Precisely.
When a system is reaching the end of its life-time sometimes even sooner, they just don't care anymore.
Why?
Because if they DON'T patch it, the console will have a huge boom in sales since you can hack it and play games for free.
Jesus dick, I didn't even think about that. It is true, though. The Wii's sales went up immensely when they released 4.2 because of Bannerbomb, and while 4.3 patched it, it was obvious that they didn't care at that point what happened because the Wii was almost dead. They still left the game vulnerabilities, like Bathaxx or return of the jodi, though they easily could have patched those. Probably.
I definitely noticed most of my friends, even some non-Nintendo ones, buying Wiis so they could hack them, which was amazingly easy, or at least user friendly.
And like I said before, the 3DS will die, hopefully not sooner (because I love the 3ds, and I'd like to see a higher resolution version, but I doubt that will happen). Nintendo's good at what they do, very good. They'll make sure to end the support for that, starting with updates, and then proceeding to online stuff, though I'm pretty sure there isn't a Wiiconnect24 equivalent to the 3DS, and they definitely won't end multiplayer support anytime soon. This will leave the console open to the hacking community, and hopefully they have their way with it. Since it's almost Wii equivalent in graphics and, with the low resolution, power; there will hopefully be developers who...develop stuff.
And did anyone note that the chip decapping fundraiser is long over? Hopefully it's only a matter of time before they actually decap the thing and reverse engineer it.
.
The reality here though, is that Nintendo doesn't give a crap's ass about Gaming Developers, despite what many say. And the same applies to the other competitors. When a gaming system reaches this stage, they just leave all the hacks in, because they will sell units like mad, once they stop patching.
Who gets screwed here? Game Developers. Ninty, keeps on caching in with hundreds of thousands of units sold because the system is now hackable, and the game developers get the boot.
Caring about game developers? Sure, Nintendo cares while:
1- They make them money.
2- They have to, because if they abandon support and updates early in the gaming console life span, game developers will swiftly move out of the field, and leave that said gaming system with no developers wiling to work on it. As such, no games.
I quote again what has been said here:
Caring about others "Is not the way big businesses work".
Absolutely right. Nintendo may seem soft, but they're no different. Why do you think my repair costed $150 for a $200 system? They have you by the balls when you break your stuff, and they know you have to either buy a new one or they'll charge you up the ass for repairs. Luckily, I got out of such a large fee. Don't ask me how.
They're not gonna give a damn if some company gets ripped off by pirates. Really, Nintendo has it best on the pirating case, since most of their games are made for children, or aimed at a young audience, anyways, and most children won't pirate. Most other developers will be aimed at older gamers, who will definitely pirate, be it for financial reasons or just not feeling like spending the money on the game. Nintendo's still running, and they will be for a while.
And Gateway is exactly what the title suggests; a threshold for users and hackers alike. There's so much potential in this card, and I personally can't wait to see it as a hacker and former Wii homebrew developer. I want to see what makes the 3DS tick, and these guys obviously know it well. They've bypassed the encryption, by using an exploit for an old version, yes, but it's still amazing nonetheless.
I was gonna say that. lol
