Hacking Console sales and hacking

[Foxi4]

Ninty only gets money from licensing IF... companys decide to develope games for there systems AND IF people are actually BUYING them.

The Wii and the DS were plagued with piracy in comparison to other platforms, but developers continued to support them strongly well into their late days. Why? Because a lot of people bought them. It's a self-winding wheel - people are buying a system because it gets loads of games and it gets loads of games because people are buying it.

Piracy does not affect the equation substantially, it never has. In fact, the phenomenon of piracy is older than video games themselves and is always accounted for by the developers anyways. A developer will always aim to release games for a system with a relatively broad target audience to maximize profits, the 3DS already sold over 35 million units and it's not going to stop - it's going to be like a boulder rolling down the side of a mountain, gradually building up speed as more games are released for it. Whether or not 1 million of those 3DS users will pirate doesn't matter - the developer can still potentially sell several million copies of the game.

 

[user64]

Well, it's really the other way around, isn't it? The more people who have a system, the more people would would want to hack it.

The Wii and the DS were plagued with piracy in comparison to other platforms, but developers continued to support them strongly well into their late days. Why? Because a lot of people bought them. It's a self-winding wheel - people are buying a system because it gets loads of games and it gets loads of games because people are buying it.

This. Some tempers may be lead to believe that many people buy systems for hacking based on what they hear on this forum, but we're in a minority.

 

[Technicmaster0]

This. Some tempers may be lead to believe that many people buy systems for hacking based on what they hear on this forum, but we're in a minority.

Although I'm sure that 90% of the 3DS users don't even know about Gateway.

 

[user64]

Although I'm sure that 90% of the 3DS users don't even know about Gateway.

I've found this to be true from personal experience. If anything, Big N shutting down stuff and making headlines might be causing piracy, as there's no publicity like bad publicity.

 

[Bonny]

Although I'm sure that 90% of the 3DS users don't even know about Gateway.

Well, this might be true. For NOW. Gateway is expensive, not very comfortable, runs only on a certain firmware, has no nice features, isn' compatible with the newst games etc...

But if happens what happens to the NDS - Then pirating will become cheap, comfortable, has lot's of features (like cheating), a nearly perfect compatiblity - Than, over 70% of the 3DS Owners will know about how to pirate, and the most will do it.

The 3DS is out now for years, if i take a look at the 3DS shelf at my local MediaMarkt (a bigger electronic shop in Germany) there are only 25-30 Titles available. The situation isn't compareable to the NDS. Cracking/Hacking up the system completely won't do any good at all.

 

[ShinyLatios]

The 3DS is out now for years, if i take a look at the 3DS shelf at my local MediaMarkt (a bigger electronic shop in Germany) there are only 25-30 Titles available. The situation isn't compareable to the NDS. Cracking/Hacking up the system completely won't do any good at all.

Maybe because it's MediaMarkt, an ELECTRONIC shop. not a gameshop

if I go to my local gameshop, they have entire shelves full of good 3DS games. even though last few weeks they've mostly just been pokemon, lol.

 

[Bonny]

Maybe because it's MediaMarkt, an ELECTRONIC shop. not a gameshop

Gameshops are not popular or big in Germany. If you want to buy games or systems in Germany, you visit MediaMarkt, Saturn etc...
All classic gameshops from the 90's/00's are dead in Germany. The only newcomer/survivor is Gamestop. And it's small and always empty when i visit my local Shopping Center.

 

[Foxi4]

Assuming that the 3DS will suffer due to piracy any more than other platforms is completely naive - all popular platforms suffer from it at some point, it's a part of the equation. Again, piracy is not some new phnomenon developers are not familiar with, C64 users used to copy their cassete tapes, PC users copied their floppies and continue to copy their disc-based and digtal releases, PS1 users chipped their consoles etc - you could go on forever.

Consoles are very much a safe haven for developers, the problem of piracy on dedicated platforms pales in comparison to the same problem on PC and developers have been whiing about piracy since the dawn of time. The procedures involved are becoming easier and easier, but at the same time, the target audience grows bigger and bigger. Back in the day, selling 30 million systems was considered a spectacular success, now it's considered underwhelming at best.

Everything in business equalizes - the number of pirates grew substantially, but so did the number of legitimate users and frankly, the prospects of the industry have never been better. Take GTA V for example - the game was released on the XBox 360 and the PlayStation 3, both platforms "hacked" ages ago... and? It made a billion of dollars in a couple of days.

Maybe Nintendo doesn't need to worry about pirates, maybe they just need to make good games and entice other developers to do the same with favorable licensing terms like everybody else, a stategy they haven't tried yet.

 

[McHaggis]

The 3DS is out now for years, if i take a look at the 3DS shelf at my local MediaMarkt (a bigger electronic shop in Germany) there are only 25-30 Titles available. The situation isn't compareable to the NDS. Cracking/Hacking up the system completely won't do any good at all.

While it's true there were many more games available for the DS at this point in its lifetime, if Wikipedia is accurate, there is a total of 156 retail games available for the 3DS right now in Europe. That's more than plenty and some would argue that the quality games are much, much easier to find than they were on the DS. I'm bordering on 30 games that I own personally, and I didn't own 30 DS games 2 and a half years after I bought it (and I was much richer then because I was a student and had no kids ).

Hacking the 3DS isn't going to do nearly as much damage as you think it will. Somebody on here said 90% of 3DS owners don't even know about the Gateway. I'd estimate the figure to be quite a bit higher than that, perhaps closer to 98%. When you factor in the number of people who have a 3DS capable of actually using a Gateway, it equates to as little as a gnat bite out of Nintendo's earnings. Poor Nintendo. Now, where did I put that tiny violin?

 

[Ferrnando]

If an flashcard for 3ds gets strong I think they will probably release a lot more dlc (which I think will be really hard to download without updated console), maybe free dlc, block internet multiplayer, they will do everything to make it less enjoyable.

 

[Bonny]

they will do everything to make it less enjoyable.

Of course, if you rob or rape someone, you won't hear a "thanks!"

 

[Foxi4]

Of course, if you rob or rape someone, you won't hear a "thanks!"

Flashcarts aren't exactly in the same category of criminal activity as rape or burglary.

 

[Nurio]

Robbery and burglary aren't the same thing... But that's beside the point.
Bonny is just saying that of course they try to make it less enjoyable because the flash cards are bad for them. They're not happy with them at all, just like someone wouldn't appreciate being robbed or raped.
It's an argument by exaggerated example. It's actually a type of argument many people use.

 

[Technicmaster0]

Well, this might be true. For NOW. Gateway is expensive, not very comfortable, runs only on a certain firmware, has no nice features, isn' compatible with the newst games etc...

But if happens what happens to the NDS - Then pirating will become cheap, comfortable, has lot's of features (like cheating), a nearly perfect compatiblity - Than, over 70% of the 3DS Owners will know about how to pirate, and the most will do it.

The 3DS is out now for years, if i take a look at the 3DS shelf at my local MediaMarkt (a bigger electronic shop in Germany) there are only 25-30 Titles available. The situation isn't compareable to the NDS. Cracking/Hacking up the system completely won't do any good at all.

I say that at least 20% of the DS users don't know about flashcards either and that at least 10% of the other ones don't want to use them.
Gateway will need some months/ years to become known. Do you know how many people know R4 but not Supercard, EZ Flash, M3 etc.?