Hacking PIRATED VC GAMES - Easy to detect!

[drock360]

Plus.. was it me, or was coolbho3000 that said whoever played SSBB (NTSC-J) with a PAL console or whatever would be banned FOREVER from online gaming with the Wii?
hmmm....

lol, someones a little bit paranoid.

 

[Harsky]

Not to add to the paranoia, but if anyone has actually bought a VC game, in addition to the above information, Nintendo probably has your billing address and name somewhere too.

Only if you happen to pay by credit card.

I used those scratch cards for a while.

 

[ilovengage]

Let's not forget that these games cost... points.
Not money, they cost you points.
Did you steal any points? No.

The thing is - points ARE money. You usually buy the points and can purchase games with them, so they are something like another currency exclusively for the Wii. Yeah, you can get points with the stars thing from Nintendo, but that's more like a coupon you get for a shop.

 

[TheStump]

why doesn't someone buy a game and install a game via WAD. Then send the wii in for repair and see what happens?
its sounds like a stupid idea for that individual but it would answer alot of questions.

so anyone wanna take one for the team?

 

[thegame07]

" There is this thing called the "Vii", of course a fake version of the Wii. They can easily be sued, but the Vii sells more then the Wii."

what a crazy statement to make lol

 

[godsakes]

surely it would be easy to detect for piracy on the wii even before the VC stuff

nintendo could have detected semi bricked consoles, they could have looked at the play logs on the wii to search for games which were never released in the region (prior to freeloader)

 

[jpxdude]

I thought that every VC game was uniquely signed according to your actual Wii ID information on the client side, which is used to authenticate the software? In essence, once the VC game has reached your console, it is uniquely signed and 'appears' legit. I'm just assuming, but in all honesty, I don't really care. People that do this should be aware of the risks when they carry this kind of thing out. I tried a couple WAD's and if worst comes to worst, i'ma buy me a new Wii.

 

[xtrem3x]

Why use WADS & pirate VC games when you can just use emulators, make emulator channels etc? Apart from N64 games of course!
Also, nintendo couldn't ban consoles from going online after they report the 001 error because you could have bought the console 2nd hand not knowing it was modded & previously received the error. Nintendo would have to tread very carfully when taking any action even if they could detect & log it.

 

[IAmTheRad]

Well, I'll still buy VC games that will possibly be 'cracked' and able to be pirated. That is, if I think it's worthy to keep. Like this week, RCR on NES, even if it appeared as a VC release for people to download and put on their wii without paying for, I'll still buy, because it's THAT awesome. Every VC game I've gotten, I've played for at least 3 hours. 3 hours for $10 max (N64 games), a worthy purchase since watching a movie at the theatre I only get for a couple of hours yet I pay about $15 for that, and it might be bad. At least with VC, I can try the game on my PC before getting it.

Also, Nintendo can't tell if you got a game through somebody sending you a gift for the game. Once you download it linked to your MyNintendo account, which you don't NEED to do, they can't detect it through that.

 

[Tanas]

Not to add to the paranoia, but if anyone has actually bought a VC game, in addition to the above information, Nintendo probably has your billing address and name somewhere too.

Only if you happen to pay by credit card.

I used those scratch cards for a while.

Probably 90% of people who have been banned from XBox Live, Microsoft know who they are and where they live, and what have MS done about it? nothing... and never will, same goes for Nintendo.

It would be funny though, if Nintendo did start sending out warning emails to our Wii's

Most of the Pal conversions are horrendous, not only wouldn't I pay for them, I wouldn't even touch them with yours.

 

[zeckyD]

Coolboh3000 only give you an advice; DO WHAT YOU WANT AT YOUR OWN RISK ! This info is given, choose ur destiny ...

 

[Grish4]

My thoughts:

Interesting that in the shop channel the pirated vc titles are not included in the "games I've downloaded" list (or whatever it's called) But they do appear as "downloadable" in the actual available games listings. Reportably even after people have re-downloaded them from the shop channel.

To me this sounds like the "downloadable" section is client side only; basically the Wii tells the server that this game has resided on this unit at some time, hopefully this is all "synchronous" and does not update anything on the Nintendo server side DB. (logs aside..)

