Nintendo's biggest threat: R4

[Urza]

Games in the UK retail at £30 (which would be $60)... meaning value of 10 games is £300...

At those prices, anyone would resort to pirating.

 

[Seraph]

Great, this is just more advertising for flashcards.


35 million people have a DS. not an R4

These articles are pretty stupid, it is just advertisement. I don't think Nintendo is able to stop all flashcarts. Even if they're able to shut down R4, when people go search for R4 online they'll come to a store that has similar products to R4.

 

[Harsky]

Everyone I know who has a DS also has an R4. Even a family friend of mine went up to me and asked me to order one for him because he saw someone with it.

That said, shame that the PSP doesn't have much spotlight about it's piracy and the whole custom firmware thing. Kinda sad that even the piracy aspect of the PSP isn't enough to make it sell.

 

[azotyp]

Kinda sad that even the piracy aspect of the PSP isn't enough to make it sell.

I think that if there were some kind of flashcarts fort psp (like r4) that to use , you would not have to change firmware, maybe psp would sell better.

 

[Sonicslasher]

n00b alert, ppl will come here!! g00gle R4, gbatemp is third on teh list!!!

 

[Ace Gunman]

n00b alert, ppl will come here!! g00gle R4, gbatemp is third on teh list!!!

Well I'll be damned, you're right. Looks like GBAtemp just got some great indirect publicity from The Times.

 

[Icarus]

Why do they keep calling it a "chip". It's a "flashcart" !!! Get your facts right Kotaku !!!

 

[Joey Ravn]

If the R4 (or whichever flashcart you prefer) is Nintendo's biggest threat... where do you leave emulation? Just look at the GBA, s'il vous plait. The DS is not far from where the GBA is, in terms of emulation.
Besides... free emulation > €50 for an R4.

 

[SilverDragon]

How many people seriously want to play portable games on an emulator? I know I don't, other than for quickly checking out.

 

[Doggy124]

n00b alert, ppl will come here!! g00gle R4, gbatemp is third on teh list!!!


Well I'll be damned, you're right. Looks like GBAtemp just got some great indirect publicity from The Times.

ninth for my google

QUOTE(Little @ Nov 26 2007, 08:06 PM)Its only stores in places like Toyoko that have started to sell them. Its more likely to be small electronic stores/stalls rather than actual large chain stores.

Shops in my country usually have less than10 legit DS games in their shop but 50+ flash cards in stock

And that is a real shop, not internet shop. All over the market

 

[Joey Ravn]

Well, maybe not for the DS, as, right now, the touch screen emulation is rather... hard to control. But for GBA, come on... I know MANY people that have played MANY (+100) GBA and beat them completely, using VBA.
Just give it time, and the R4 won't look as a threat no more...

PS: I'm not against the R4 or emulation, BTW. But I just wanted to point out that, although it may seem so, flashcarts won't 'deal a devastating blow to Nintendo's finances'. At least, not more than a free emulator could.

 

[cracker]

R4 chip has the potential to deal a heavy financial blow to Nintendo

Flashcarts have been around since GBA days and so far Nintendo is doing fine ("...revenues of $7.8 billion in 2006.").

Actually they have been around a lot longer than that but they just weren't mainstream and production was a lot lower.

 

[sirAnger]

Most DS games appear on the internet and are ready for downloading within a few days of the legitimate version going on sale. Vidoes on youtube. com offer first-time users of the R4 an easy-to-follow tutorial in making the device work. Salesmen even quietly suggest visiting youtube.com rather than attempting to decipher its Chinese instructions.

As an experiment The Times obtained an R4 chip and downloaded free of charge on the internet ten new Nintendo DS games – worth about £400. The games, one of which had gone on sale only the day before, worked perfectly. The entire process took less than half an hour.

This sounds more like an advertisement for R4 than a deterrent.

 

[jelbo]

This kind of news only draws more attention to the DS pirating options..

