"Offensive Material" Gets Nintendo's 3DS SwapNote SpotPass Shut Down

Jakabotch

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Personally, I'm disappointed in the axing of Spot Pass entirely. Stricter content control, parental controls, anything would have been better than the straight death of the only useful feature the app had. This was a fun way for my artistically inclined friends and I to send each other little doodles, and the ink restriction was frustrating but also inspired a lot of new creativity.

Seeing that little blue light on the corner of my 3DS was the only reason I kept it around at one point. Now i'll just see it and know that instead of a cute drawing from someone I care about brightening my day, it's just another update. And each time it will be yet another heart wrenching reminder of something small but very important to me being soured by the filth of the world.
 

Brian Tams

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thebobmaster said:
Micalas said:
portal_cat said:
Talk about the old saying 'you abuse it you lose it" going on here
Andy Shandy said:
Wait, Nintendo say they didn't anticipate it being used like that?



They had the ability to add photos and voice, what did they think some people were going to use it for?
I agree they should have thought this would happen. They were fully prepared for keeping the internet safe for young Pokemon users by blocking users from using swear words (and words like Viola, Violet,& Therapist)as pokemon nicknames in X and Y.
Therapist I can understand. But what's up with Viola and Violet?
Viole is "rape" in French. Seriously, that's why. A bit overboard with the censorship, if you ask me.
Yeah, Nintendo does go way overboard with censorship.

Remember the Pokemon White & Black Global Trade System fiasco when the games first launched? You couldn't trade a Cofagrigus over the GTS without first giving it a new name, because, and I'm not making this up, it had the word "fag" in the middle of its natural name. Wow. Stellar job, Nintendo.

Nintendo has good intentions with censorship, but come on; take a deep breath and step back for a second, and think about it, Nintendo.
 

michael87cn

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The other day I was playing Pokemon X with Wifi turned off like I always do, when the game tells me: "hey! turn wifi on and you can see REAL people!" so I was like, okay sure. I promply get this massive list of wonderful looking people from ALL around the world, I mean.. china, japan, taiwan, UK, etc. Then I see the USA players and the first name is Loongdiiick.

Turned wifi off at that point. Sighed.

I entirely disagree with Therumancer btw. His argument is very silly. And hes taking it way too seriously as some kind of major loss of freedom or something because he can't send pics to random strangers on his mobile gaming device.

That feature shouldn't exist to begin with. No one likes telemarketers after all.
 

Strazdas

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May 28, 2011
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Desert Punk said:
Dragonbums said:
Terramax said:
Can't you basically do the same things with a standard mobile phone?
Yeah sure. If your phone is able to send messages to other phone users without any sort of information about them like their phone numbers.
Actually if people leave their bluetooth turned on there are ways to do just that, though it will prompt them to ask them if they want to recieve something.
there are ways to go around he prompt and automatically accept the download. not legal of course, but i doubt peopel doing that care about it much.

portal_cat said:
Talk about the old saying 'you abuse it you lose it" going on here
Well i didnt abuse it, and i lost it.
What they did is akin to banning cars because there are a few drunk drivers around. No, lets not punish drunk drivers or make driving safer, lets just ban cars!
 

Sarge034

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...but it's unlikely they ever anticipated anything like this.


With 4chan, the greater internet fuckwad theory, and the rules of the internet how did they NOT see this being a problem?

OT- I'm sure they killed the app because it would have cost more to fix the problem than to just kill the service. Stay classy Nintendo!
 

Dragonbums

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Therumancer said:
I entirely disagree, nobody is forced to use the streetpass feature or check what they have picked up from strangers.
It is completely irrelevant if users are forced to use it or not. The bottom line is that those who use it on a daily basis have been exposed unwillingly to a lot more crude and sick images that go beyond your standard doodle of a dick and boobs drawing.
You cannot say "if you don't want it don't use it" it's a bullshit excuse and only serves to inadvertently defend the people who have abused the system to such a point that Nintendo has to get rid of it.


