The Library of Congress ruling did NOT say people could bypass security measures in video games systems, only cell phones. The only video game part of the ruling was that people can research DRM systems without facing legal measures. So R4 type devices can (and I think should) still be banned here too.

Good for Nintendo, another blow against piracy.

Might this mean less counterfeit games being sold on sites like eBay?

i don't see the real need for R4 besides to pirate.


The DS has so many dozens of excellent games why need for pirate.


Don't give me the excuse that 'i'll lose the game card because they are so small so i need back ups' either. If you are irresponsible and can't take care of your stuff than you shouldn't have access to them. I also hate the idea that gaming is too expensive and they can't afford to buy all the games they want. You prioritize your life and budget money to buy things you want or even trade stuff in at gamestop or something if you don't have the money.

I think that is why they are being banned, the R4 is used almost only for pirating games. Maybe there are people who want to "back-up" their games or play homebrew games, but I would be shocked if those make up even 1% of the people who use R4 and R4-clone devices.

Things that have legitimate uses should not be able to be banned, no matter how much potential they have to be used for illegal activities.

It happens all the time, especially with weapons and fireworks. If the primary use of something is illegal, then it doesn't matter if it potential has legit use. Being able to play unlicensed software is not what I would really call a legit use either.

It really shows how widespread it is when I meet little kids who are switching between Geometry Wars and Spirit Tracks on the fly, unbeknownst to them or their parents that it's illegal.

I agree this should *not* be illegal. It's really no different than jail breaking your iPhone or having a car that can go above the speed limit. Just because it *can* be used unlawfully, doesn't mean it has to be. Also, all this does is just make it take a couple more minutes to buy this kind of stuff online, make the prices go up, and make kids even less likely to pay for games.

I think we have to be realistic here. The R4 is primarily used for piracy. If you want homebrew get a smart phone.

Heavy weapons? Radioactive materials? Drugs?

How does making it harder to pirate games make kids less likely to pay for games? This is totally different than jailbreaking. Jailbreaking (which is still only allowed if you install legal stuff) is mainly used for homebrew programs. DS flash cards (like R4) are used almost exclusively for pirating games. As KDR said, a lot of dangerous things could potentially have legit uses, that doesn't mean they should be legal either. R4 is a piracy device, that is why it has been banned in several countries (including Japan and the UK) and why other countries have shut down places that sell them (like the Netherlands).

What if you want homebrew on your DS? What if you actually do want to back up games that you bought? What if you want to back up your old NES games and emulate them on the DS (it's legal)? Rolling papers are primarily used for joints, but they're legal.

No, jailbreaking is not mainly used for homebrew programs. Just about everyone I know with an iPhone for iPod touch has it jailbroken, and it's not because they want to play homebrew, it's because they don't want to pay for apps.

I say if the R4 is banned, then blank CDs and DVDs should be banned too, and CD and DVD burners. No different than the R4 - sure you can make your own movies and back stuff up, but lets be honest here, no one's buying a 100 pack of DVD-Rs or CD-Rs because they have important documents that they need to archive, it's because they don't like paying for music and movies.

For the record, I don't have an R4, I don't even have a DS, so I'm not trying to justify myself or anything like that.

Emulating games you own is a gray area at best.

I know a lot of people who use rolling papers to make regular cigarettes, even my parents use to do it. Most people I know who do drugs just buy a blunt and use that instead.

Blank CDs and DVDs are not used for pirating music and movies, those are basically just used as storage devices. CD-R's and DVD-R's are (at least from what I have seen) mainly used for legit uses, I have yet to see anyone use or even claim to use R4 devices for anything not illegal.

(Some) Computers are used primarily in illegal activities, ban all storage devices, operating systems and the whole wide internets!

Did you really just say blank CDs and DVDs are not used for pirating music and movies? Even my 83 year old grandfather buys DVD-Rs and CD-Rs in bulk for copying movies and music. If you couldn't copy movies onto DVD-R and watch them in any DVD player, there probably wouldn't even be a market for such devices.

R4 cards are so specific, though. They're pretty much used on the DS and the DS alone. Blank CDs/DVDs aren't used for one specific company's product; they're used for every computer/disc player.

