Nintendo Battles Makers of the R4 [Slashdot] [Archive]

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DP ServBot

07-29-2008, 08:20 PM

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?"http://games.slashdot.org/slashdot-it.pl?from=rss&op=image&style=h0&sid=08/07/29/2031229 (http://games.slashdot.org/article.pl?sid=08/07/29/2031229&from=rss)
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Frankie_Says_Relax

07-30-2008, 12:05 AM

Well.

I'm glad I just stocked up on a bunch of cards for my DS!

Not R4s per'se ... but if Nintendo starts throwing down the hammer on the producers of these things, they'll all probably get a bit scarse in the years to come.

Sudo

07-30-2008, 12:11 AM

I love my R4. :lovin:

Frankie_Says_Relax

07-30-2008, 12:27 AM

Between Lissette and I, we have five DSTT cards, one N5, and I just got a GBA Supercard SD Mini in the mail today.

I love all of them.

The first flash card I bought was a 32M BUNG GameBoy (black and white!) card and gigantic parallel linker hardware about 10+ years ago ... BUNG was the first company that Nintendo took to court ... and they suffered a fate I'm sure the R4 people will as well.

It was very much cutting edge due to the fact that it could build a menu of all the GameBoy roms on it and it had it's own lithium battery for games that saved ... it cost me close to $200 with shipping from HK.

Times surely have changed, as the above ALL cost me well under that (probably not even half of that) and do 10x more in terms of features, functionality and ease of use.

Cryomancer

07-30-2008, 01:25 AM

Frankie_Says_Relax

07-30-2008, 08:07 AM

legit uses for an R4:
hold games when travelling to not risk getting their collection stolen (fair use SHOULD cover this, right? of course making your own backups is probably illegal to begin with)
media player
comic book/text file reader
homebrew games
emulators (opening up another fair use can of worms)
IRC / other messaging/chat
hell, you could use an R4 has a microSD card holder since microSD is so damn tiny
i'm sure there are many more

All true, all legit, unfortunately the open ability for them to run DS roms makes them an easy legal target.

Though, I'd love to see their entire defense hinge on the fact that it's actually just a MicroSD card holder. LOL

roushimsx

07-30-2008, 08:18 AM

Well, this pushed me to buy a CycloDS. Already own an EZFlash V that works awesome for when we travel, but I heard that the CycloDS is going to implement some sort of screen capturing capability? Sold!

Previously I registered no$GBA just to be able to snag screenshots of Operation Vietnam. It's neat that I can take my save files from the DS and load them up in the emulator without any problem. Gotta love being able to back up saves, too.

Wish I'd picked up the ram expansion so that I could play Quake II on the go. Silly me didn't want to spring for the EZFlash V Bundle...oh well. Guess I'll go buy the web browser...

Does anything else benefit from the ram expansion?

c0ldb33r

07-30-2008, 08:54 AM

legit uses for an R4:
hold games when travelling to not risk getting their collection stolen (fair use SHOULD cover this, right? of course making your own backups is probably illegal to begin with)...
For the information of any Canadians reading this thread, we don't have fair use in Canada and its pretty straightforward that this is copyright infringement. I still keep backups on my R4 of games that I own (I don't use it for piracy - only convenience when travelling), but unfortunately its not legal :(

Zing

07-30-2008, 11:52 AM

Nintendo once again plays whack-a-mole.

There are a dozens of these flash cards pouring out of China. What are they going to accomplish? I can't help but think these sort of things are instigated by the lawyers just to get paid. Hell, there might even be collusion between the lawyers from both sides.

Nature Boy

07-30-2008, 12:12 PM

Is this truly a case of fighting piracy, or is it also an attempt to stop homebrew from stealing the market?"

'Homebrew stealing the market' isn't feasible when the mainstream public has to find a 3rd party device not sold in their local Wal*Mart in order to enjoy it's benefits.

There's no way it's anything but an anti-piracy move. Yes lots of us use it 'legitimately' with games we own to save space and blah blah blah, but many, many more use it to play games they don't own and that's all they care about.

Frankie_Says_Relax

07-30-2008, 12:31 PM

This is totally a matter of anti-piracy.

I'm really fascinated that Nintendo has ignored the issue as long as they did.

