Nintendo Gets Amazon And eBay To Ban Flashcarts
Woe be to those who want to pirate DS games, Nintendo has worked out a deal with Amazon AND eBay to stop the sale of DS flashcarts like the infamous R4 on their respective sites.
Part of me feels like their should be some outrage here, but honestly, I can't think of a reason to be that upset. Yes, this does sort of infringe a bit on the homebrew community, but I can't personally think of any homebrew projects for the DS (or the PSP for that matter) that I really can't do without. Let's face it, these are 99% of the time used to pirate.
Nintendo convinces eBay and Amazon to ban DS flashcarts [Joystiq]
Sgt. Sausagepants
Posted to Video Games on 28 May 2009
· Comments (14)
Other stuff like this: amazon, ebay, flashcart, nintendo, pirate, R4
"these are 99% of the time used to pirate"
Seriously, that's your argument? SERIOUSLY?
Hey that's great, let's also ban blank CDs and DVDs, hard drives, iPods, and absolutely anything and everything that that can hold data. Who's with me? Sgt Sausagepants is!
I love gaygamer to death but Christ, sometimes you guys make me cringe.
"Yes, this does sort of infringe a bit on the homebrew community, but I can't personally think of any homebrew projects for the DS (or the PSP for that matter) that I really can't do without."
Well as long as YOU'RE not too inconvenienced there's no reason to get upset I guess.
Also, you used "their" when you should've used "there".
Just sayin'.
That's disappointing. I've been considering getting into DS homebrew & was just waiting for the right time to pick one up. I guess I'll just have to go to a less reputable specialty shop for one of these when that time comes.
Let's not kid ourselves. I've tried DS homebrew, and it's largely crap (except SCUMMVM, of course). Everything is half-finished, abandoned, or broken. That's the problem with homebrew, really - hobbyists latch onto a device, start all these big-idea projects, and just when things are getting good, they either get pulled away from the monitor by their boyfriend and discontinue the project or abandon it to move on to the next big homebrew system. Only rarely does anything really must-have good show up.
You're free to track one down if you want one. I like mine. But it's certainly not Nintendo's job to make sure that piracy tools are easily available.
I'm actually surprised that larger shops carry flashcarts in the US, here in Sweden you HAVE to find a small shop to buy one.
Still, it's sad to see that the company that sells the most handhelds also thinks that money is the most important thing in the whole wide world.
Good thing I've stockpiled about 80 of them from Deal-Extreme then.
GG has a history of talking out it's behind when it comes to piracy, it's a running theme on this site, which is a real detriment to the otherwise quality coverage.
They're quite selfish as article writers, they should stick to posting news instead of their own opinion, which is worthless and has no journalistic mirth.
"I've tried DS homebrew, and it's largely crap (except SCUMMVM, of course)."
And colors. Colors is awesome, it's like having photoshop and a tablet on the train. So you can't discount the homebrew aspect, this is about 95% of my DS usage.
Normally when something like this is available it's used to play back-ups or enable play of an import. Also, if the concept is basic the homebrew community gets into it too.
The GBA was basically like an snes, which is easier to create some home brew projects than a touch screen device with higher specs for the hand held. Hence why there are some really lame projects that don't don't get too finished.
There's no need to back up a ds cart since it doesn't get scratched. And normal DS and DSlites aren't region locked.
Dear Neo,
"...they should stick to posting news instead of their own opinion, which is worthless and has no journalistic mirth."
I believe you mean merit. It's really too bad you messed that up, because otherwise your point was sound and not crazy or paranoid in the least.
Lots Of Love!
Anyone who owns of these carts and claims to not use it for piracy is a liar. A righteous liar, at that.
My boyfriend bought a slot-2 flash cart specifically to play Mother 3 which, in a way, is homebrew. Additionally that slot-2 cart needed my slot-1 to actually get the game on it.
There are a lot of uses of flash carts. One of my biggest reasons for having one is that you can carry around 10+ games without having to carry more than one cart. You could, theoretically, still buy the games and then still use a flash cart.
That being said, I sure don't but I am also a broke college student...
Got a source for that 99%? Hyperbole or not, flash cards, much like writable CDs/DVDs, disc ripping programs and bit torrent/file sharing applications are legitimate commodities that are just simply easy to abuse. They don't promote illegal activities in and of themselves, so banning their sale and/or distribution is needlessly punishing the companies that produce them as well as the consumers that use them in their intended manner.
As for the "all homebrew is crap" crowd: how do you think people actually get practice at making games? Is Nintendo in the habit of handing out dev kits to anyone who asks? Or once you land a job in the game industry, do you magically learn all you need to know?
@Xian
Umm, writing shareware games for open systems (PC, Calculator, etc.), writing for the iPhone, getting a compsci degree or going to a game school like DigiPen?
There are plenty of ways to get programming experience without having to fiddle with the arcane unlocking procedures that homebrew requires.
"Hey that's great, let's also ban blank CDs and DVDs, hard drives, iPods, and absolutely anything and everything that that can hold data. Who's with me? Sgt Sausagepants is!
I love gaygamer to death but Christ, sometimes you guys make me cringe."
Seriously, I feel the same way. I realize this is a blog and that necessitates a large amount of frivolous hyperbole and slander, but the stuff GG says about homebrew and piracy makes me think they are just trying to suck up to publishers for more of their own free games.