Nintendo: "Heyday of Piracy" Is Over

[UnnDunn]

Isn't there some sort of Murphy's Law regarding "unhackable DRM"? The prime example that springs to mind is Ubisoft's "super secure DRM" that required an internet connection 24/7. That was cracked in what? 48 hours?

There were zero-day cracks that enabled people to run the games, but they would be unable to receive crucial game data from the Ubisoft servers, and so would be virtually unplayable. Assassin's Creed 2 for example would fail the second you tried to enter the Animus or begin a mission.

It took about six weeks and a concerted community effort to replicate all the missing game data and allow pirates to play those games from start to finish.

 

[Onyx Oblivion]

Hacked before the official launch, I dare say.

 

[The_Fezz]

Sony said largely the same thing and look where that's got them...

 

[GloatingSwine]

What they think is that pirates are stupid people.
Which is wrong, because there are brilliant people on both sides and what I would do is that I would hire the pirates to my company and test my DRM and actually make recommendations.
To perfect something then you have to come to the enemy.

The thing is, pirates usually aren't the brilliant ones. Homebrew nerds are the brilliant ones, which is why no-one cracked the PS3 (which was laughably easy in the end) until they took away linux. There's nothing a linux nerd hates more than the concept that there is an electronic device under the sun on which he cannot install linux.

 

[UnnDunn]

As with all anti-piracy efforts, the goal isn't to eliminate pirace altogether--that is impossible. Rather, the goal is to make piracy so difficult as to be impractical for the average consumer. If their new efforts place significant skill and financial barriers in the way of any pirates, well then they will have succeeded.

With the DS, anyone could spend 20 bucks on a flashcart and a few hours on their favorite torrent site. If the 3DS makes you open it up, solder on a modchip, hook up a JTAG and reprogram an EEPROM in order to pirate games, Nintendo will have succeeded because most 3DS owners simply won't do that.

 

[KalosCast]

Corporate DRM writers: people who are contractually obligated to never be creative about anything, and will never do any more effort than is absolutely required of them... because it's their job. It's not what they look forward to doing every day.

Cracking Community: enjoy the art of cracking things, this is their hobby. It's what they're impatiently waiting until they get out of work to do.

This is why Nintendo will lose.

 

[Formica Archonis]

Y'know .... that makes me really think... Why did we stop having those black on red printed sheets where we had to look up F7 to get into the game ?

Or code wheels. Last one I remember was... ergh. Monkey Island 2?

Fairly easy to crack if you can disassemble code. Find the table of answers and set every entry to something specific. Change the compare-to-valid code to a bunch of NOPs. Find someone bloody-minded enough to type the entire manual in to Notepad or a scanner/OCR good enough to read the black on red.

Big problem is, it's not cheap. You gotta print stuff off, package it, etc. Expensive for regular purchases and impossible for digital downloads. Though I admit, they had fallen by the wayside long before digital distribution became possible.

I don't really know why they've fallen into such disrepute.

 

[Gsmoove]

This time for sure!

 

[LitleWaffle]

Silly Nintendo, you don't ever announce such things.

That is just begging for pirates to prove you wrong.

 

[DudeistBelieve]

inevitably it will be hacked.

instead of fighting piracy, game companies should be working on making the consumer actually want to pay for their products.

 

[karloss01]

treyarch stated this with black ops, it was leaked and hacked a week before release.

 

[TAGM]

Yarnton mentions the R4 by name, which isn't surprising - the infamous flashcart was perhaps the single most damaging blow dealt to Nintendo's popular DS platform, as it enabled quick and easy piracy of DS software.

Ah, yes, I remember the R4 - Belive it or not, quite a few people I knew were under the impression that it was perfectly leagal.
I'll let that sink in for a moment.
...
Anyway, "Uncrackable?" Really? Thing is, short of finding every pirate in the world and shooting them, you're never going to stop piracy fully. Sure, maybe with the new codes and the whole "3D" thing, you might slow some of them down, but you remember what they say about things being Fool-proof? Yeah, well, that counts for pirate-proof, too.

 

[Fiz_The_Toaster]

Thanks for that Nintendo, I really needed a good laugh.

Also, way to bait the pirates there Nintendo, I hope you have that salt seasoning ready when someone cracks the 3DS because that's some crow you're gonna have to munch on.

 

[9Darksoul6]

There's a rumor out there that it's already cracked...

 

[Wicky_42]

Damn it, Nintendo. You don't ever say something like that.

Ever.

Precisely - you just release something with awesome security quietly and leave the pirates scratching their heads in bewilderment, not get them all raring to have a go at the next challenge. Easier to win a fight when the other guy doesn't know it's started

Except that this fight is not able to be won. Much like any game includes a survival mode like Nazi Zombies, you can last as long as you want. But there will be an end, and you will lose.

Oh, most definitely. But even with zombie hordes, it helps to not advertise your presence

 

[mjc0961]

whether you're on the developers' side and think they should be paid for their work, or whether you're on the other side and think that anti-piracy restrictions have gone too far and catch legitimate customers in their wake

I'm pretty sure the other side would be "Screw it, I'm a greedy fuck who only thinks about myself and if I want free stuff I am going to take it." I think that both devs should be paid for their work but anti-piracy restrictions have gone too far (especially as they don't work) and just not buy games from publishers who make it too much of a hassle to play.

Of course, Yarnton's reluctance to speak on the matter was partially due to him being rather savvy to the ways of the pirate community - any boasting about one's electronic security is likely to be taken as a challenge to be bested.

"It's always like a red rag to a bull isn't it? I almost don't want to comment on that sort of thing."

Too late, fool. You shouldn't have even said "the 3DS will be hard to crack" outside of closed door meetings with other game publishers. The pirates were already going to try, and now you have motivated some of them to go for some of that sweet "I cracked the 3DS!" positive rep among the pirate community.

 

[Aiddon_v1legacy]

I say they'll crack it eventually, but the hackers might have their work cut out for them. Though I will say after the self-entitle whining of importers it make me unsympathetic towards them.

 

[Canid117]

Isn't there some sort of Murphy's Law regarding "unhackable DRM"? The prime example that springs to mind is Ubisoft's "super secure DRM" that required an internet connection 24/7. That was cracked in what? 48 hours?

Obviously a hardware device will take a little longer but isn't it poking the bear just a little bit by saying "We've made this device uncrackable" I foresee lots of very competent people responding "Challenge accepted"

That actually lasted quite a while, over a month if I recall.

It was still hacked only a month after release.

As for the 3Ds? I give it until April 3rd before it has been cracked.

 

[newwiseman]

o.0

So wait,

Nintendo is actually going to TRY to lock one of their systems... This will be a first actual attempt by them. Their previous attempts being using a cartridge you can't find at bestbuy, and of course they're crazy multi-level driver approach used in the wii (i think more of an attempt to confuse than stop pirates).

Should be fun to see, but won't take long.