The other list (games that I've downloaded..) is where the server is much more likely to be reading from the DB where the sessional Wii's unique ID's records are kept.

Strange that the servers DB would not be updated when we come along and re-download a vc title though, unless, of course it only INSERTS to this DB - Why would it ever need to, or be designed to UPDATE to it anyway? Think about it..... and it should 'think' it's already INSERTED the record for this "downloadable" game.

Who knows, if I were Nintendo, I would be logging and storing everything and banning all our asses! I doubt (and hope!) they don't. They don't seem to dedicate enough resource to this kind of thing.

 

[mkill]

true, if piracy really hurts ninty they would be serious about stopping it, think about it if you copy a game, that you wouldn't be able to afford, and wouldn't have played anyway, you are probably talking to some friends about it, let say you tell 5 people about the game, then ninty already saved $$$ on marketing, its called viral networking. And its better and cheaper than any other way of marketing.

I know for sure that I got at least a hand full of friends that I can tell that "this game/hardware i really great, you should buy it!" and they do. and thats all down to the trust and credibility (TPB lingo: credulence) that your friends have in you. thats 1000x stronger than any ninty commercial.

Even some countries receive minimum marketing campaigns from ninty, In Denmark, there have only been 3 nintendo wii related tv commercials by now, one for the wii, one for mario galaxy and one for mario kart wii, this is not just because Denmark i such a little crappy country, but because its cheaper to let the "experienced gamers" tell the rest of the public about their new console/videogame.

If we are the experienced gamers, and there are no way of running backups, ninty sales would drop, from total lack of interest from experienced gamers whom is telling people about their games, we are their hype.

I pushed all my friends and family into buying wiis and many off them unmodded. thats exactly what ninty wants from the "experienced gamers".

I doesn't matter if a game is purchased or copied, as long as the hype around it is big enough, the product will sell for a much longer period to a broader audience with less $$$ spend on marketing.

 

[berlinka]

true, if piracy really hurts ninty they would be serious about stopping it, think about it if you copy a game, that you wouldn't be able to afford, and wouldn't have played anyway, you are probably talking to some friends about it, let say you tell 5 people about the game, then ninty already saved $$$ on marketing, its called viral networking. And its better and cheaper than any other way of marketing.

I know for sure that I got at least a hand full of friends that I can tell that "this game/hardware i really great, you should buy it!" and they do. and thats all down to the trust and credibility (TPB lingo: credulence) that your friends have in you. thats 1000x stronger than any ninty commercial.

Even some countries receive minimum marketing campaigns from ninty, In Denmark, there have only been 3 nintendo wii related tv commercials by now, one for the wii, one for mario galaxy and one for mario kart wii, this is not just because Denmark i such a little crappy country, but because its cheaper to let the "experienced gamers" tell the rest of the public about their new console/videogame.

If we are the experienced gamers, and there are no way of running backups, ninty sales would drop, from total lack of interest from experienced gamers whom is telling people about their games, we are their hype.

I pushed all my friends and family into buying wiis and many off them unmodded. thats exactly what ninty wants from the "experienced gamers".

I doesn't matter if a game is purchased or copied, as long as the hype around it is big enough, the product will sell for a much longer period to a broader audience with less $$$ spend on marketing.

Wow, that's a pretty smart point of view. Sounds very plausible.

 

[Grish4]

this is not just because Denmark i such a little crappy country

LOL - I love how "matter of fact" you threw that one in.

As for your reasoning on piracy and the free advertising by the "experienced gamers" I agree, but Nintendo would never admit it.

 

[ilovengage]

Some people here make it sound like the people in the Nintendo HQ discuss this topic like this: "Hey, some freak hacked our security measures on VC games, let's do something against it!" - "No, that doesn't matter, we still sell enough games and those games are old, that's not a big loss!".

