Can Nintendo do more to curb piracy?

Twistedpixel

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Twistedpixel on 07 March 2010

Its more like the PSP is bought as a portable media player by a significant % and the DS is bought as a games machine. So in strict terms the number of people using the PSP and buying games games is proportionately lower than the numbers on the DS and that probably remains true even with piracy, hence the attach rate difference.

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Xoj

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Xoj on 07 March 2010

Onyxmeth said:

Nintendo has already done plenty to curb piracy. They've branched off from the typical archetypes that pirate games, and created products for people that typically don't have the need, desire or knowledge to pirate games in the first place.

that sounds degoratory lol.

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Legend11 on 07 March 2010

Joelcool7 said:

For a few years I voluntarily worked for Nintendo America's Internet Piracy team. I got websites like GBXEmu closed. However after working with the team a few months I was charged with tracking down the suppliers rather then distributors. You see Nintendo goes after the people dumping the roms online rather then those taking the existing roms and circulating them.

After catching some guy in the netherlands I stopped working with Nintendo. It was becoming like a full time job and while I was morally supportive I just decided to stop.

Nintendo does alot to curb piracy but in the end the DS and Wii formats are both pretty easy to pirate. Nintendo is doing alot to catch those responsable for dumping the roms. Recently they hung an Australian out to dry after he dumped NewSuperMarioBros. Not to mention their legal battles to try and stop the sales of R4 chips and Wii mod chips.

In the end I think Nintendo in the past faught piracy the best, rather then creating a conventional format. Do something radically different. Create a format that is highly difficult to pirate. Nintendo has always been protected by its software formats from cartridges to mini-disks!

Also I think its funny to see Sony claiming their poor PSP software sales are due to piracy while I know far more R4 owners then I due PSP pirates. Way more softeware for DS is pirated then PSP yet DS software still sells!

So you did all that and they didn't pay you? Did they give you anything at all for your work?

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GuyDuke on 07 March 2010

They caught the guy who pirated New Super Mario Bros Wii in Australia. They caught a company that was selling illegal DS cartridges. They updated their Wii console to twarth the Twilight Hack. I think that when there is a problem, they should update without your permission your console by the WiiConnect24. But they doing great things.

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loves2splooge on 07 March 2010

The Twilight Hack is old news though. The hackers already came out with a new softmod that doesn't even require you to buy a retail game to work. You just need to put some software on a SD card and install a homebrew app (which you can then use to install "backup" loaders). The Wiis produced from Mar 2009 onward though make piracy less attractive because it's a lot easier to accidentally brick your system now with homebrew/soft mod activity. Modders have to be more careful now. And the newer consoles and firmware versions have less homebrew functionality than the older consoles and firmware revisions.

The only thing I would suggest to Nintendo if they want to curb piracy significantly would be to ban modified systems from their online services (ala Microsoft's XBL banhammer). You would still have your diehard pirates who don't mind sacrificing online features to play cheap pirated games but you would still curb piracy significantly. Nintendo can keep trying to create new unhackable hardware revisions and maybe they'll get it right like Sony did with the PS3 (yes geohot hacked it but unless it starts playing pirated copies of games, there isn't a piracy issue) and PSP-3000. That isn't a guarantee but at least it's better to try rather than to give up. If the newest Wiis were unhackable, gamers who are motivated to play pirated Wii games would still be able to buy old Wiis on ebay or GameStop or whatever and avoid taking their Wii online to avoid updating the latest firmware to combat piracy. But making the latest versions hack-proof is better than nothing.