Dear DS users: Stop stealing, mkay?
Thursday, January 31st, 2008 - 8:50am
Just saw this article over at GI.biz...
Some ELSPA person wrote:
"The implications are massive. In America it's thought 90 per cent of Nintendo DS users are playing pirated games because of R4s.
"Takings from Nintendo DS games in the US are lower than any other console and no doubt it will have a similar impact here."
ELSPA basically is the UK version of the ESA, in case you didn't know.
Anyway: What. The. Hell?
Jesus Christ, the publisher induced FUD surely reaches a new level here; so high that even the Business Software Alliance should start taking notes. 90 percent? Whom are they trying to kid? Oh wait, some clueless newspaper. I'm all against piracy, but this statement demands to be ridiculed. It's also hilarious that the US is now considered a hotbed of software thievery - with Asia and Europe usally being the problematic regions.
I agree... this is the most highly inflated number I've ever seen. 90%? So all of those 5-10 year olds with their R4 cards! Bastards!! And those middle-aged/older people with their pirated brain training games. It's just an epidemic.
Low sales couldn't have anything to do with the fact that 90% of Nintendo DS games are pure garbage, would it?
xbox LIVE: NatsuMatto
That's What She Said -- A Podcast About NBC's THE OFFICE
This would imply that 90 percent of NDS owners actually own a R4 or similar flash card. I know several NDS owners in my neighborhood, none of them has a flash card. Most of them never even heard of such thing. I don't have one either and I own 2 DSes. And I'm talking about Eastern Europe, where piracy is rampant and not perceived as something that should be a strict no-no.
Maybe they feel righteous in their fight against flash cards, but at least they shouldn't pull numbers out of their asses.
You can't take the sky from me.
I do know that in order to start buying used carts on eBay I had to educate myself on how to identify a pirated game, but that's nothing new in the software world.
NOTE: This is not a doodle bug.
Spore
I find it interesting that the obviously outrageous speculations about DS piracy in America is on a UK website, with quotes coming from a representative from a UK game industry organization, using anecdotal "evidence" from a person in the UK who claims to have stolen games.
What does he mean by "takings"? I understand it is probably a British idiom or slang, but what exactly is "lower"? Gross revenue, profits, margins, attach rate, etc.? I find it annoying when people toss around supposed "figures" without ever qualifying what they are actually saying. Although, to be fair, he probably doesn't know himself and is just parroting something he was told.
"In America it's thought 90 per cent of Nintendo DS users are playing pirated games because of R4s."
So, 90% of people playing Nintendo DS have one of these cards. "It's thought" by who? 90%? Come on, be serious.
"To Mend and Defend"
Is that the quote? If it is, I'd say it just means the R4s are the pirate card of choice, and 90% of the pirated games are played through that, rather than any other flash cart. Sounds like they're ticked someone has a monopoly.
MrDeVil909: I feel it necessary to point out that there are drug resistant strains of most STDs. Especially in developing nations.
Funkenpants: Great. Yet another area in which we're losing our lead to foreigners.
Is thought by the one pirate he actually spoke to, who made that figure up to justify his own piracy to himself (because "everybody does it").
NOTE: This is not a doodle bug.
Spore
So true. My wife and I both own DS's, but we only own a handful of games because there just isn't anything all that great for the system. Neither of us play them often, so we don't put much money into 'em (mainly used while waiting at a doctor's office, or similar situations).
IronClad Online: PurEvil
What the f*ck is an R4?
Anyway, my DS has been collecting dust in the bathroom for about two years. The only decent game I played on it was the new Mario, which was AWESOME. But after that, I guess their marketing hasn't reached me, because I can't name any decent franchise for it(besides Advance Wars, I guess).
By contrast, I know about the 360 and PS3 games, even if I own neither.
Ah, sorry, to keep this on topic: How do they get the 90% figure?
The man wears a bucket of KFC on his head. I wouldn't expect anything less. - Pred
The DS equivalent of a mod chip. I've thought about getting one just so I didn't have to bother with the little cartridges, but it's not enough of a hassle for $50.