So what? They're also much more accessible to anyone on the planet, and more people have CD and DVD players than DSes. If anything that makes them worse, since they're more of a "one size fits all" tool for piracy.

Well, from one angle, that means its not like one computer company could wage a war against piracy with the same style as Nintendo.
Also, backing up files/CDs/DVDs is way more legitimate than backing up DS games. That could be because of the widespread nature of blank discs, but it could also be because, unlike putting DS games on R4 cards, it is legal.

If you make backup copies of games you own and don't use ones you downloaded from the Internet, that's legal.

Which is exactly why I got a flashcart.

That is questionable at best and you know it.

Making backup copies of material you own is and has always been considered fair use. There's nothing questionable about it.

People use R4 cus they can't afford games, ban R4 and they just won't buy games.

Yes there is.

Rizwan, why would that matter? If they are not buying games now, then what they do doesn't matter. Maybe some of those might actually buy some games now.

The real question is, what will they do to make sure this doesn't repeat on the 3DS? The firmware needs to be able to tell the difference between a real game card and a flashcard, and the card itself cannot be so easy to pirate. It's all well and good getting it outlawed, but it's a bit late now. Really, Nintendo should have clamped down on DS piracy years ago. It never should've gotten this out of hand. Fortunately, this was probably a big wake-up call to them, so I would expect them to be doing everything in their power to prevent this problem on the next handheld.

So how did you afford a £100+ handheld games console in the first place?

Legally there might be some grounds, but from Nintendo's viewpoint, R4 cards aren't under their jurisdiction, so they aren't seeing any money from their existence. This would be different if it were an open platform, but it's not. It's Nintendo's handheld, and they license everything out.

Legitimate usage of the R4 (backing up games) is kind of like the Tengen NES games, or at least that's how I see it. The big difference is that you can also use R4s to straight-up pirate games.

Tengen did release some legit NES games though, not all of their games were unlicensed (and after Nintendo easily crushed them in court, Tengen went back to only legally releasing games).

He steals it. DUh!

There is no such thing as "can't afford games" (at least in the UK where this ban got put in place). I managed to get plenty of GB games throughout my childhood. There's flea markets and birthdays if your allowance isn't very high.

There's a blank media levy on those things precisely to cover the losses from piracy.

I was listening to IGN Nintendo Voice Chat, and they said several 3rd parties were saying that the 3DS will be basically impossible to hack and run backups, unsigned code, etc. Kind of sucks because it would be awesome to have some 3D homebrew, but 3rd parties deserve to be paid for their efforts.

"impossible to hack" just means hacked a month later than usual.

Well the GameCube took a while (though the Wii only took about 3 or 4 weeks, if that) and the PS3 is still basically unhacked for the most part, so it could be possible. I'm going to start some computer programmings classes soon and I'd love to try some stuff out on the 3DS, maybe I'll just have to get a devkit.

The PS3 was fully hacked a few months ago, but it did take a few years.

Brandogg, I am not sure how likely you will be able to get a devkit. No doubt it is a few thousand dollars, but you need to be a developer for Nintendo to approve your application.

I don't think they'll cost that much, especially if the system is going to retail for around the same price as the DSi...also, PS3 really hasn't been fully hacked. Sure GeoHot (and maybe a couple people close to him) managed to get OtherOS installed with the 3.21 update...but that's about it. You can run PS2 backups from a USB hard drive too, but that is only because of backwards compatibility (and being backwards compatible with Swap Magic DVDs), not really any hacks.

The DS development kit is $2,030 per devkit, and you need to be a registered developer with Nintendo before you can buy one. Expect the 3DS one to be the same or more. Average people like you and I can't just ask Nintendo if we can buy one. Even if you have the money, if you are not a registered developer then they will not even consider selling you one

The PS3 has been hacked and was done so back in January.

Wow, that's a high price tag. I figured since I see Xbox 360 dev kits go for $700 tops, than a 3DS wouldn't be any more than that. Again though, PS3, yeah GeoHot got OtherOS (and Hello World displayed in the XMB) back on it...and that's about it. There's no homebrew, no backups, nothing new that you couldn't do before.