What's more this is a feature people paid for
Swapnote is completely free. When you buy a 3DS, you are not paying for swapnote. You are paying for the hardware. If I wanted to, I could of decided to never have Swapnote operable on my system.
Having swapnote and all of it's features is not a right given to you when you purchase a 3DS. It's a privilege. You abuse it, you lose it.



the company has no right to remove it at a later date for any reason, unless perhaps if they do so through a full product recall and refund.
You want to find me their Terms of Service where it specifically states that the Nintendo has absolutely zero rights to remove or add features on it's own hardware? Because I'm pretty sure in every single ToS ever made there is something in there that explicitly states that by clicking/signing "I agree" you allow Nintendo or some other company to change their services or policies at a whim.

As far as Nintendo getting into hot water, oh well, that's part of their business,
and "part of their business" is to avoid getting into hot water. So this point is invalid.


maybe they should think the features of their products through better for the next generation. That said, I do not honestly think they can get into much trouble for it, just receive a lot of negative press, which is the bottom line.
You like to talk about "business as usual" but clearly you have no idea how horribly bad press can affect a company. Sorry, but removing a feature is a lot more safer, than being accused of having a feature that allows for pornographic and disgusting material to be sent out to unsuspected people.
Especially in Nintendo's case where they are very keen on keeping the image of a family company.

Also for the record pornography is a touchier subject than a lot of people think in a legal sense.
Bullshit. If some kid is being sent pictures of a real person's dick, then it stands to reason that it is sending porn to not only an unsuspected person, but it's being sent to a minor.

Especially when a user commented earlier stating that swapnote was beginning to be used by pedophiles to coerce children into sending them nudes in return for unobtainable Pokemon.



By definition all "pornography" is illegal, however what most people call porn is not actually porn in the legal sense. Indeed for something to be labeled porn it needs to be reviewed (item by item, it can't be done broadly) and be found to be "offensive and without any redeeming value", the whole "without redeeming value" part is the real clincher
Bullshit X20. Do you think parents are going to give a rat's ass about the "true" definition of pornography when little Shantae shows her dad some unwashed pleeb's cock that was sent to her via swapnote? I can tell you right now there is zero redeeming values for anything of that sort. Especially to the person receiving it.

the fact that artistic value is protected.
As an artist myself, I'm going to tell you right now that the term "artistic integrity" used so much nowadays that it's simply a buzzword used to cover up any sort of stupid horseshit to prevent the creators of such content to get away with their garbage without having to adequately defend themselves.

If you want to be taken seriously in this discussion don't you even bother bringing up artistic "integrity" into something like this. Because last time I checked sleazy pictures being sent to unwilling recipients is not "artistic integrity"


This is why so many "porno movies" have some kind of banal plotline attached, because that pathetic plotline, message, or point, can be potentially used to mount a defense based on artistic integrity.
And if I'm not mistaken if you want to watch a porn movie, You have to actually put in the effort to find and watch said movie.
Last time I checked I don't boot up my laptop, and instantly get slammed with some dude ramming his traffic cone sized cock into some mouse hole sized pussy.

Attempts to ban nudity and exposure in a general sense have failed this includes the nudity of children (despite some nasty CP battles, most blanket "victories" there wind up getting overturned under serious challenge). After all you can trace artistic nudes back to the ancient greeks and romans (and even before), and even get in the face of the church by pointing to some of the pictures of nude, anatomically correct, cherubs, and similar things. The point here being that a picture of some guy's junk or a naked lady is not considered pornographic, after all you could leave a book full of nudes open in the art section of a library and it would be legally unquestionable (though most libraries try and prevent such things for PR reasons).
Thanks for the unneeded history lesson.


Now, exposing oneself to create a public disturbance is a crime, and it can be argued that this is what your seeing with the 3DS, but even so your dealing with something less extreme than a streaker or flasher running around, especially seeing as unlike those cases you have the option o simply not use your streetpass if you don't want to, or to just not look at messages from people you don't know.
This is great.

I don't care how you sugar coat your actual message with facts and history text walls.