I suppose it's the combination of the current amount of overall profit all of their divisions are seeing and fear that if they DO make it an issue that it will draw unwanted attention TO the technology from the general public who might not have previously known about the cards.

I also agree with the whack a mole statement ... even if Nintendo squashes ONE company creating these things, there are literally a dozen or more variations of manufacturers out there creating and exporting these things by the thousands.

I'm very interested to see where it goes ... arguably the PSP managed to survive amidst the piracy that it has openly faced since year one, and even with the thousands who employ these cards in their own DS usage ... I don't think it's coming close to making a dent in Nintendo's wallet. (Not a crippling one anyway.)

calthaer

07-30-2008, 12:44 PM

I personally love the Apple ][ emulator I now have running on my DS to play Bard's Tale.

This oppression = teh dumbness and su><0rz.

TonyTheTiger

07-30-2008, 06:56 PM

I happen to love my R4. One of the best purchases I ever made for a handheld. And, yeah, it is a game of whack-a-mole when a company starts to go after the #1, then #2, then #3, etc. But it might be more of a scare tactic than anything else. If you manage to kick the crap out of the toughest guy on the block that might be enough of an incentive to get smaller guys to go out of business.

Stopping this gray market stuff is like trying to catch a bunch of snakes. It's a hell of a lot easier to go after the big dragon.

This is totally a matter of anti-piracy.

I'm really fascinated that Nintendo has ignored the issue as long as they did.

I suppose it's the combination of the current amount of overall profit all of their divisions are seeing and fear that if they DO make it an issue that it will draw unwanted attention TO the technology from the general public who might not have previously known about the cards.

That's probably a big part of it. Sony had the same dilemma with the PSP and Nintendo is currently having the same issue with the Wii. The seemingly sneaky way of mandating system updates in new games appears to be the best they can muster. At least then you're guaranteed a good number of people would have updated before realizing that the update killed a potential exploit. Of course the cat and mouse game ensues with the anti-exploit, then the anti-anti-exploit, and so on and so forth.

I'm very interested to see where it goes ... arguably the PSP managed to survive amidst the piracy that it has openly faced since year one, and even with the thousands who employ these cards in their own DS usage ... I don't think it's coming close to making a dent in Nintendo's wallet. (Not a crippling one anyway.)

Nintendo's ace in the hole is that they make a profit on each DS. So even if someone buys a DS with no intention of ever buying anything else for it outside of an R4, Nintendo isn't actually going in the red on that customer. It's not a particularly happy day when that customer isn't consistently supplying the company with revenue (and certainly not a happy day for any third party publishers) but at the very least Nintendo has less to lose than Sony. I'm wondering if maybe Nintendo is doing this because third parties are pressuring for it.

Cryomancer

07-30-2008, 07:28 PM

No way, taking out the king just means the other companies now get to fight for the top spot. Won't slow em down at all.

Besides, reading this, it sounds a bit more like they are trying to get them illegal to be sold in Japan. I don't think the governments of Japan and (I assume?) Hong Kong would relaly wanna get together and go over their big plan to shut down one company because Nintendo says so. Most likely, they can get it to be illegal to sell in Japan, but they will continue to still be produced. That's my guess. Perhaps I am wrong. I guess we'll see.

rkotm

07-31-2008, 11:22 AM

it'll go on for years like tengen vs nintendo. even that had an undisclosed ending. I love me M3 card. mm. damn microsd spring, through.

skaar

07-31-2008, 06:29 PM

Because piracy never kills a console.

Like the Dreamcast.

Woof.

For the record, I've got a few of these and I mainly use them to consolidate games into one cart. Also I seem to have developed a problem actually OPENING games when I buy them. More and more I buy the game and download a copy to play these days.

I don't see the DS dying anytime soon. Poor sega.

TonyTheTiger

07-31-2008, 07:34 PM

Combating piracy in principle makes sense. Sometimes it's the methods that turn out to be ass backwards like how a number of PC games require weird online activations which in the end only make people who bought the games legit seek out exploits.

What Nintendo is doing here doesn't necessarily look like an awkward move. Regardless of how some more resourceful people might make use of an R4, it would be pretty naive to think that a vast majority of the cards are not being used for software piracy. To Joe Schmo who hears about a $40 piece of hardware that will allow for some pretty neat stuff, especially if it requires no soldering or permanent modification, he's really only going to care about "So I can play games for free." And, truthfully, I don't blame him. After all, it's usually the #1 selling point. Nobody types out "Play MP3s on your DS!" in bold print.

