Topic: VC games: transferrable or locked?...need answers fast

[BiLdItUp1]

I've been wondering this for a while; I don't think anyone's made a point about it...
So I'm writing an op-ed on DRM-related tech for my university's newspaper, and I thought to make a pt. about Nintendo's (I'm already grilling Apple and my post is a train wreck on this). So...are we able to save VC games to a memory card, take it, and play it on a friend's Wii?  

[Nick DiMola]

Don't know if there has been anything in particulare about the ability to play the games on a friends VC, but you definitely have a local copy on your memory card. Thats all I got anybody else?

[Arbok]

They briefly mentioned the content being locked to the Wii it was purchased on, didn't they? I think details are scarce on this exactly, but early signs point to that not being possible (obviously for piracy issues, as if that worked one could easily distribute the files via the internet... although of course one could argue that the ROMs aren't exactly hard to find anyway).

[Athrun Zala]

Kaplan (or Reggie) did say that the VC games are tied to an account, not hardware, so they can be redownloaded and stuff......

but what exactly we'll be able to do with them I don't know

[Svevan]

I don't think downloading them to a friend's VC would work, likely there will be a single profile on the Wii (separate from your Remote) that cannot be turned off or switched with another. Ergo, unless someone wants to delete all their own VC titles and pretend to be you while you're at his house, no, you can't do that.

[Ceric]

No.  The answer is No.  This is Nintendo we are talking about here.  They will gimp there product to make sure that people do not rip there stuff.  This is no different.  Though I did have a good idea in my memory in the Wiimote thread about this where you could do a temporary thing with you login and a registered Wiimote.

Now I could be proven wrong about this and Nintendo could just be fancy free about the whole thing but I really doubt it.

[BiLdItUp1]

Hmm...so in conclusion, Nintendo hasn't really verified this, but no, we're screwed. Yay, more ammo!

So when did M-dollar-sign == my post is a train wreck? I have to post here more often...

[Shift Key]

Quote
Originally posted by: BiLdItUp1
Hmm...so in conclusion, Nintendo hasn't really verified this, but no, we're screwed. Yay, more ammo!

So when did M-dollar-sign == my post is a train wreck? I have to post here more often...

No DRM == easier to share (ala MP3 music). I'd be very surprised if you could play downloaded VC games on another Wii. Might as well just take yours there, its not like you're lugging an Xbox around.

And the M-dollar-sign thing is the word filter. Some words are filtered for a reason, others for fun. People post the same old garbage so the mods make things interesting...

[couchmonkey]

I think Nintendo has said that you'll be able to transfer to a new Wii if an old one dies, but whether or not that would give you a workaround for a friend's Wii, I don't know.  You might have to "format" the friend's system in order to do this, so I'll guess "no" for now too.

[Ian Sane]

A way to do it would be to allow you to login to a friend's machine, download the game, and then it automatically deletes the game after you turn the console off so that they can't steal it.  You get to play the game for a session only or something like that.  There would also need to be some restriction that your friend can't play your game unless back on your machine you allowed it which makes it so you can't access that same VC game.  The set a game status "play at a friend's house" and now you can't play it on your won machine until you change the status back to "home".  The whole thing is pretty tricky so I figure Nintendo wouldn't bother with something like that.  Tying the games to an account is still pretty good.  Some companies probably wouldn't bother.  I just hope that years from now when Nintendo's 24 hour online thing isn't supported anymore your VC games can still be played.

[BiLdItUp1]

Ian's plan sounds good...to be able to somehow login to your VC account regardless of which Wii you're using, download and then either have it lock once you 'logoff' or have it delete when the system shuts off. What's the policy with Xbox Live Arcade, for comparison's sake?

[Kairon]

Ians way sounds really complex, and perhaps even crackable.

~Carmine M. Red
Kairon@aol.com

[RickPowers]

Ian's way also doesn't work because he forgot that the Wii can't be turned off.

[UltimatePartyBear]

That doesn't mean it can't go into a sleep/suspend mode to draw less power.  It can shut off the graphics hardware, for example, or underclock itself since the work it will do in that state won't be as complex.

[Ian Sane]

"Ian's way also doesn't work because he forgot that the Wii can't be turned off."

There has to be a way to turn a GAME off though.  How else would you be able to inform the Wii that you're not playing this game anymore and want to play this one?

[BiLdItUp1]

Just because it doesn't turn off doesn't mean there can't be some code that says, delete game x from the system before going into standby.

[Arbok]

Quote
Originally posted by: RickPowers
Ian's way also doesn't work because he forgot that the Wii can't be turned off.

We'll see about that...

[Ceric]

I still like my idea about Registered Wiimotes.
I'll explain it again.

When you are at your house you can register your Wiimote with your Wii, sort of like an iPod with it's machine.  A little blip of information would be left on your wiimote to tell of the synchronization and your account information at the Nintendo Server would also now it.  When you go to your friends house you use your Wiimote to login to your VC account with your password and like.  It then checks to see that you have an approved Wiimote from the information on the server, not just the user name and password.  At that point in time your are allowed to download the VC game and it will be encrypted using your Wiimote ID so that if say someone pulls the SD card before it was deleted it be useless without the key.  Also the game would have a time to live flag set on it so that if you over came the encryption the Wii would know to delete the file because it has been around to long.  If the time to live flag is not found it will automatically delete the file.  Another thing that would happen is that the link with the Wiimote ID would also have a time to live.  So that you couldn't just let someone have your password and one of your Wiimotes and have all your games if the Wiimote hasn't been used with it's base Wii in x days then it will not longer be considered valid and the games will be deleted.  As an added layer of protection your account would now your registered Wii so if it finds that you play a lot of games from another Wii then for a fee you can expand your registered Wii list to include another.  This fee would be monthly.  That way you could share VC games across your multiple homes, because your rich right right.  In a local setting however the Wiis could communicate wirelessly to share such information.  With one Wii effectively acting as your VC Server.

You can ignore the last part.  About the inter-Wii stuff but the I think the remote scheme is pretty good.