IronClad Online: PurEvil
Hmm, consider me intrigued. Thanks =)
Edit: and thanks, ELSPA! I mean, if 90% of DS users are doing it, it can't be a crime. =P
Edit 2: Eh, I'm not getting one, honestly I wouldn't play it, but good job marketing these things with all this FUD.
The man wears a bucket of KFC on his head. I wouldn't expect anything less. - Pred
Anecdotal evidence: a co-worker bought a DS for his 6-year-old son this last Christmas. Within a day his brother-in-law advised him to buy an R4 and showed off the collection of pirated games he'd downloaded for his kids to play. This is a guy who would probably never consider modding a console or installing custom firmware on a PSP, so those things must be awfully easy to obtain and install.
Xbox Live: CrankyBaby
baggachipz: Who cares about Japan, let them have their silly pointless dog games and countless re-hashes of anime-based dragon princess super lucky crapitty crap.
I was in Wal-mart and they were selling a DS flash cart for about $20. Big bold letters on the front: PLAY HOMEBREW ON YOUR DS. I was pretty surprised. Is this essentially the same thing as an R4?
Would I rather be feared or loved? Easy - both. I want people to be afraid of how much they love me.
http://social.zune.net/member/editorcook
If you hit up the Gamefaqs message boards you might think piracy is rampant. That's pretty much all everyone talks about on some days. However, I don't think the reason for this is because the 50 year old who got Brain Age 2 as a gift or the kid playing Bratz Babyz is pirating. I believe it's because, as someone else mentioned, there's not much new to play and thus nothing to talk about. Even worse, Nintendo is shifting development focus to the Wii apparently. We'll see how that goes.
The sad thing is that the DS has some great titles. Off the top of my head I can name about 13 must have titles. Problem is a lot of those are simple updates of GBA titles and not must-haves for everyone. Nintendo really needs games. For both systems. Or, at least, they need games if they want to sell more than hardware.
XBox Live: DSGamer GWJ | PSN: DSGamerGWJ
90% is definitely a false number. As noted theres simply not a whole lot worth playing, let alone buying on the DS. However, I think our opinions might be skewed compared to Joe Sixpack who just bought his little princess the new Hannah Montana game. people are buying the DS like crazy so therefore they must be buying games for them. While the R4's are essentially plug and play, I can safely bet they're still too "techno-scary" for the average person buying their kid a DS.
I'm more of a sausage smoker myself. - Yoyoson
XBox Live - PSN: SneakinAround - Last.fm - Flickr
Well if I was on the fence to buy an R4 at one point I'm not anymore thats for sure. If anything the company that sells this product got a huge boost in exposure.
"We are at war, and the enemies are...the publishers. No, they're not. It's not that easy. The enemies are mediocrity, laziness, and fear, and they exist in all of us." - Tim Schafer
XBL- Devmani
PSN - Devmani
Steam - Devmani
WoW - Devmani/Calthais
I don't know anything about DS piracy. I imagine it's like movie piracy where there is a certain percentage of people who take the time and trouble to learn about doing it, but that most buyers just go out and buy the stuff in a package. Ninety percent seems awful high. Sales of Pokemon games seem to be pretty high for everyone to be pirating them.
I've never seen such things at Wal-Mart before... maybe it was some kind of trial?
I was looking into the R4 a few weeks ago... essentially, it's a DS cart shell which accepts an SD or micro SD card. Allows access to homebrew, music, videos, ebooks, and ROMs... essentially turns your DS into the equivalent of a PSP with custom firmware.
While these may be anecdotally out in the wild (i.e. the guy who bragged about having one), I've never seen one for sale anywhere locally. I don't think they're as easilly available as people may think... and certainly there's no way in hell 90% of those millions of DS's sold are using pirated games on an R4 cart.
xbox LIVE: NatsuMatto
That's What She Said -- A Podcast About NBC's THE OFFICE
If 90% of DS owners were using R4 carts, and there are what, 18 million+ DSes sold to date...wouldn't the R4 makers be filthy stinking rich? Wouldn't we have been hearing about this way, way more than we have.