The problem, in addition to the aforementioned ones in this thread, is that Nintendo has nothing to hold over people's heads like Microsoft does. For that same Joe Schmo, to have something like Xbox Live hanging over his head might be enough of a deterrent. I'm not sure Nintendo could start banning people from the DS's and Wii's online even if they wanted to considering how it's set up. So Nintendo really has no other options. The company as a whole can either keep it's mouth shut and hope it doesn't spread or they can try to sack the quarterback.

Flack

07-31-2008, 08:50 PM

roushimsx

07-31-2008, 10:18 PM

Of course I don't know what Nintendo's worried about, if this thread is any representative of the general population

Oh come on, the Digital Press forums are rarely representative of the general population. :)

Because piracy never kills a console.

Like the Dreamcast.

Piracy didn't kill the Dreamcast, Sega and Sony killed the Dreamcast.

TonyTheTiger

08-01-2008, 02:05 AM

Piracy didn't kill the Dreamcast, Sega and Sony killed the Dreamcast.

But it certainly helped.

Jorpho

08-01-2008, 05:48 PM

Does anything else benefit from the ram expansion?

For some completely pointless reason, you can run Linux if you want to. Don't ask me why.

we don't have fair use in Canada

Um, what? The laws might be different, but it cannot be said that there is nothing in Canada that cannot be called "fair use" as far as copyright is concerned.

There are a dozens of these flash cards pouring out of China. What are they going to accomplish? I can't help but think these sort of things are instigated by the lawyers just to get paid.

Depending on the size of the settlement, there'd probably be a decent sum left for Nintendo in the end. And draining the company's profits could keep them from creating some other clever innovation that could do far greater injury to Nintendo's corporate health. For instance, maybe Nintendo could implement a new protection scheme in the future, and stopping the R4's developers could keep a firmware fix from popping up right away.

But considering it's the R4 clones these days that have SDHC support and not the R4 itself (right?), it might be argued that the creators of the R4 are already slipping behind the times.

j_factor

08-01-2008, 09:02 PM

Of course I don't know what Nintendo's worried about, if this thread is any representative of the general population, absolutely nobody uses the R4 for piracy ... (eye roll.)

People use CD burners for piracy all the time. Doesn't make them illegal devices, does it?

TonyTheTiger

08-02-2008, 03:26 AM

People use CD burners for piracy all the time. Doesn't make them illegal devices, does it?

I think he's making fun of the fact that nobody here has opened up to having games on the R4 that they don't actually own.

Cryomancer

08-02-2008, 03:35 AM

I do. There, I said it. And that's another thing: undubs, fan hacks, translations, etc. Can't play those any other way. I also have all the legal features I mentioned, or have at least used them in the past (comic book reader wasn't so hot I didn't think, but the IRC is cool, and the DS homebrew Drugwars is awesome).

TonyTheTiger

08-02-2008, 11:55 AM

I don't own Kirby Squeak Squad but I played it on my DS anyway not too long ago. I don't think there's any shame in saying it. What I find annoying is when people try to justify it by using some bad logic about how what they're doing isn't really piracy. If you're going to do it then at least man up and call it what it is. I pirate games. Doesn't matter how much I make use of other features like homebrew and such. That doesn't justify my pirating Kirby Squeak Squad. I guess few people want to admit that they are actually doing something wrong.

Frankie_Says_Relax

08-02-2008, 01:28 PM

If history is any indicator, I have to disagree with some of the responses in this thread. When Nintendo sued Bung I believe they won a $7 million dollar settlement. Not only did it squash Bung but it also single-handedly killed console copiers. A lot of these places operate under the guise that "it's not really illegal" and when a court determines that those things really are illegal, people will close up shop. Once places realize they stand to lose $7 million (or whatever) and aren't covered by operating in a "gray area," they'll shrivel up.

Of course I don't know what Nintendo's worried about, if this thread is any representative of the general population, absolutely nobody uses the R4 for piracy ... (eye roll.)

Bung totally went away ... and GBA flash technology did suffer a dry spell for a few years afterward both on the development front as well as the distribution channels out of Hong Kong to the US.