In the end you are literally defending the people who have abused this feature to the point where Nintendo had to take it down.
You are defending them by going the route of victim blaming. Putting all of the fault on unsuspecting people who wanted to use swapnotes to send silly doodles to their friends. Not get some greaseball's cock selfie.

That's right. Tell that in the courts. It's not John should've sent his dick on Swapnote, but let's be honest here, maybe the real fault is with Allie. She didn't have to use swapnote in the first place. So really, it's all her fault that she saw the dick in the first place.

That's literally the same line of rational used against rape victims.

They aren't saying it's not wrong to rape, but you know, she/he didn't have to go to that party and enjoy it like normal human beings.
It was really their fault for looking so sexy to the rapist in question. Therefore they were kind of asking for it in the first place.






At the end of the day there really isn't any practical way to hold Nintendo liable for this,
Glad you admitted your own lawsuit shpiel was useless from the start.


the entire issue doubtlessly being pantywaists who are willing to take things away from people who paid for them due to outraged complaints.
Yeah. Fuck Nintendo for disallowing pedophiles from using their service to promote their own sick fantasies on minors.
They really are some of the biggest chicken necks in the industry.



not simply backing down every time some parents group or whatever gets a bee in it's bonnet.
Ignoring the fact that the main demographic for Nintendo are parents, let's just talk about the fact that you implied a minor being sent sexual images is nothing more but a bee in a bonnet to you.



Not to mention the most important principle (which is my primary concern beyond all of this) that if you buy something, you have a right to it, I do not agree with the ability of a company to take back things they have already sold, for any reason, whenever they want to.
And once again, the ability to use swapnote at it's fullest isn't a right. It's a privilege.
I will repeat it again. You abuse it. You lose it.


To me the reasons are not important
Then in this case you have no standing in this argument.


Besides, honestly, how many people with a 3DS out of the entire body of users are actually using these things to send pictures of their junk or whatever?
Enough people for Nintendo to take action.
See here is the thing. A single person can have 100 registered users on their 3DS. (and by register I mean, they get online at the same time as the person with said FC and get "registered" together)
I can take a picture of my vagina and send it instantly to all recipients. That's just one person. Multiply that by a couple hundred, and you got a huge fucking problem on your hands.


It's a small, vocal group of people being upset with an even smaller group of trolls. I have no sympathy.
Completely irrelevant. If Nintendo were to do nothing and the news media outlets were to get a hold of such a story, Nintendo would be in absolute shambles. Especially when they report that this "vocal minority" has reported the issue to Nintendo and they completely ignore it. Landing them in the spot of underage porn enablers.
 

Ishal

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Seems like a rather dumb oversight by Nintendo to me, but then again... Nintendo. These kinds of features aren't really what they're known for. They need to look out for their kids and their image. But Sometimes they do go a bit overboard with their censorship (youtube copyright claims).

...

This is odd, where is the Lord Captain Commander of the Nintendo Defense Force? Usually he's at the ramparts swatting away anyone who dares question his glorious Nintendo.

edit: Oh my, he's been banned. Well, its for the best. Jeffers just couldn't thrive here without every user understanding the glory that is Nintendo and Miyamoto. Hopefully he's having a better time of it somewhere else.
 

Dragonbums

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Ishal said:
Seems like a rather dumb oversight by Nintendo to me, but then again... Nintendo. These kinds of features aren't really what they're known for. They need to look out for their kids and their image. But Sometimes they do go a bit overboard with their censorship (youtube copyright claims).

...

This is odd, where is the Lord Captain Commander of the Nintendo Defense Force? Usually he's at the ramparts swatting away anyone who dares question his glorious Nintendo.

edit: Oh my, he's been banned. Well, its for the best. Jeffers just couldn't thrive here without every user understanding the glory that is Nintendo and Miyamoto. Hopefully he's having a better time of it somewhere else.
Off topic I know, but to be fair- Jeffers wasn't even banned for something Nintendo related.

Honestly the ban itself was unfair, because the person consistently used passive indirect insults at him until he snapped.
 