I mean, the gaming media sleeps on the DS a little, but that would be an absolutely astronomical adoption rate for a 3rd party anything - peripheral, game, anything. I think we can safely dismiss this claim out of hand.
MrDeVil909: I feel it necessary to point out that there are drug resistant strains of most STDs. Especially in developing nations.
Funkenpants: Great. Yet another area in which we're losing our lead to foreigners.
There's actually a decent library built up (as DSG mentions), but there's definitely a huge number of totally garbage games, both licensed and not. I really tend to swing back and forth between my PSP and DS... for months, I didn't touch the DS... but the PSP game drought had me going back to playing the PHOENIX WRIGHT games (just finished #1, starting on #2).
xbox LIVE: NatsuMatto
That's What She Said -- A Podcast About NBC's THE OFFICE
The sad thing is that I look at the DS from time to time now. For plane trips, whatever. There are literally three games I have any interest playing on it that I haven't already played. Zelda, Advance Wars and Pokemon.
And all of those I've played a version in some fashion on the GBA. So it leaves me kind of meh on whether I'd be interested in playing the DS again.
XBox Live: DSGamer GWJ | PSN: DSGamerGWJ
The first few sentences sound like a press release for the R4, not a news story about it being a bad thing.
gtnissanfan is on the front lines, building a Kritzcharge
Well, if everybody's doing it, I just want to be popular
The man wears a bucket of KFC on his head. I wouldn't expect anything less. - Pred
As far as I know Datel (the maker of ActionReplay cartridges) is making a DS flash card called Games'n'Music, which allows you to play homebrew and MP3s on your DS. Not so sure about the pirated ROMs though. I was thinking about getting one because it would be a cheap way to play ScummVM and possibly NES and SNES emulation on my DS and most flash cards are much more expensive.
EDIT: link to the producer.
You can't take the sky from me.
Here's the minisite for the GamesNMusic thingy.
http://us.codejunkies.com/gamesnmusic/index.asp
They also have another one that's an automated CheatCode menu/app thingy.
I've seen both of these at WalMart and Target. Almost got one, but didn't have enough info to know if it would really do all the cool stuff I've read about in DSHomebrew threads.
I'm really intrigued, I'd like to have the ability to play MP3s and homebrew and maybe even rip the carts I own to one big memory card so I don't have to switch carts.
"And my son, too, thinks everything is a launchpad, every bug a meal, and every sunny day a reason to take all your clothes off and roll around in the grass." - rabbit
looking at the reviews, this card seems pretty lackluster. The cart AS IS cannot save anything, so many homebrew apps won't work. I guess there is a 3rd party DLDI (?) driver that DOES allow saving, so it's possible to install Moonshell (a homebrew app which does everything better than the built in players on the GNM cart).
It also won't play any commercial NDS roms.
xbox LIVE: NatsuMatto
That's What She Said -- A Podcast About NBC's THE OFFICE
Excuse me, I forgot. It's not innovation unless it involves another texture pass. - Tycho from Penny Arcade
Game journal - Infinite Ego
My Rock Band profile
Consider the case closed as the ELSPA states that they never talked numbers with the author of that article.
well, guess what? this article convinced me to buy an R4 card! Just ordered it from a seller on Amazon.com, and got a 2GB microSD card from kingston.com.
Better make that 90.000000001%!
xbox LIVE: NatsuMatto
That's What She Said -- A Podcast About NBC's THE OFFICE
How about a write up when you get it? Setting stuff up, etc? I'd love that.
"And my son, too, thinks everything is a launchpad, every bug a meal, and every sunny day a reason to take all your clothes off and roll around in the grass." - rabbit
I've been looking into them. Its supposed to be as easy as drag and drop. The emulators for the old PC games are very intriguing.
Xbox Gamertag: Armchair Jockey