Nintendo Fighting Back Against Pirates On The Wii

If you noticed after you downloaded the latest update for the Wii there was a message that said if you changed your Wii anyway there is a chance the update could render your Wii inoperable. This is great news for two reasons..

1. This means that pirates wont get away with ripping off Nintendo which of course all of the honest customers end up paying for.

2. Nintendo said last winter that when they reached a certain level in their online ability they would start something like this. Since it's now starting it's a good sign that Nintendo's online service is going exactly as planned.

Yup they are officialy cracking down on pirates. This is good news indeed.Duckman5

Couldn't have said it better myself :)

i fail to see how we pay for it. it is not like they raised prices of games because of modders. what hurts us are the hackers.Leopold_Stotch

Playing out of region games, playing copied games, playing modded games.

All that does is raise the prices for the rest of the honest customers.

Nintendo said last winter that when they reached a certain level in their online ability they would start something like this. Since it's now starting it's a good sign that Nintendo's online service is going exactly as planned.

Jaysonguy

Too bad that their efforts to fight back agains't pirates had barely any effect since the most popular mod chips were uneffected by the latest update.DarkMagik9

yet people were modding games over a decade ago and wii games today arearound the same priceLeopold_Stotch

Well you also failed to add that back in the day most games were pet projects and cost very little while these days even lower tier games have the same cost as motion pictures.

[QUOTE="Leopold_Stotch"]i fail to see how we pay for it. it is not like they raised prices of games because of modders. what hurts us are the hackers.Jaysonguy

Playing out of region games, playing copied games, playing modded games.

All that does is raise the prices for the rest of the honest customers.

yeah:S

LOL I just posted this same info about an hour ago in a union, let me help, here is a pic.

Nintendo can fight all they want, but the truth is that pirating is here to stay. Nothing they do will eliminate it. It's just one of the facts of life: pirates always win.

Oh, and it's partly Nintendo's fault for making the Wii region locked. Many people are modding their Wii simply to play import games... and since their Wii is modded, then they also have access to pirated games. Nintendo should have made the Wii region free to avoid that mess.

Nintendo can fight all they want, but the truth is that pirating is here to stay. Nothing they do will eliminate it. It's just one of the facts of life: pirates always win.

Oh, and it's partly Nintendo's fault for making the Wii region locked. Many people are modding their Wii simply to play import games... and since their Wii is modded, then they also have access to pirated games. Nintendo should have made the Wii region free to avoid that mess.

RyanWare

Oh where to begin with this one.....

First of all pirates don't always win. Nintendo is going the one step further and keeping track of the pirates which they turn over to the federal govt. Most companies are just content with bricking the offeding consoles but Nintendo is going to extra mile. Sure you can still pirate but considering that some of the pirate's ilk will be going to prison doesn't make a few stolen games that tempting.

The region coding argument you're trying to make is just wrong. Nintendo cares about the retailers and the economy of all it's regions and that's the reason why it has a region lock. To say that just because users want to hurt the stores in their own country it also makes them want to get games illegally is quite a stretch.

The main thing is this. Pirates make things more expensive for the honest gamers. Nintendo is destroying their systems and making them have to face charges in the future. I'm happy about that.

only thing i dont get is why is playing import games hurting nintendo or the devs ect. if pay for the a lagit game why does it matter from what part of the world it comes from?Wild_Card

It doesn't hurt Nintendo and the publisher directly

Since games are almost never released in all regions at the same time importing games undercuts the retailers in other countries. Nintendo has it's region coding to protect retailers.

Think of it this way. Zelda and the hamster of doom is released in the UK first. Now Best Buy wants 1 million units to sell in America. Well if 500,000 people import Zelda from overseas that cuts the number of people who want Zelda in half. That hurts the retailer in America.

Now this is how it hurts Nintendo and the publishers indirectly. Now let's say a year later Mario and the giant ham sandwich is going to come out in the UK. Well Best Buy saw what happened with Zelda and this time cuts their order in half. Because their orders for the game are half what they would normally be Nintendo takes it on the chin as far as sales and starts looking at that region different as far as sales.

Thats WAY simplified but you get the overall idea.

It's actually relatively surprising to see something like this happening so early in the Wii's life cycle. The piracy base for the Wii, as far as I know, is actually relatively small and nowhere near the levels of other systems. Historically speaking, a console maker typically doesn't move until both pirates and homebrewers are really working on the system. For example, Microsoft didn't really try to crack down on the shady side of its own Xbox until someone had published old BIOS code still lying around on the system onto the Internet. Sony also didn't make much of an effort with its PSP until the hacks started popping up with the WipeOut exploit that enabled one to browse the Internet. So it's more than a bit surprising to see Nintendo go out and actually try to nip this in the bud right now.

However, Datel recently released some hardware for the Wii which could make this battle a tad more interesting, as it supposedly lets you send code to the Wii and do other such things. (The hardware is tailored more to homebrewers than pirates.) I wonder if that hardware got voided with this update. Either way, I see this turning into another battle like the PSP where hackers will simply work with older firmware and then figure out compatibility issues with later editions at another time. For basically anybody who isn't already a part of that scene, this update is basically moot for them anyway because it doesn't affect them all that much. (Well, unless they were hoping for Linux on the Wii or something.)

[QUOTE="RyanWare"]

Nintendo can fight all they want, but the truth is that pirating is here to stay. Nothing they do will eliminate it. It's just one of the facts of life: pirates always win.

Oh, and it's partly Nintendo's fault for making the Wii region locked. Many people are modding their Wii simply to play import games... and since their Wii is modded, then they also have access to pirated games. Nintendo should have made the Wii region free to avoid that mess.

Jaysonguy

Oh where to begin with this one.....

First of all pirates don't always win. Nintendo is going the one step further and keeping track of the pirates which they turn over to the federal govt. Most companies are just content with bricking the offeding consoles but Nintendo is going to extra mile. Sure you can still pirate but considering that some of the pirate's ilk will be going to prison doesn't make a few stolen games that tempting.

No, you are wrong, pirates and hacks always win and they will win this battle no matter what. For one you dont have to update your console to play games and nintendo will probably never require this on the wii (unless of course you want to play online) The reason this update didnt do crap to modchips is because the modchips are practically undetectable. Also Nintendo isnt going to be wasting their time tracking down piraters and end up losing more time and money than they are actually losing from the person playing burned copies. Dont kid yourself into thinking they will stop the modding, its just not going to happen, sure they might stop a few new people thinking about modding the console with their scare tactics like this one.

LOL I just posted this same info about an hour ago in a union, let me help, here is a pic.

Eternal_Phoenix

I never got that message.

I never got that message.

ventaxon

Go try to update your Wii right now, it'll pop up