 

[Seicomart]

Flashcarts have been on sale in Akiba for years now, for NDS, GBA, going back to the old Magicoms et.al and even floppy drives for PC Engine back in the day. Of course there were also plenty of stores selling pirate Famicom Disc System games quite openly too.

I picked up a Guide to Flash carts and Roms in a convenience store along with a guide to Mame out of sheer curiosity in the hot spring resort of Noboribetsu, Hokkaido which is just about as in the middle of nowhere you can expect to be in Japan. Both cost 200 yen I think (about a quid). I'll take some pictures tonight and upload them later.

When I worked in Japan I showed my old GBA flash cart to some of my students who were aged around 1-16 some of them said it was cool, but when asked pretty much all of them said they would prefer to have the original game cos of the box, packaging, instructions etc.

The "reporter" who seems clueless doesn't seem to take on any of the cultural factors, only financial. To be sure at the moment Japan's economy is down the shitter, but when it comes to gaming, originals were still valued over playing for free, at least when talking on other occasions to the 300 or so students of mine a few quality games were seen as a better thing than all the games for free, but that was just in one part of Hokkaido, naturally people from other locations may vary.

You don't see that many young children in Akiba either, most of the crowd there seem like they can afford to buy their games, though you wouldn't think so from how a great many dress ^^

 

[Ducky]

I imagine nintendo dressed as the police.. "POLICE OPEN UP! " *goes to child* "Do you own a Nintendo DS?! " Child : "Yeah" Police : "Can we see it just for a momment?" Child : "ah... ah... (Mom tells him to give them) okay..." Police *Gets the R4 Out puts it on the ground and starts shooting on it * , *Child Cries*


BEWARE OF THE FUTURE!!

 

[shakirmoledina]

lol maybe it is an advert since tht way more carts are sold and so are more of the consoles sold too. Or weirdly, maybe R4 is giving some kind of commission to nintendo for the sales.

 

[Mars]

Well, maybe not for the DS, as, right now, the touch screen emulation is rather... hard to control. But for GBA, come on... I know MANY people that have played MANY (+100) GBA and beat them completely, using VBA.
Just give it time, and the R4 won't look as a threat no more...

PS: I'm not against the R4 or emulation, BTW. But I just wanted to point out that, although it may seem so, flashcarts won't 'deal a devastating blow to Nintendo's finances'. At least, not more than a free emulator could.

I see what you're saying but with emulation, you're not getting nearly the same gaming experience as an actual DS, unless you have a tablet PC. Although DS emulators may affect sales, I don't think it'll deal a big blow.

 

[jumpman17]

Big Nintendo Official: "Blah blah blah, Nintendo moniez, blah blah blah, piracy, blah blah blah, made up number here."

When are these companies going to do some real math? They always assume that every game downloaded would have been bought at full price.

Now, I'm a college student with like, $20,000 of debt. I wish I could buy all the games I want, but I just can't. I've bought about 45 Gamecube games, 12 Wii games, and about 25 DS games. I really don't know what more they want from me. I buy what I can, and I wish I could buy more, but I can't.

 

[Ace Gunman]

You know, it's interesting. This whole Nintendo watching the scene business actually fits quite well into a handful of rumors. I'm going to go into a hypothetical now, it has no basis, no need to get heated; it's simply a theory.

We've all heard the rumors that Nintendo has been developing a new GBA slot-less Nintendo DS model. And there were also rumors a few months ago about Nintendo developing their own flash carts. Well what if they've been watching the scene so closely in order to learn more about this part of the market and then create a flash cart-type product aimed at us? Also fitting into the hypothetical situation is the rumored DS redesign. What if the redesign was for the people that could use this new DS slot flash cart to download ROMs via a virtual console service? Interestingly the rumors suggest on-board memory, what if that was to contain downloadable games?

It's pure conjecture at this point, but the puzzle pieces logically fit together.