Hardware PSA: Gateway Is Making More Bricks

[Armadillo]

Even if you do buy the DSTWO+ on a whim, with no research. Still nothing to do with Gateway.If you buy something, and it's faulty or doesn't work as advertised. You take it up with the store/manufacturer, which in this case would be Supercard.

Gateway haven't produced a faulty item. The launcher works fine with no issues on Gateway. What is or isn't in their launcher is irrelevant.

Supercard have produced a product, that isn't safe. It's down to them to stand behind it.

 

[gamesquest1]

Ultimately I understand Gateway's actions, swinging the brick-hammer to crush the copycats, but I still think it's really dumb to be so harsh. It's like was said earlier in the thread, you aren't winning customers by destroying their device. All ethics aside it's just bad business when you could opt to just block the clone from working without damaging the system and potentially have a new customer. Same end goal is accomplished but with the removal of collateral damage. Whether it's just a block or a brick, the end result for the clones are all the same - people don't use them anymore since they don't work.

see they did originally just block cards, but then the clones bypassed that protection, they blocked them again and added save corruption stuff and the same happened, it was only once they actually bricked end users that the end users gave a crap about the fact they were using a clone, before that it was just "hahah i get all gateways features for $50 instead of $55 mahaha im such a savvy shopper go me! i don't care that i have to wait a few weeks to get all those tasty gateway features on my R4 gold deluxe" ...threatening/blocking clone users only delays the clones it doesn't deter the clone users who feel that the worst that can happen is they get new features but with a small delay while the clone teams crack the new protection

 

[Krestent]

I don't want to dig through a few threads with a dozen pages each, so:

As someone who hasn't yet gotten into the 3DS scene, were people not supposed to use GW firmware with the DSTWO+? What were they supposed to use?

 

[gamesquest1]

I don't want to dig through a few threads with a dozen pages each, so:

As someone who hasn't yet gotten into the 3DS scene, were people not supposed to use GW firmware with the DSTWO+? What were they supposed to use?

nothing because DSTwo were banking on gateway rolling over and just letting them take their FW for themselves without doing anything in retaliation....if you already bought a DStwo+ it seems sticking to the 3.4.1 launcher and 1.03 gateway plugin is safe, but who knows what dstwo plans to do now the rug has been pulled from under their feet maybe they will actually do some of their own work now instead of trying to leech of another dev

 

[Wolololo]

How many people will simply go into a store and buy something like a phone or other tech items on a whim? Knowing nothing about the thing you are about to purchase?

A freaking lot! Just because you and your close group of friends are tech-savy and know about sites like GBATemp, most flashcart users have never heard of it. OR of Gateway or the clones. They just know it as the "thingy to play free games on my 3DS", and they don't even know there are clones.

in the NDS era, lots of completely tech-unsavvy users would buy an R4 or any of its clones knowing nothing about the war between manufacturers and clones! All they knew was that they wanted to play some roms and mp3s. It doesn't help that the retail sites sell all clones without any distinction whatsoever. Do you think they'll tell you "beware, it's a clone we're selling, and there's an ongoing war between Gateway and the others". No.

For the 2 people who *know* about GBATemp and complained here, how many have simply never heard of the scene and just bought a flashcart for the cheapest price because their friends told them it's the same?

Gateway are clearly to blame for their dangerous code here. Unbelievable that some people agree with that kind of guerilla tactic from Gateway. Remind me to never do any business with you if you think it's ok to release a virus with your code. As it's been proven before, Gateway's code is fragile and there are examples of bricks on their own flashcarts because of how buggy their virus was.

 

[Amapola62]

Guess I'll learn how to set-up Rxtools, even if I'm afraid of bricking something that'll probably cost me around 100euros...

 

[Jayro]

The problem is always the end-user. Gateway sells the cart with brick code in it's launcher so clone makers won't reverse-engineer and steal their code, which punishes the user as a consequence... But it's still a user-caused brick for not reading up, and buying a shitty clone.

 

[gamesquest1]

A freaking lot! Just because you and your close group of friends are tech-savy and know about sites like GBATemp, most flashcart users have never heard of it. OR of Gateway or the clones. They just know it as the "thingy to play free games on my 3DS", and they don't even know there are clones.

in the NDS era, lots of completely tech-unsavvy users would buy an R4 or any of its clones knowing nothing about the war between manufacturers and clones! All they knew was that they wanted to play some roms and mp3s. It doesn't help that the retail sites sell all clones without any distinction whatsoever. Do you think they'll tell you "beware, it's a clone we're selling, and there's an ongoing war between Gateway and the others". No.

For the 2 people who *know* about GBATemp and complained here, how many have simply never heard of the scene and just bought a flashcart for the cheapest price because their friends told them it's the same?