Infernal Lawyer

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I never had any use for Swapnote so this doesn't effect me, but damn, it's a shame that Nintendo didn't see this coming. Letting people throw out messages, with photographs no less, to everyone and anyone was a stupid idea. Maybe the Greater Internet Fuckwad Theory doesn't apply as much to Japan as it does to America, or the Western world in general? At the very least photos should have been disabled (especially in 3D format) for spotpass and non-friends.

And no, captcha, it's not the 'meddling kids' fault they started receiving selfies from strangers.

Dragonbums said:
Ishal said:
This is odd, where is the Lord Captain Commander of the Nintendo Defense Force? Usually he's at the ramparts swatting away anyone who dares question his glorious Nintendo.

edit: Oh my, he's been banned. Well, its for the best. Jeffers just couldn't thrive here without every user understanding the glory that is Nintendo and Miyamoto. Hopefully he's having a better time of it somewhere else.
Off topic I know, but to be fair- Jeffers wasn't even banned for something Nintendo related.

Honestly the ban itself was unfair, because the person consistently used passive indirect insults at him until he snapped.
Funny, I tried to look go to the thread he was banned in, but it was deleted, even though it showed up in the search function. Care to elaborate on what happened?

I liked Jeffers, he could be a bit over-defensive but he had a good head on his shoulders, definitely not your average raving fanboy.
 

Aiddon_v1legacy

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Dragonbums said:
In all honesty, this is just another example of why we can't have nice things: because assholes will find SOME way to abuse it and ruin it for others. And considering that this MIGHT have involved some people essentially doing indecent exposure to minors, I can't really blame Nintendo for suspending the service for the time being. I wouldn't be surprised if they replace it with Miiverse as that is more closely moderated.

Infernal Lawyer said:
Funny, I tried to look go to the thread he was banned in, but it was deleted, even though it showed up in the search function. Care to elaborate on what happened?

I liked Jeffers, he could be a bit over-defensive but he had a good head on his shoulders, definitely not your average raving fanboy.
Basically someone was passive-aggressively tauntinga nd mocking Jeffers, and Jeffers (I would argue rightfully) told said user along the lines of "go fuck yourself." He shouldn't have snapped, but it's a pity. Wish I could track him down at another forum or something.
 

Infernal Lawyer

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Aiddon said:
Infernal Lawyer said:
Funny, I tried to look go to the thread he was banned in, but it was deleted, even though it showed up in the search function. Care to elaborate on what happened?
Basically someone was passive-aggressively tauntinga nd mocking Jeffers, and Jeffers (I would argue rightfully) told said user along the lines of "go fuck yourself." He shouldn't have snapped, but it's a pity. Wish I could track him down at another forum or something.
It's a sad day when telling someone you're sick of their bullshit gets you punished, though I suppose he could have had a really bad "forum health meter", and it was the straw that broke the camel's back.

Still annoyed that the thread in question and the one given on each of his other past comments either don't exist or only show his original comment. I thought that banhammer'd posts only get hidden, not removed completely?

As for the first part of your post, I personally think that the best solution would have been to disable sound and photos from non-friends. Sometimes the best solutions are the simplest.

Oh btw, wasn't EM.com supposed to tell me that you quoted me? I have a hunch the system doesn't work when you quote multiple people. May explain why I usually only get a response from the first person I quote...
 

stormeris

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Wow...

Can't we go extinct already? I don't think we as a society deserve the oxygen we breathe...

Seriously, why the fuck people like that exist????
 

Therumancer

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Dragonbums said:
Also for the record pornography is a touchier subject than a lot of people think in a legal sense.
Bullshit. If some kid is being sent pictures of a real person's dick, then it stands to reason that it is sending porn to not only an unsuspected person, but it's being sent to a minor.

Especially when a user commented earlier stating that swapnote was beginning to be used by pedophiles to coerce children into sending them nudes in return for unobtainable Pokemon.