However, after a few years (probably even less than that) the "headless snake" as it were re-grew and the market re-vitalized.

I think that Nintendo can and will win whatever court battle that they bring to the table ... and the R4s and clone cards will become scarse.

But give it enough time and they'll resurface.

And as far as what I use mine for? I don't make any bones about it, and I don't hide behind any excuses. I'm totally contributing to the problem ... but speaking in the frankest terms ... I've been a DS owner since launch, subsequently updated to a Lite, and only purchased about 4 games total during that time before owning a DSTT card ... software companies didn't and weren't going to get my money anyway.

Jorpho

08-02-2008, 03:11 PM

and the R4s and clone cards will become scarse.

But there would be no reason for the clone cards to become scarce unless Nintendo went after the nameless multitudes in Hong Kong that produce the clone cards.

What is kind of surprising is that Nintendo hasn't just gone after DealXtreme. Shutting down Lik-Sang was pretty good for Sony, no?

TonyTheTiger

08-02-2008, 03:34 PM

It's a scare tactic. You beat up the biggest guy on the block and hope the smaller guys turn tail out of fear that they're next. And I swear, every time I glance at your avatar I think Charlie Brown is holding a rifle.

Sudo

08-04-2008, 07:01 PM

I think he's making fun of the fact that nobody here has opened up to having games on the R4 that they don't actually own.

I do. I have 80-something DS games stored on my hard drive that I transfer to my R4 and back that I don't own.

c0ldb33r

08-04-2008, 07:15 PM

I do. I have 80-something DS games stored on my hard drive that I transfer to my R4 and back that I don't own.
Another victim of the ban hammer.
http://img297.imageshack.us/img297/7749/banhammerev9.th.jpg (http://img297.imageshack.us/my.php?image=banhammerev9.jpg)

I'm just kidding, I've been waiting to use that image for awhile.

alexkidd2000

08-04-2008, 07:24 PM

I really cannot afford to buy all of my games. So I buy my PS3 games legit and copy my DS games. Maybe not right, but really I could not put any more money into gaming.

Ze_ro

08-04-2008, 09:36 PM

I have a bad habit of buying a game, playing the first level, and then losing interest in it. I bought an M3 Perfect a while back, and it was nice for trying games out to see if they were worth buying in the first place... in many cases, I only played the game once, but in many other cases, I decided the game was worthwhile and actually did go out and buy it. All in all, I think I actually bought MORE games for the DS as a result. The way I see it, I'm screwing Blockbuster far more than I'm screwing Nintendo... and I consider that a good thing.

Just recently, I bought a CycloDS Evolution... quite an upgrade over the M3 in just about every way. Forget the R4, get a CycloDS.

--Zero

Iron Draggon

08-04-2008, 10:21 PM

do they make something like this for the GBA too?

Sudo

08-04-2008, 10:53 PM

do they make something like this for the GBA too?

Yeah, there are quite a few GBA flash carts, probably more than DS ones.

Gapporin

08-04-2008, 11:11 PM

I bought an M3 Perfect a while back, and it was nice for trying games out to see if they were worth buying in the first place...

I will say this: My flashcard paid for itself when I didn't waste $30 to play Sprung and see how awful it was.

Zing

08-04-2008, 11:39 PM

Just recently, I bought a CycloDS Evolution... quite an upgrade over the M3 in just about every way. Forget the R4, get a CycloDS.

Weird. My wife has an Edge card and the OS looks almost exactly the same. It has all the same features and layout, except the 3 main icons are slightly different (they are the same items, headphones, etc, just drawn differently). I wonder if one company made a basic OS and multiple others just copied it. Hell, even the card itself looks and works identically.

Jorpho

08-05-2008, 12:11 AM

eggwolio

08-05-2008, 04:05 PM

Weird. My wife has an Edge card and the OS looks almost exactly the same. It has all the same features and layout, except the 3 main icons are slightly different (they are the same items, headphones, etc, just drawn differently). I wonder if one company made a basic OS and multiple others just copied it. Hell, even the card itself looks and works identically.

I did a lot of research the other day because I decided it was finally time for me to order a card. All of the reviews I read of the Edge card said it was essentially a budget solution cyclods missing a couple of features that most people wouldn't miss too much anyways, and they recommended it highly. At under $25, I can't really argue. Now I just have to wait for it to arrive from DealExtreme.