Gateway are clearly to blame for their dangerous code here. Unbelievable that some people agree with that kind of guerilla tactic from Gateway. Remind me to never do any business with you if you think it's ok to release a virus with your code. As it's been proven before, Gateway's code is fragile and there are examples of bricks on their own flashcarts because of how buggy their virus was.

nobody is saying gateway are really nice guys for bricking consoles, but supercard have zero defence, the same as if i did sightseeing guides and lead a bunch of people into a KNOWN minefield yeah the owner of the field who put the mines there is a bit of a twat, but im the bloody idiot who decided to risk my customers well being by leading them into the minefield and saying "dont worry everything is fiiiinnnneeee" when i know full well that the land owner is known to put mines there to catch trespassers just so i could get some quick cash and not bother finding a safe route for my customers to take or using my own land that i know is safe

 

[Amapola62]

Then we have to blame Supercard...

 

[Armadillo]

Shocking that a shady flashcart company would use guerrilla tactics, and not act like an upstanding legal business. Shocking I say. Next your be shocked that loan sharks break your legs, rather than just repossessing items.

 

[Deleted-236924]

Shocking that a shady flashcart company would use guerrilla tactics, and not act like an upstanding legal business. Shocking I say. Next your be shocked that loan sharks break your legs, rather than just repossessing items.

We'll be so shocked, that all our DSTwo+ will turn into Shock3DS

 

[Amapola62]

Well...being a reasonable person I think it's more logical to reposess the item than to break the legs of the people who can't pay...since breaking their legs doesn't give you your money back, while when you repossess the item at least you get something of value back...but maybe I'm too naive/idealistic...

 

[porkiewpyne]

@Wolololo : And therein lies the problem. People do not want to do any research whatsoever. People really need to stop YOLOing. There is really nothing more that can be done. The piracy business is a shady one. And with everything shady, caution must be exercised.

With regards to the blame to be placed on GW, I will have to disagree. I will not deny that back in the day, there had been several misfires and since one of the victims was a prominent user of the temp, we knew the claim was credible to say the least. However, having mentioned that, I believe that problem has been rectified in the subsequent updates. I am not aware of any bricking due to the use of GW's launcher in the presence of a legit GW RedCard ever since. The thing is though, the launcher is not meant to be used without the RedCard. Period.

Using it otherwise is done at your own risk and discretion. Even if we do excuse those who are unaware of the history and what have you, the next party in line for the majority of the blame would be the SC team. Since it is THEIR product, THEY should be responsible for whatever problems that arise from the usage of THEIR product.

 

[gamesquest1]

Well...being a reasonable person I think it's more logical to reposess the item than to break the legs of the people who can't pay...since breaking their legs doesn't give you your money back, while when you repossess the item at least you get something of value back...but maybe I'm too naive/idealistic...

well generally breaking legs would only be if the person who owes the debt tries to do a runner or has no way of paying the debt as a warning to anyone else who thinks they can skip on the debt, if they did nothing nobody would ever pay them back......im sure before that repossession would be done without the courts process and with no "repayment plan over 7 years at £2 a month" options

 

[Amapola62]

Question: setting up RXtools necessitates the Gateway launcher.dat right? Does that mean we risk bricking the 3ds? 0o And I'm already afraid of bricking when updating sysnand to 9.2 with sysupdater...

 

[gamesquest1]

Question: setting up RXtools necessitates the Gateway launcher.dat right? Does that mean we risk bricking the 3ds? 0o And I'm already afraid of bricking when updating sysnand to 9.2 with sysupdater...

nope the bricks should only trigger when someone tampers with the launcher or tries to bypass the protection in place, to just format emunand it *should* be fine, you only use it once anyway.....i think there may have been a PC app to set it up instead though for the overly cautious but idk i haven't any experience with that but i think i have seen it mentioned

 

[Deleted User]

Even randomly tampering with the Launcher.dat file does not result in a brick. It will simply refuse to run. You need to modify certain bytes in the Launcher.dat with certain values in order for the brick code to activate, something only a person with RE skills can do

 

[Armadillo]

DSTWO don't modify the launcher though, do they? Unless their emulation plugin tries to do it in memory to get it to go.

Of course there is the possiblity that.... Gateway were being truthful, have done nothing and DSTWO just has a buggy plugin and don't want to take responsiblity for it.

 

[gamesquest1]

DSTWO don't modify the launcher though, do they? Unless their emulation plugin tries to do it in memory to get it to go.

Of course there is the possiblity that.... Gateway were being truthful, have done nothing and DSTWO just has a buggy plugin and don't want to take responsiblity for it.

well seeing as dstwo users have only been bricked since the 3.5.x launchers its possible they incorporated more checks to detect DSTWO+ specifically even though the launcher integrity checks pass

 

[andre104623]

Well it didnt take long for the bricks to roll in. But really guys (with dstwo+) what did you expect to happen gateway was just going to make there launcher work with both there card and dstwo? Its smart what gateway is doing think about it how do you run a business out? Make no one trust them thats how and if you think I'm being a dick well I'm a r4i gold deluxe brick victim that completely fucked up my 3ds xl long ago with no way of fixing. But unfortunately since this fiasco is going on I'm going back to 3.4 for now till shit blows over no way I'm I bricking my new 3ds.