Nintendo is being naive if they think this is going to help alleviate piracy issues. People who want to pirate games will find a way to pirate games, whether the equipment to do so is out in the open or not. The R4 cart is also not the only means for people to download games -- we're sure Nintendo knows this.
All the same, we can sympathize with Nintendo. The fight against piracy is an uphill one, at best, and since there's not much that Nintendo can do about it, they're doing what they can.
[Via Kotaku]
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Reader Comments (Page 2 of 2)
3-30-2008 @ 6:53AM
Jamar said...
Shoddy homemade titles? Have you heard of MoonShell? DSOrganize? Colors? Hardly shoddy, I'd say. Without the first two I don't think I'd have a DS. With the R4 I can play music, movies, read e-books, make phone calls, and draw pictures with my DS. Without that I'd be a PSP user for sure; where I live there's barely any difference in price between them, and if all I could do with the DS was play official games...
3-30-2008 @ 1:12PM
Synonymous said...
Matdredalia: Your *basic point* was an absolutely unworkable economic model you proposed Nintendo follow to cater to a group of "consumers" who contribute no, or negligible, money to its bottom line. And you estimate they compose only 5% of the DS userbase? Why should Nintendo give away its store and shoot an insanely profitable business in the head to placate *5%* of its userbase?
Your contention that Nintendo can make sustainable money without selling games and by dead-ending its system sales and all future game production is untenable and - I am sorry here - demonstrates the economic ignorance of those who advocate corporate accommodation of piracy or blame piracy on the parent company. I wish they'd at least be honest, instead of hiding behind a veneer of oh,-I'm-concerned-for-the-company's-long-term-health,-*REALLY*. The only motivation in play here is a self-serving, emotional one: "I don't wanna pay for games 'cause I'm *special*". I'm not a Nintendo cheerleader, but I'm sick of the baloney (and the oh-so-bad business proposals) from pirates.
Jamar: And you're in the absolute minority. Nintendo'd be committing economic suicide if it catered to users like you, who make one initial purchase and buy nothing thereafter. You threatening to turn to Sony is not much of a threat; there's no money to made off your DS use.
And no, I don't care about MoonShell or its ilk; the DS's speakers and screens are ill-equipped for its tasks. If I want to listen to music or watch a movie, I'll turn to an iPod, DVD player, laptop - any number of superior, popular, and widely-available devices actually designed for those functions. I want a DS for its touchscreen games, not to try to slam a square peg in a round hole.
3-30-2008 @ 11:49AM
Puddles said...
Nintendo is doing the right thing: targeting people who are making money off of piracy, instead of users who are just playing games for free. (Unlike the RIAA, suing kids who download a few albums.)
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3-30-2008 @ 3:22PM
Frouma said...
Oh, please, Nintengo, Grow up your so narrow mind!
A decent way to fight piracy would be creating an official nintendo flash cart and sell the roms online legally for a smaller amount than physical games... they would even help preserve the environment, the less plastic in the world the better! (greenpeace would be a little bit happier with nintendo :D)
We should all sign a petition online and send it to Nintendo...
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3-29-2008 @ 11:47AM
TriptychR said...
Greenpeace would be a little happier, sure, but they will never be *fully* happy until Nintendo comes out with a DS made of hemp.
3-29-2008 @ 1:41PM
HellsHammer said...
I'd smoke that...
In all seriousness, R4s are bad for business. And that's all Nintendo is.
3-31-2008 @ 7:13AM
Komavary said...
In April, DSvision should finally hit the stores...
Connection?
Nooh...
;)
3-30-2008 @ 9:18PM
Edguy said...
Well, it does impede piracy just a little bit by making these items harder to find. I spent quite a while shopping around before I got an M3.
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3-31-2008 @ 9:39AM
foosnark said...
I've bought 2 DS's and 11 games -- but it was the existence of the R4 (enabling NitroTracker and so on) that convinced me to buy them.
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4-01-2008 @ 7:23PM
Lilinka said...
What kind of irks me is the almost bipolar way you editors at DS Fanboy alternate between hating the R4 and loving it. I understand that you love and hate the R4 for various reasons (Homebrew vs. Piracy being one) but it seems... rambling and rather ludicrous the way you go about presenting this. I'm not saying you should pick a side, but why not take a more... neutral... tone in these articles so you don't seem to blatantly contradict yourselves later down the line?
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4-01-2008 @ 7:48PM
Candace Savino said...
I don't really see how you interpret this article as either negative or positive toward the R4. It's about Nintendo's actions, not about the cart itself, with some anti-piracy jargon thrown in.
In fact, I own an R4.
5-08-2008 @ 4:09PM
C.R. said...
I use the R4, but I don't make money off of it or anything. Is that going to get me targeted? I use it for playing music, and have a homebrew app on it (Lick's iPod DS clone). Hmm... and I have 30 games on it, which is the equivalent of (assuming of course they're all £30, which they probably aren't, but...) £900 ($1757). Two of my friends have a flash cart too, but they don't use it for gaining money or anything either.
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