What modern tools can be utilised for the latest member of the family?

Nintendo has always made efforts to combat the various forms of piracy its consoles has had to endure. From sale of illegal flash carts to the copying and distribution of retail games, individuals have been known to pay upwards of US$1.3 million should they get caught.

The company acknowledges the difficulty in trying to stay ahead of the game but admits it's not going to be easy to stamp it out completely. The Nintendo of Japan President, Satoru Iwata, has spoken about the measures that will be taken when the 3DS hits the market, and he reiterates the concerns he has about the scale of the problem. With regards to the DS, Iwata notes:

Piracy is a serious issue. Unfortunately, the piracy issue has reached a threshold where it is no longer easy for us to completely put a stop to now... Although we have made some progress, unfortunately, it's kind of like a game of "Whack-A-Mole" where you hit one over here and it pops up over there, and it has been a bumpy ride.

When speaking of the 3DS's security measures, he seems more optimistic in the ways Nintendo can cover itself.

On the Nintendo 3DS, when the new hardware is launched, various measures can be taken. So, we'll continue to take advantage of technological attempts. In the case of Nintendo DS, the pirates work to find ways to then overcome that and enable it, but we'll continue to try to do what we can to limit the amount of piracy that's going on.

What makes the 3DS so architecturally different to its predecessors? Are firmware updates enough? Will there be more focus on the digital distribution of games? We guess we'll find out in the coming months.

Rackham's got a boat-load of 3DSes already, he just needs to find his special screwdrivers

Automatic updates is the answer.

Basically if you leave your house with your 3DS its automatically fixed when you pass a Wifi point.

As long as their system is passive and doesn't give the legit customers a hassle and cause privacy issues, they can put whatever DRM they want.

No stupid online stuff like Ubisoft, please.

yes, updates and automatic updates. Nothing more special than what anything that hasn't come before. I'm more inclined that this is for investors than the gaming community.

Piracy is one of the main reasons why the DS, Wii, 360, PSP and PC as gaming machines still sell like crazy. No reason to jump for joy over thier numbers. Iwata knows this. Its a give and take relationship symbiosis/parasitism hence no serious attempt or success on Nintendo or Microsoft's part.

The ill effects are on the 3rd party game developers and publishers. Nintendo has shrewed strategy for making its games. What kind of Wii and DS titles sell the most by the millions?  You are right! bundled and most of all  old but tried and true game franchises!

That is the problem of the 3rd party developers releasing new IPs. They sell nowhere near as old branded Mario, Pokemon, Zelda ,titles.

Microsoft also knows about this thats why it does not develop its own games but have others develop for them.

Sony has movie, music,video games and software industry behind its back!

So with great power Sony takes great responsibility to protect these industries- hence Blu-ray disc format was born! Sony is trying to push its anti-piracy very aggressively! Massively increasing digital content file sizes by including layers of security codes, uncompressed data, 3-D codes etc. keeps many pirates at bay!  And with 4 years behind their back their anti-piracy has proven satisfactory. No wonder developer's and publishers like EA, Valve, Bunjie, Epic Games all want to make a profit on the PS3.

So again Nintendo somewaht benefit from piracy as a hardware company because pirated software pushes hardware big time!

But Nintendo is wise to offer unique play experiences with their gaming machines which also pushes hardware to keep them very profitable thier billion dollar wall of profit offsets the ill effects of piracy as a software developer.  

I wonder how big hit they will take in sales of 3DS if they truly make it unhackable.

And automatic update i think won't help I'm pretty sure you can't enforce updates on user in western countries without his consent.

why dont the go and download the games then upload them for people but add virus so some procetection so then they can not play it. they can just go to the roots and stop it there

Are you seriously suggesting they implement something to brick the console?

Oh wait. Sony already did with their PSP. Remember how that turned out to stop piracy? Me neither.

This is the biggest load of nonsense ever posted. THERE IS NO NEED FOR PIRACY!!!

Looking at the initial reception and announced lineup, probably little to none...