By definition all "pornography" is illegal, however what most people call porn is not actually porn in the legal sense. Indeed for something to be labeled porn it needs to be reviewed (item by item, it can't be done broadly) and be found to be "offensive and without any redeeming value", the whole "without redeeming value" part is the real clincher
Bullshit X20. Do you think parents are going to give a rat's ass about the "true" definition of pornography when little Shantae shows her dad some unwashed pleeb's cock that was sent to her via swapnote? I can tell you right now there is zero redeeming values for anything of that sort. Especially to the person receiving it.

the fact that artistic value is protected.
As an artist myself, I'm going to tell you right now that the term "artistic integrity" used so much nowadays that it's simply a buzzword used to cover up any sort of stupid horseshit to prevent the creators of such content to get away with their garbage without having to adequately defend themselves.

If you want to be taken seriously in this discussion don't you even bother bringing up artistic "integrity" into something like this. Because last time I checked sleazy pictures being sent to unwilling recipients is not "artistic integrity"


.
You pretty much just made my point for me. The laws exist specifically so the backlash from say parents upset over their kid seeing a photo of a penis can't do anything simply on those grounds. Prioritizing freedom of speech over mob justice and immediate backlash. What's distasteful to you, might not be distasteful to everyone, and of course there is the issue of an intended target audience.

You are correct that what some people use things like Swap Pass for is pretty bad, but no society is going to be a utopia and every innovation is going to come with a down side and some bad eggs, the idea is to prevent a few people and their offended victims from ruining things for everybody.

Right now the EULAs DO support the right of a company like Nintendo to remove or modify features, but largely because nobody has ever challenged them the right way. This is one of the reasons why I am hoping to see a serious law suit right now, because as far as I am concerned a company does not have the right to sell you a product that does something specific, and then remove that feature afterwards. That's like someone selling you a toaster, and then coming to your house and removing it's ability to make toast, telling you "well, you still have a perfectly fine metal cube that heats up, it just no longer makes toast...".

In a case like this one, what Nintendo should indeed be doing is putting out a product recall/buyback. Putting up on their site that there have been abuses of spotpass and they are removing that functionality, leave things as it is, but make it voluntary for people to send their 3DS systems back to the company for a refund. To be honest I don't think many people would, because the guys harassing Nintendo with letters are a small minority, not many people are exactly terrified that OMG... someone might send them a picture of their junk. To be brutally honest any kid who actually knows what a Penis is, probably seeks out such pictures on their own simply because at that age kids tend to be interested in anything they aren't supposed to see.... it's not a good thing, don't get me wrong, but shutting down a feature used by millions of people for these reasons is kind of dumb.
 

Dragonbums

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Therumancer said:
You pretty much just made my point for me.
No I didn't.

You switch the goal posts.

Your point was that Nintendo removing the spotpass aspect of swapnotes was the ultimate move against consumer rights and that they have no right to remove that feature on the basis of "what is or isn't porn". You then proceeded to make half baked excuses that served more to defend the people sending inappropriate material to minors, than try to justify in the slightest why Nintendo should keep in the Spotpass feature despite exposure to minors going on.






In a case like this one, what Nintendo should indeed be doing is putting out a product recall/buyback.
Why the hell would Nintendo bleed millions of dollars on a mass recall for something they can do online for infinitely less money?


Putting up on their site that there have been abuses of spotpass and they are removing that functionality, leave things as it is, but make it voluntary for people to send their 3DS systems back to the company for a refund.
First off, they already notified all consumers about the loss of this particular feature before hand, and that it will occur in the near future.

Secondly, nobody is going to return their 3DS over the loss of a single feature that not many people used. I hate to break it to you- but Spotpass in Swapnotes is not a 3DS system seller and it's hardly worth $200.00
 

thewatergamer

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I'm not surprised that this is how nintendo dealt with it, what I am surprised by is nintendo didn't seem to anticipate this happening...

I wish that nintendo would try adapting to a more older audience, as thats where the majority of their games are selling, older fans that played snes/nes/n64 and gameboy back in their days
 

DirgeNovak

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Let's hope they don't shut down Jim's Dafoeverse for the same reasons. That would be tragic.
 

