Nintendo Sues 5 Japanese Firms Over Unlicenced Game Hardware
Today, Nintendo filed a lawsuit against "five Japanese firms". The suit seeks damages and the halting of sales of products which facilitate the execution of illegal (pirated) software for the Nintendo DS.
This is yet another entry in a long list of anti-piracy tactics from Nintendo. I personally don't hold it against Nintendo as a company, their first priority as a business is to protect profits. I don't, however, like the precedent suing distributors of unlicensed, boot hardware sets.
Nintendo is not filing for damages from the manufacturers of this hardware, nor are they suing the people actually performing active piracy. They are suing the distributors of hardware which can be used for both piracy, and the more legitimate use homebrew. As a personal advocate of home made software, I always take a little personal when companies target hardware which facilitates developers.
Additionally, this also asks the question: Why this platform? Similarities can be drawn from multiple mediums, such as writable DVDs, CDs or even the (now) antiquated medium of tapes. By the same logic, it could be concluded that companies like Best Buy and Wal-mart have been facilitating the piracy of music and software for decades.
I know this is not the end of DS home brew, and even if those five companies go out of business five more will spring up in their place. It just seems unfortunate that the real villains, the pirates, are not the ones being punished in this case.
Nintendo sues 5 Japan firms over game equipment [Reuters]
Asterick
Posted to Video Games on 29 July 2008
· Comments (2)
Other stuff like this: bad precedent, lawsuit, nintendo, nintendo ds, unlicenced hardware
Name: Dave
Just keep updating my R4 firmware and everythings a-ok in my book.
In my shock and fear I ordered another R4 today. Shared one with my ex a long time ago, figured it was time to get one of my own.
Unfortunately it looks like the R4 homepage is gone, which means we'll probably not see a firmware update by them officially anymore.
Unless someone knows where in the homebrew community to find one?