Is gbatemp a niche site?

Tomato123

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Depends what you consider niche. Is modding consoles niche? Because most people who mod consoles know about this website, yet if you have no interest in that then you likely won't know it. I would say that modding consoles has gotten less popular over the years, however still a lot of people do it.
 

Marc_LFD

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Yeah so it is niche.
Before that, it was a romsite for gba games, so 🤷.
I sure remember that era of coming to this website, downloading a GBA rom and then playing it. I dunno if the Internet Time Machine has archives of the old GBATemp.
 

ragnarok_approaches123

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I'm taking a guess here and have no statistics to support it but I'd say that back in the GBA then the Wii and DS era this site was far more popular because hacking these systems was easier, didn't require difficult to install modchips and didn't get you banned from online play. Even my friends who weren't as into gaming as I am all had DS flash carts.
 

The Catboy

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This is really one of the only few forum sites that is still active. It's also focused largely on modding and hacking. Both of these things are rather niched these days.
I don't count Reddit because honestly, they are just worse forums and stolen content.
 

The Real Jdbye

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Is console piracy niche? I suppose it is, but it's a pretty large niche.
No doubt though that many pirates just stick to pirating on PC these days because it's so much easier, and just buy the few games they can't get on PC if they are a console player.

GBAtemp tries to focus more on general gaming these days rather than just modding though. But I don't think it's a secret that most of the people that come to this site come here for console modding and piracy, even if the gaming news and discussions gives them a reason to stick around after they have their questions answered.

Reddit has likely taken a lot of the traffic away from GBAtemp, but it's still a huge forum with many active members, I find it hard to consider a website of this scale niche. But I suppose in the grand scheme of things (compare the active users to the popularity of gaming as a whole) the userbase comprises a very small percentage of gamers.

Depends what you consider niche. Is modding consoles niche? Because most people who mod consoles know about this website, yet if you have no interest in that then you likely won't know it. I would say that modding consoles has gotten less popular over the years, however still a lot of people do it.
It hasn't gotten less popular, necessarily. It has just gotten harder and these days Nintendo consoles are generally the only ones that can be modded. And there isn't much incentive to hack Xbox even if it was possible because well... They allow homebrew, and any games people might want to pirate are already on PC.

GBAtemp was originally a GBA ROM site and got its start in that generation, and I'd say GBA flashcarts were quite niche back then since they were an expensive purchase. But of course, emulation was a thing, which is not the case with most modern consoles.
I'd say the best time for GBAtemp was back in the DS days, the R4/M3 Simply originally sold for about $15-20 and flashcart popularity exploded as a result, Nintendo even gave it free publicity. And the PSP was very easy to hack too although there were other forums that were more popular for that. That was by far the easiest and cheapest generation of console to "hack".
 
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Tomato123

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It hasn't gotten less popular, necessarily. It has just gotten harder and these days Nintendo consoles are generally the only ones that can be modded. And there isn't much incentive to hack Xbox even if it was possible because well... They allow homebrew, and any games people might want to pirate are already on PC.
Less popular was probably the wrong way to phrase it. But more like less in the public consciousness. Before consoles like PS4/Xbox one, you had much easier exploits and flash carts which the average person could easily use. Now that those don't exist and so the average person has been pushed out of the scene. Yes, there are attempts to make this easy for people but it's never going to as simple as putting a rom on a SD card and sticking that in your console like it used to be.
 

The Real Jdbye

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Less popular was probably the wrong way to phrase it. But more like less in the public consciousness. Before consoles like PS4/Xbox one, you had much easier exploits and flash carts which the average person could easily use. Now that those don't exist and so the average person has been pushed out of the scene. Yes, there are attempts to make this easy for people but it's never going to as simple as putting a rom on a SD card and sticking that in your console like it used to be.
Well, it's hard to top the popularity of DS flashcarts. Not only was the DS itself very popular but flashcarts were dirt cheap. As well as being much easier to use than modchips like you say.
The main thing that makes it harder these days is firmware updates. Software exploits are quickly patched, hardware exploits are not for everyone. On the 3DS, DS flashcarts were not quite as easy, many of them eventually got patched with no workaround. On later consoles, things are even more difficult. Since firmware updates are here to stay, that's probably not going to change. It's always going to be a constant game of cat and mouse, and the only exploits that are guaranteed to continue to work are hardware exploits.
Even hardware exploits are attempted to be blocked with hardware revisions, but they're much harder to permanently block.
In the end those who are late to the game may not have any way to exploit their console and only those who got in early and already have their console hacked (or those who are willing to pay the high prices for a hackable or hacked unit) can continue to use homebrew/piracy. So there is a much smaller amount of potentially hackable consoles, which greatly limits the popularity.
On the upside, Switch emulation is very good and remains an option for those who can't get a hackable Switch. The other consoles are basically PCs so they're bound to be playable on PC eventually.
 