Links or it didn't happen.

I am not sure the exact price, but a Xbox 360 development kit costs several thousand dollars. I remember developers even commenting on how much cheaper the Wii SDK was compared to Xbox 360 and PlayStation 3 (Wii SDK is about $2,000 as well).

I could get a 360 devkit for like $400-500 if I wanted one.

Maybe if you can find someone selling you a used one they have (which they could get in trouble with Microsoft if they found out). The only legal way to get a new one is from Microsoft, and only if they approve your application and the cost more than $400-500.

....

One dude (the same dude that hacked the iPhone) hacked the PS3, but he hasn't shared the exploit yet.

Apparently he won't bother trying to get around the update Sony did to remove OtherOS either, he posted on his Twitter account the he basically has "retired".

That dude has been mentioned (I even posted it on here back when it happened) and he hasn't really shared his "hack" like you said. I waiting on this "Hacked PS3" info that TJ was referring to since he makes it seem like the system has been open since January.

It was some exploit in the OtherOS installer that allows circumventing the hypervisor. As a response Sony disabled OtherOS in a firmware update.

Sure it's for a used devkit, but these things get bought and sold and passed around all the time. You won't get in trouble with Microsoft, worst case scenario the system gets banned from Xbox Live and the developer networks (forget what it's called), but I could get one that works on both for $800 tops.

A developer is only allowed two dev kits from Microsoft, and I have no doubt each one is tracked. I wouldn't be surprised if Microsoft cuts off a developer that is caught giving or selling a dev kit to someone else. Besides, they would be useless to non-licensed developers as you could not make a legal game with it.

Just because Sony issued a patch to fix it doesn't change the fact that the PS3 was hacked.

But it was never actually hacked, at least not in any useful way. GeoHot released his docs, and no one has come up with anything.

You can make legal games on a "hot" devkit, you just can't get Microsoft to sign your code. Lots of people make great use of actual devkits, and they aren't licensed developers.

Considering those people don't legally have the right to have those dev kits, and they are making games that you can't play without hacking your system; I am not sure what is the point. While I guess it may not be technically be illegal, both the seller of the XDK and the buyer can get in trouble (the seller may lose the right to develop Xbox 360 games, and the buyer will have that kit banned and will never be allowed to make a licensed game). The fact that these people can make Community games using XNA means they have no excuse for illegally obtaining a XDK (since the seller does't actually have the right to sell it).

Sure they do. Lots of people like to make stuff for free, stuff that Microsoft wouldn't let you sell on XBLA, like SNES360 and Free Styles Dash...again, it's not illegal. It's called PartnerNet (what I couldn't remember before), and lots of these are not banned. I don't want one, and I don't need one. A JTAG'ed 360 is (arguably) almost just as good. Still, I think it's great that beginners can get something like this for cheap, make some nice programs the way that they want to, release them for free, then decide if it's something they want to commit to and go about doing it "the right way."

It would be cheaper and (legal) for them to just get the XNA Development Kit. They could then submit those games and actually make money.

Not everyone is in it for money, and also a lot of these garage developers get donations. It's usually a hobby or just a way to challenge themselves. I don't see Microsoft letting anyone release a Super NES emulator through XNA Studio anytime soon.

That's because the emulator would only be used for illegal matters (although the emulator itself would be legal.)

No, it's because Microsoft and Nintendo would never reach a deal on something like that.

No, it's because the emulators would only be used for illegal matters. It's as simple as that. People can get away with that on PC's/Macs because no on regulates computer games.

It's not as simple as that. Say someone wanted to make an SNES emulator that didn't play commercial ROMs - only demos and homebrew SNES games, but it was fully emulating the SNES hardware. Microsoft would say, "Hey go ask Nintendo," and Nintendo would say, "Hey, go eat a dick."

Then why call it a SNES emulator?

But really, instead of playing homebrew games you could just make games. Most homebrew games on commercial platforms aren't very good because they're made for the novelty, a serious game maker could just use an easy platform like the PC that allows installing and playing with little effort instead of only being available to hackers.