Jakabotch

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Dragonbums said:
Secondly, nobody is going to return their 3DS over the loss of a single feature that not many people used. I hate to break it to you- but Spotpass in Swapnotes is not a 3DS system seller and it's hardly worth $200.00
Actually, Spotpass in Swapnotes was the only reason I kept my 3DS. 100% real talk. Sure, it wasn't the reason I bought it in the first place, but it became the most important feature to me. Losing it is, in fact, a very big deal to some people, and those people should not be discredited simply because you didn't get much value out of it.
 

Dragonbums

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Jakabotch said:
Dragonbums said:
Secondly, nobody is going to return their 3DS over the loss of a single feature that not many people used. I hate to break it to you- but Spotpass in Swapnotes is not a 3DS system seller and it's hardly worth $200.00
Actually, Spotpass in Swapnotes was the only reason I kept my 3DS. 100% real talk. Sure, it wasn't the reason I bought it in the first place, but it became the most important feature to me. Losing it is, in fact, a very big deal to some people, and those people should not be discredited simply because you didn't get much value out of it.
Meaning that you bought a 3DS and were totally unsatisfied with it. With only a single feature keeping you on it.

Most people don't buy a 3DS unless it has a couple of games they like, with the promise of more good ones to come.

I'm sorry, but you are in the very small minority of 3DS users who are ONLY using it for Spotpass. Just like the extreme minority of people who are only using Playstation 3 for Netflix.

For a very large chunk of the 3DS fanbase, nobody is going to trade away their 3DS because of the loss of Swapnotes Spotpass feature.
 

portal_cat

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Micalas said:
portal_cat said:
Talk about the old saying 'you abuse it you lose it" going on here
Andy Shandy said:
Wait, Nintendo say they didn't anticipate it being used like that?



They had the ability to add photos and voice, what did they think some people were going to use it for?
I agree they should have thought this would happen. They were fully prepared for keeping the internet safe for young Pokemon users by blocking users from using swear words (and words like Viola, Violet,& Therapist)as pokemon nicknames in X and Y.
Therapist I can understand. But what's up with Viola and Violet?
Viole means rape in French and
viola is a form of the verb violar, which means "to rape" in Spanish
since they mean this Nintendo made so Viol is not possible to name a pokemon even if it doesn't mean that in your country
 

Therumancer

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Dragonbums said:
Therumancer said:
You pretty much just made my point for me.
No I didn't.

You switch the goal posts.

Your point was that Nintendo removing the spotpass aspect of swapnotes was the ultimate move against consumer rights and that they have no right to remove that feature on the basis of "what is or isn't porn". You then proceeded to make half baked excuses that served more to defend the people sending inappropriate material to minors, than try to justify in the slightest why Nintendo should keep in the Spotpass feature despite exposure to minors going on.




Secondly, nobody is going to return their 3DS over the loss of a single feature that not many people used. I hate to break it to you- but Spotpass in Swapnotes is not a 3DS system seller and it's hardly worth $200.00

Yes, you did. Your the one who wanted to use the spread of pornography as a justification for them doing this. I simply pointed out that it was faulty reasoning, the way the actual laws work, there is no way any kind of pornography lawsuit could come back at Nintendo, and what's more there was nothing inherently criminal about using the system for this kind of thing, especially seeing as your voluntarily turning your system on and letting anyone and everyone send you whatever they want.

Otherwise, I do think plenty of people would return their 3DS over this, which is exactly why Nintendo doesn't want to put out a product recall or offer to buy them back for those offended by the feature. You yourself said you figured Nintendo would get hit for millions if they decided to do this the right way.

As I said, even if only a minority of people use a feature, it's still something they paid for, and they have the right to it. If Nintendo decides to disable people's functionality they should be sued. I feel the same way about it that I did over the removal of alternative OS functionality from the PS-3... only a relatively few people might use it that way, but those people DO have rights if they bought it with the intention of using a different OS on it.