what the original intent was. Like I said, business, not ethics.
2. Even so, the R4 is designed for piracy! If it weren't designed for piracy, why would the firmware updates specifically address problems with specific commercial games? See the
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How can a game written by 3-4 teen/early 20 year olds hope to compete against games that REQUIRE dozens of designers/artists?
Well, here's three ways:
(1) You're ID is just over half mine. You should know by now about this whole F/OSS thing that lets people build on other's work. A F/OSS project can (not always does, but can) use a lot less man-hours than a proprietary job that has to re-invent the wheel.
(2) Games that REQUIRE dozens of designers/artists usually end up being very unoriginal, because whomever has to fund the whole thing does not want to take a risk (and justifiably so). Homebrew stuff, with very small inves
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That would be a great point, if the homebrew games were actually original in any way. The vast majority of them are re-implementations of well-known simple games.
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Proof of the parent's point.
You can still buy Loom, BTW.
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Big names are always making the same mistakes (Score:2)
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They'll have to fight a hell of a lot of battles.. (Score:2)
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There are guides to build your own. I'm sure it will deter the casual pirates, but I doubt they have that much to spend on games anyways.
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Because they only have to win one to get the rest to crumble more easily. They have very highly paid and very skilled legal and PR staff. They didn't bring this suit without reason and, most likely, have every expectation for a successful outcome.
My *guess* is that the outcome won't be making the product illegal, my guess is that they want some money for it and future versions will somehow make it more difficult (read: suck) to do what you want with them in the name of preventing piracy.
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I'm still going with the guess on this one. Even if non-interested countries manufacture goods there are countries who will ban importing them. I figure they just need a win under their belts and then they can go for the licensing fees. I actually expect it to be settled out of court but we'll see where the chips fall soon enough.
Legitimate uses (Score:2)
Yeah, this is a bit late (Score:2)
Not only has the R4 been superceded by other carts, but the no$gba emulator [emubase.de] has fairly reasonable DS support. Nintendo has basically no chance of stopping piracy on the DS.
Rob
lol wut (Score:2)
Is this truly a case of fighting piracy, or is it also an attempt to stop homebrew from stealing the market?
Are you fucking kidding me.
Many of the plaintiff companies here -- Nintendo, Capcom, Konami, et al -- have traditions of excellence in video game design dating back nearly THREE DECADES. Who in the homebrew community, though I do love and support them, is going to beat them at their game?
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Playing mp3s/oggs, datebook, email, voip, without being chained to proprietary software and service. This is a threat to nintendo that the r4 combined with homebrew and OSS enable. Or home automation (think touchpad lighting controls and voip intercom panels located throughout the house that can display video from wifi security cameras).
This may well be about piracy. But even if piracy were impossible with this device, I wouldn't put it past Nintendo to crack down because they want the control to deliver
There are TONS of homebrew apps for DS (Score:3, Informative)
The Nintendo DS is homebrew heaven. There are dozens of mod chips [modchipstore.com] for the DS. And many, [dev-scene.com]many [gbadev.org] forums and libraries [palib.info] for homebrew [palib.info] applications. There's several development [bottledlight.com] wiki's [tobw.net] and some must have [dev-scene.com] applications. [dragonminded.com]
This is not a tool for piracy. If they want to stop piracy, they need to stop the people who are dumping roms. And you won't find tools to dump roms quite so easily. Attacking the companies that make legitimate devices lazy and anti-customer.
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Re:What is the R4? (Score:5, Informative)
The gist is that you load in the roms to flash memory and then insert the cartridge in your DS and then you can access and play the games as normal.
The R4 takes this a step further and allows you to use a microSD card.
While I think they have a case, the lack of action of previous iterations of flash carts might end up hurting them in the long run.
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This is just another example of how far behind Nintendo is in the online market. Sony has been selling downloadable PSP games pretty much since the PS3 came out.
Rob
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Why hasn't someone/Nintendo made a download cart and service?
They have, you can download NintendoDS demos with the Wii and then play them on the DS. Its of course limited to demos that fit into the DS RAM, not on a seperate flash card.
Re:What is the R4? (Score:5, Informative)
It's one of SEVERAL different DS flash carts out there. Last I checked, there were at least 10, some of which are superior to the R4 in terms of functionality (they offer things like ingame cheats, ingame guides, even savestate functionality), just the R4 was one of the first of it's kind and thus the most well known of the bunch.