But i think the situation is more like mkill said: "Oh man, so many Wii's are modded, what shall we do?" - "Let's think about it: We could do something against them, like Microsoft with banning them, which would first could bring us a bad image and - more important - makes more and more people aware of the fact that you CAN copy Wii games." (+ the effect mkill described)

I especiall think that the "most people don't know it" effect is very important. You remember when Microsoft started banning Xbox 360s? Every news page posting news about computers/games posted this and so EVERY "N00b" knew about that - and honestly: For many people losing an online mode you ahve to pay for is nothing against playing all games free! I know, many people here think that it's a stupid idea because everyone knows that it's possible. In fact it isn't. The people who know about new games because of TV advertising are the people who usually don't have a clue that - or at least HOW - you can play copies.

I met a big Nintendo fanboy who was not an computer expert but not an absolute noob and he didn't believe me that you can copy GameCube games - that was two years ago.

So the fact that Nintendo doesn't do anyhting against hackers (like bans) is the best they can do!

 

[coolbho3000]

LOL @ coolbho3000 for showing a picture of mynintendo / nintendo club, with games HE registered.

Plus i agree with ricdanger. Dont everyone remembered what Nintendo said? The Games you download are only kept in YOUR Wii, not on their servers... so if your Wii would be busted, you had to notify them about the games you downloaded, so they could confirm it when you shipped your wii.

Plus.. was it me, or was coolbho3000 that said whoever played SSBB (NTSC-J) with a PAL console or whatever would be banned FOREVER from online gaming with the Wii?
hmmm....

1. The Opera Browser/other channels showed up automatically in my Mynintendo account upon downloading. How's that for "only kept in YOUR Wii?"

2. It was you.

 

[nine0nine]

I dont think Nintendo will ever enforce a ban on a machine removing some of its capabilities. The whole banning thing MS have executed is a complete nightmare to anyone wanting to buy a second hand machine. If nintendo did the same It would be a worse situation as their target audience is far more likely to be uninformed on matters like this. Nintendo like their machines to be as simple and problem free as possible, repeating the same bans MS did would probably cause more damage than the loss of a little revenue from the lost sales of a few VC games. The most they will do is block the hack and stop pirated VC games from working.

I think nintendo are aware that, even though they probably hate the idea of people getting their property for free, the majority of people hacking the VC titles wouldn't have even considered buying them in a million years. I have SMB3 and DKC2 on my wii now, but I'd never have bought them, at the most I considered cashing in my loyalty points for one.

 

[ricdanger]

LOL @ coolbho3000 for showing a picture of mynintendo / nintendo club, with games HE registered.

Plus i agree with ricdanger. Dont everyone remembered what Nintendo said? The Games you download are only kept in YOUR Wii, not on their servers... so if your Wii would be busted, you had to notify them about the games you downloaded, so they could confirm it when you shipped your wii.

Plus.. was it me, or was coolbho3000 that said whoever played SSBB (NTSC-J) with a PAL console or whatever would be banned FOREVER from online gaming with the Wii?
hmmm....

1. The Opera Browser/other channels showed up automatically in my Mynintendo account upon downloading. How's that for "only kept in YOUR Wii?"

2. It was you.

It shows up only if you have linked your Nintendo account to your shop channel.
If you don't, Nintendo does not keep a record. You can see that by just formating the console, or change the language, and then try to get the games you previously bought.
If you didn't link the account, you will not be able to download the games.

As I said, Nintendo could already start banning persons for playing pirated games, by detecting #001 erros, partial bricks, different region disks, bar codes, you name it.
And we are not talking about cheap VC games that were build years ago, that didn't took a lot of time for Nintendo to put them online. We are talking about current DVD games that cost alot money to develop for the present system.
They could ban cheaters on MOH2, with modified ammo and life.
Even tho, they didn't banned anyone, let alone brick the consoles.

This really is getting more and more ridiculous. Everyone was playing backups, using freeloaders, patching regions, and they never worried. Now, with VC games, everyone is freaking out.
The only damage this VC games issue can have is to force Nintendo to fix security holes in the system sooner. And that can prevent custom firmwares, downgrades or homebrew.
But guess what: Nintendo already knew about these holes, given that homebrew channels were already spread. Do you think that Nintendo would not figure out the holes and fix them, even if VC games were not pirated? Yeah, right... Only if they couldn't fix them.

Stop spreading FUD.

 

[theforbidden1]

if you donwload games now and never come back to store that will never discover