haha... when i saw the thread title i had an image of mario kicking in the door, screaming "this is a raid, bit**es!"

@omgwtfbbq Yeah but 99.9% of mod chip users use it for pirate material or circumventing region locking(not sure if that is illegal or not but it does harm distributors).

Yeah...you can make the argument that modchips allow independents to make games and allow for other legal uses...but everyone knows almost everybody uses them to pirate games.

Doesn't matter. CD/DVD burners have many legal uses but many people use it to circumvent copyright. Does this mean that they should be illegal?

DeCSS is required for me to play DVDs on Linux, but it can also be used to strip the encryption from DVD movies and copy them. Does this mean it should be illegal?

When copyright infringement is illegal, why do we have to make the process illegal too? I could understand why it would make sense if its SOLE purpose was to perform illegal activities, but there is just too many legal uses to just say "most people do this". We don't have any usage statistics. So then suck it up. Catch the people actually doing illegal things.

It's all good for you who lives in America to say "well who cares about mod chips, they're all a bunch of pirates anyway" but you'd be feeling different if you were still waiting for Metroid like we are, if you didn't get Zack & Wiki until December, if you didn't get SMG until three weeks after everyone else has played it. If you had to wait FIVE MONTHS for Super Paper Mario. And then you had to pay almost double for the privilage. You'd be singing a very different tune if you got our treatment. And yes, I have a WiiKey in my Wii, and it's going to pay for itself when I import Zack & Wiki 2 months earlier than I'd get it and for AU$40 cheaper

Nintendo bring it on themselves by having region coding in the first place. 

you say it might pay for itself but won't it be a waste of money when you update your firmware and your imported games stop working...

I live in UK and it is irritating to get games later (i don't mind a week or three but 5 months is inexcusable)....if they are planned from the start for all regions they should at least come out within a month of each other.

And i kind of agree with your CD burner point, in that it is probably used to copy CDs more than anything....however what exactly can Nintendo do, they can't run around finding the people who actually pirate games the same that almost no-one stops people copying CDs.

 I think the "indie games" argument is just a tiny bit irrelevant, now that WiiWare is launching and creating an easy way for developers to not only have their indie games published, but also to make money off of them.

@ omgwtfbbq: What legitimate, legal uses does a modchip offer someone?

That's like saying it's okay to rob someone because you're poor.

It's a bad argument.

Well, here mod-chips are the rule. Is very hard to find "original" games, specially for the 360, besides that the games you find are wayyyyy over priced >80$ for Wii games and >90$ for 360 games, so I do is ask my aunt who travels to USA a lot for the games, sometimes I talk to manager of a retailer to bring some games. The problem is retailers here imports everything from USA and they buy the game for the standar price(50$) so when they sell it they have to make some profit(25$ per game approx.). And here people are wayy more poor that people of USA, the standar salary is 3$ an hour. Even with that I have managed to play legally just by buying the games I need and share games with my friend.

On topic:

You called?

I gotta say, I love that picture. Miyamoto looks SO HOT in those pants!