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It's interesting watching this play out with reputable, legal companies. Something similar happened earlier in the year with Nintendo 3DS flashcards, however t

by mwill 12y ago

It's interesting watching this play out with reputable, legal companies. Something similar happened earlier in the year with Nintendo 3DS flashcards, however the software was not just disabling the flashcard, but would brick the users 3DS. Their response was essentially, "Yeah? What are you going to do about it?" and promising to replace the 3DS of anyone who could prove they were using a legitimate card.

nnnnni 12y ago
...which is a really great way to get budding hobbyist programmers to move to a different piece of hardware.
- mwill 12y ago
  Or try to, anyway. At the time they were the only functioning solution (They may still be? I'm out of the loop now) and everything else on the market were clones of their cards. It was almost like a hostage situation with the community, a lot of people hating on the company, while hyping up their next update.
- deleted 12y ago
  [deleted]
- sliverstorm 12y ago
  Honestly I doubt Nintendo cares about selling consoles to game pirates. They, like everyone else in that business, make their money on game sales.
jeff_tyrrill 12y ago
I wanted to reply with a quick note to clarify to those quickly reading this post that it was the flash card maker, not Nintendo, adding the bricking code. Your post is accurate, but to those not already familiar with this incident (such as myself, until I searched for stories about it), a quick read will give the impression that this was Nintendo's doing, when it wasn't.
jessaustin 12y ago
Few will be surprised if prosecutors are found to care more about shenanigans in the MS-Win ecosystem than those in the Nintendo ecosystem. Actually FTDI may be in more danger from class action tort lawyers. This is almost a perfect class for them, in that lots of people suffered a limited but not negligible harm.
- CamperBob2 12y ago
  Correct. Most arguments seem to assume that FTDI is either 100% responsible for damaging hardware that doesn't belong to them, or 0% responsible. Clearly the company itself assumed the latter position would prevail in each and every jurisdiction where people use computers. I don't know what sort of drugs they had to take to arrive at that conclusion, but I don't want any, thanks. One big problem is that civil courts in the US do not work that way at all. FTDI could easily be found 5% responsible for an enormous judgement.

by mwill 12y ago

nnnnni 12y ago

...which is a really great way to get budding hobbyist programmers to move to a different piece of hardware.

mwill 12y ago
Or try to, anyway. At the time they were the only functioning solution (They may still be? I'm out of the loop now) and everything else on the market were clones of their cards. It was almost like a hostage situation with the community, a lot of people hating on the company, while hyping up their next update.
deleted 12y ago
[deleted]
sliverstorm 12y ago
Honestly I doubt Nintendo cares about selling consoles to game pirates. They, like everyone else in that business, make their money on game sales.

jeff_tyrrill 12y ago

I wanted to reply with a quick note to clarify to those quickly reading this post that it was the flash card maker, not Nintendo, adding the bricking code. Your post is accurate, but to those not already familiar with this incident (such as myself, until I searched for stories about it), a quick read will give the impression that this was Nintendo's doing, when it wasn't.

jessaustin 12y ago

Few will be surprised if prosecutors are found to care more about shenanigans in the MS-Win ecosystem than those in the Nintendo ecosystem. Actually FTDI may be in more danger from class action tort lawyers. This is almost a perfect class for them, in that lots of people suffered a limited but not negligible harm.

CamperBob2 12y ago
Correct. Most arguments seem to assume that FTDI is either 100% responsible for damaging hardware that doesn't belong to them, or 0% responsible. Clearly the company itself assumed the latter position would prevail in each and every jurisdiction where people use computers. I don't know what sort of drugs they had to take to arrive at that conclusion, but I don't want any, thanks. One big problem is that civil courts in the US do not work that way at all. FTDI could easily be found 5% responsible for an enormous judgement.