Ligeia

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Piracy and hacking are indeed niche. A large majority of people who buy consoles and play video games don't have a clue about it, or don't wanna bother.
 

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I sure remember that era of coming to this website, downloading a GBA rom and then playing it. I dunno if the Internet Time Machine has archives of the old GBATemp.
Let's just admit it, we're all pirates.
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It can be niche and mainstream though?

The dictionary definition of 'niche' in this context is "a specialized market", so technically the majority of websites are 'niche'.
Niche I mean obscure.
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Niche stuff > mainstream shit
Mainstream is what brings in the dough.
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Is console piracy niche? I suppose it is, but it's a pretty large niche.
No doubt though that many pirates just stick to pirating on PC these days because it's so much easier, and just buy the few games they can't get on PC if they are a console player.

GBAtemp tries to focus more on general gaming these days rather than just modding though. But I don't think it's a secret that most of the people that come to this site come here for console modding and piracy, even if the gaming news and discussions gives them a reason to stick around after they have their questions answered.

Reddit has likely taken a lot of the traffic away from GBAtemp, but it's still a huge forum with many active members, I find it hard to consider a website of this scale niche. But I suppose in the grand scheme of things (compare the active users to the popularity of gaming as a whole) the userbase comprises a very small percentage of gamers.


It hasn't gotten less popular, necessarily. It has just gotten harder and these days Nintendo consoles are generally the only ones that can be modded. And there isn't much incentive to hack Xbox even if it was possible because well... They allow homebrew, and any games people might want to pirate are already on PC.

GBAtemp was originally a GBA ROM site and got its start in that generation, and I'd say GBA flashcarts were quite niche back then since they were an expensive purchase. But of course, emulation was a thing, which is not the case with most modern consoles.
I'd say the best time for GBAtemp was back in the DS days, the R4/M3 Simply originally sold for about $15-20 and flashcart popularity exploded as a result, Nintendo even gave it free publicity. And the PSP was very easy to hack too although there were other forums that were more popular for that. That was by far the easiest and cheapest generation of console to "hack".
PlayStation PC gives you less reasons to hack a PS5.
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Well, it's hard to top the popularity of DS flashcarts. Not only was the DS itself very popular but flashcarts were dirt cheap. As well as being much easier to use than modchips like you say.
The main thing that makes it harder these days is firmware updates. Software exploits are quickly patched, hardware exploits are not for everyone. On the 3DS, DS flashcarts were not quite as easy, many of them eventually got patched with no workaround. On later consoles, things are even more difficult. Since firmware updates are here to stay, that's probably not going to change. It's always going to be a constant game of cat and mouse, and the only exploits that are guaranteed to continue to work are hardware exploits.
Even hardware exploits are attempted to be blocked with hardware revisions, but they're much harder to permanently block.
In the end those who are late to the game may not have any way to exploit their console and only those who got in early and already have their console hacked (or those who are willing to pay the high prices for a hackable or hacked unit) can continue to use homebrew/piracy. So there is a much smaller amount of potentially hackable consoles, which greatly limits the popularity.
On the upside, Switch emulation is very good and remains an option for those who can't get a hackable Switch. The other consoles are basically PCs so they're bound to be playable on PC eventually.
But the DS isn't as popular as it used to be.
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Piracy and hacking are indeed niche. A large majority of people who buy consoles and play video games don't have a clue about it, or don't wanna bother.
It's definitely an enthusiast site.
If mainstream gaming is Mario, gbatemp is definitely Metroid.
 
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