Nintendo Hires Lobbying Firm To Battle Gateway 3DS Sales in the US

[stanleyopar2000]

Not good guys...looks like nintendo needs to flash money in front of washington's face so they give a shit. Sounds like to me they are trying to get Gateway the good ol' R4 treatment = almost banned everywhere. WIth the mention of "international trade" it sounds like they will make it a federal offense to sell Gateway...

DUN DUN DUN........

The publisher has officially hired Washington lobbying firm Choe Groves Consulting, according to Politico. Nintendo wants the federal government to get tougher on intellectual property laws, international trade, and piracy, and Choe Groves will try to convince the people in Washington, D.C. to take up that cause. These are issues that plague all kinds of entertainment companies, and Nintendo has an obvious interest in seeing legislators add more protection for content creators.

Nintendo has had a long battle with piracy, especially with its handheld DS platform. Hackers were able to crack that system’s security and sell a special card that would enable people to download and play illegally pirated games on that portable device. The company has beefed up the protection on its new hardware, but pirates are constantly working to break open the 3DS and Wii U.

more in the SOURCE

(if you don't like "da beat" then)
SOURCE 2

I didn't want a Gateway and I bought all my 3DS games but damnit Nintendo you're forcing my hand If you're on the fence about buying a gateway. Don't hesitate, as 2015 may be the last year you'll be able to comfortably purchase it (or any flashcart for that matter)

need any additional sources?
http://bit.ly/16T8HUD

(don't mean to be sarcastic but it's been posted everywhere so there is multiple sources)

 

[Sheimi]

Love how the ad below your post says "Top DC Lobbying Group".

Typing on mobile sucks. Curious on how this will go.

 

[stanleyopar2000]

Liovw how the ad below your post says "Top DC Lobbying Group".

..

hahaha it's probably ad words...maybe they are for sale too for us? XP

 

[Bladexdsl]

go ahead ban the gateway sky3ds will replace it

 

[Searinox]

So far I don't see Gateway team mentioned. I wonder what they think they'll do with this. Flashcart packages marked as such have already been reported on gbatemp to be seized as soon as they're spotted, that's why no company is stupid enough to name what it is exactly that they're shipping in the package. Maybe next time they'll be smart enough to use ASLR on their consoles as well as hardcode the firmware version number in the signed file.

 

[FAST6191]

"Hackers were able to crack that system’s security and sell a special card that would enable people to download and play illegally pirated games on that portable device"

Got to love when a lack of knowledge of a field leads to their scary words coming up short -- a singular card is scary but hundreds of companies, from the proverbial mom and pop shop to small engineering firms, all making and competing in a big market, like what actually happened on the DS, is surely 50 times as scary.

 

[the_randomizer]

Oh look, that's cute, Nintendo making a federal case out of what a very small % of people do, making little to no impact on sales.

 

[WiiCube_2013]

go ahead ban the gateway sky3ds will replace it

Don't they have a DRM that only allows 10 games per Sky 3DS card? That's awful.

 

[the_randomizer]

Don't they have a DRM that only allows 10 games per Sky 3DS card? That's awful.

Actually, that's no longer the case, or so they claim, their next version of the card supposedly no longer has that limit.

 

[GamerzHell9137]

People wouldn't pirate if they didn't overcharge their games, made actual sales sometimes and if there wasn't region lock.
+ everyone wants homebrew, people would be less interested if they did all of that.

 

[trumpet-205]

Here is a quote from one of the interview with Gabe Newell:

In general, we think there is a fundamental misconception about piracy. Piracy is almost always a service problem and not a pricing problem. For example, if a pirate offers a product anywhere in the world, 24 x 7, purchasable from the convenience of your personal computer, and the legal provider says the product is region-locked, will come to your country 3 months after the US release, and can only be purchased at a brick and mortar store, then the pirate's service is more valuable. Most DRM solutions diminish the value of the product by either directly restricting a customers use or by creating uncertainty.

Our goal is to create greater service value than pirates, and this has been successful enough for us that piracy is basically a non-issue for our company. For example, prior to entering the Russian market, we were told that Russia was a waste of time because everyone would pirate our products. Russia is now about to become our largest market in Europe.

Source: http://www.tcs.cam.ac.uk/interviews/0012301-interview-gabe-newell.html

 

[Naridar]

Inb4 Nintendo's servers are hacked. No one seems to remember Geohot's case and how hackers don't like it if lawmakers enter their lair.

 

[jefffisher]

this is just a huge waste of money for them, something being illegal isn't going to stop it from happening millions of small packages come into america every single day almost none of them are checked, unless it smells like drugs or is huge and easily detectible it wont stop them from being used. the only thing this might stop is sellers from inside USA already and i thought that was already illegal.
they'd probably have better luck stopping them just buying the factory where they are produced and shutting down.

 

[Arras]

this is just a huge waste of money for them, something being illegal isn't going to stop it from happening millions of small packages come into america every single day almost none of them are checked, unless it smells like drugs or is huge and easily detectible it wont stop them from being used. the only thing this might stop is sellers from inside USA already and i thought that was already illegal.
they'd probably have better luck stopping them just buying the factory where they are produced and shutting down.

It might scare off people though. For the DS you had a ton of people who didn't know too much about it going "oh I'll just get one of those download cards for my kids". Chances are some of those wouldn't do it if they knew importing those carts was illegal.

 

[Flame]

this is just a huge waste of money for them, something being illegal isn't going to stop it from happening millions of small packages come into america every single day almost none of them are checked, unless it smells like drugs or is huge and easily detectible it wont stop them from being used. the only thing this might stop is sellers from inside USA already and i thought that was already illegal.
they'd probably have better luck stopping them just buying the factory where they are produced and shutting down.

HAY YOU!

This is GBATemp you are not allowed to make so much sense.



but. Nintendo should stop thinking its the 80's and improve the online infrastructure, and invest its money in making better services.. even do they own PS PLUS.

 

[TheCasketMan]

this is just a huge waste of money for them, something being illegal isn't going to stop it from happening millions of small packages come into america every single day almost none of them are checked, unless it smells like drugs or is huge and easily detectible it wont stop them from being used. the only thing this might stop is sellers from inside USA already and i thought that was already illegal.
they'd probably have better luck stopping them just buying the factory where they are produced and shutting down.

Aren't flashcarts legal in the U.S.?

 

[Flame]

Aren't flashcarts are legal in the U.S.?

its grey area.

 

[Smuff]

'Homebrew'

 

[Veho]

The fact that such a thing as "lobbying firms" exists says a lot about the US political and government system.

 

[Wisenheimer]

The elephant in the room (or Panda as it may be) is the fact that, while developed nations like the US and Japan have economies that are reliant on developing and protecting intellectual property and natural resources, China's economy is based on stealing intellectual property and destroying natural resources.

The US government has an interest in protecting Nintendo's intellectual property. Unfortunately, these cards are not coming from the US. They are coming from a place with a totalitarian government that has shown zero interest in protecting the intellectual property of other nations, because they have so little of their own and because their economy has been built around stealing ideas, software, and even entire factories from developed nations and Western companies.

It's a case of putting the horse before the cart. The suppliers are not US-based.