It's a futile attempt to curb piracy on the DS, most of the technology invovled in their making is public knowledge (in terms of "you can find most of it by googlong around", not in terms of "any average Joe knows it"), hell I'm sure I seen schematics on how to build your own - Nintendo taking down this one group wont stop anything.
It's akin to the MPAA shutting down a single torrent site - 5 more pop up in it's place almost overnight.
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I don't really care about pirating games but I've been tempted to get one of these toys so I can write my own DS apps. I think it is a major failing on the part of console makers that they don't make it easier for home brew software to be out there. There is no need to force buying development tools and distribution rights in hardware. Let small projects go for free and charge per number of copies sold or something.
Obviously they're not really stopping pirating to much either.
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Re:What is the R4? (Score:5, Informative)
Indeed. The R4 was for quite a while the generally considered the best Slot-1 flashcard around. It was among the first cards to have near-perfect game compatibility, and it was low cost.
However, when the CycloEvo came out it replaced R4 as the slot-1 Flashcard of choice. When it first came out, it had the game support of the R4, but also had perfect Download Play (A.K.A. 1 cart multiplayer) compatibility. It also had support for SDHC microsd cards, which was a market first.
Both the R4 and CycloEvo support cheats. But the CycloEvo has an in-game menu feature to allow one to toggle cheats on and off, "Soft reset" (reset back to menu without cycling the DS power), and most recently, the ability To save or load a single emulator-like save-state. (Obviously it is slower than an Emulator's save-state, making it slightly less useful, but it still has uses).
The CycloEvo also has some of the best support of any flash card makers. They actually listen to people in their forums, reply to them, and have implemented multiple features by user request. They have also been known to ship replacements for defective units to the purchaser along with a cash refund for the shipping costs of returning the defective one. It does not yet have ingame guide support (unless a new firmware release has been made while I was not looking), but it is programed and slated for release in the next firmware update.
Now, the CycloEvo is probably still the Flashcard of choice, but it does have some serious competition, and may not remain that way for long.
Oh, I should mention that while this sounds like an advertisement for the CycloEvo, I'm not related to them in any way, and do not own that card. I in fact do not any DS flash cards (or GBA flash carts for that matter). However, I've been considering purchasing a FlashCart for a long time, and the CycloEvo is currently the one I plan to get.
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Indeed, the Cyclo is an amazing piece of kit and if it wasn't for the fact that I already have a flash cart of sorts (I actually have a GBA cart, but with some jiggery-pokery, you can make the DS play DS games off of it) I'd probably get one myself.
In saying that, though, despite having the ability to play ANY DS game out there, I haven't touched the device in over a year due to the fact that 99.9% of the titles are all rubbish.
Good luck with this, Nintendo, even if they do succeed in stopping piracy, all I
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Ok, they did already release the in0game guide feature in a beta release while I was not looking.
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The DNS host is giving the current error. This apparently happens during the last day or so of every month or two months. This is a result of exceeding their bandwidth limits. They will be back.
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I've played nwn mods that destroyed the original campaign, made by one guy in his spare time.
Graphics do not make a game, creativity, controls and story make a game. It is possible to make great games that look like they come out of the nintendo era.
I'm assuming your being sarcastic, but I want to post to be sure.
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Haven't tried any of them yet, but here you go. [gamesetwatch.com]
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A lot of DS games have the quality of an Atari 2600 game, same for the Wii. Doesn't mean some AWESOME ones don't exist out there as well.
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Cool I spent hours playing games on the 2600. If they got a version of combat that I can play over wifi I am so there!
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> How are game developers supposed to make money if all their games
> can be dumped onto a cartridge for free, easily.
How does Hollywood make billions when DVDs can be trivially copied? How does the music industry make money in a world of mp3 trading? They do it, perhaps not quite as humongous piles of cash but Batman just cleared 300M$ at the box office and Britney Spears is heading back to the studio so she expects her mindless drones^W^Wremaining fans to cough up some more cash.
PC games often have
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Right. It's unfortunate that it's necessary, though -- if they got their protection right (as they did for the Wii, excepting Virtual Console titles), these devices would be useful only for homebrew.
That said, contrary to the conclusion you implied (to the question you beggered), publishers certainly do ma
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You can get one of the Tingle games as a european localisation clled "Freshly-Picked Tingle's Rosy Rupeeland"