Capcom Explain R4 Lawsuit Participation

[wraggster]

In case you missed it, Nintendo and 54 other companies are engaged in a legal battle against the forces of evil. Evil being the R4 cart for the DS. One of those 54 other companies is Capcom, and in a conference call they explained the reason behind their participation in the suit:


There are companies that sell downloads without any license in the U.S.A., while a considerable number of pirated copies of game software are available in the Chinese market. In response to these situations, this lawsuit took the initiative for the whole industry in terms of taking countermeasures. It does not necessarily have a great effect at this stage, but we intend to send a wake-up call to such companies in the future.
That last line's interesting. Particularly if you're involved with the R4 - or other similar devices - and your boots were previously shaking. Their heart's not really in it!

http://kotaku.com/5044010/capcom-exp...-participation

[kcajblue]

why doesnt anyone leave homebrew stuff alone?

they always have to have all these lawsuits and whatnot.

its annoying.

[wiggy fuzz]

people selling downloads?

[xxhiroshi21xx]

Hardly the forces of evil, and why are they concentrating on the R4 and not the other dozen or more flashcarts?

[Aryn]

They are probably going after the R4 first in order to make an example of them and try to put the fear of God into them before attacking the rest.

One solution would be creating a firmware version that still has the same amount of RAM but refuses to load any games that are as big as a Nintendo DS game. It can easily be done, but after doing that we keep the homebrew scene and the R4 will be off the hook.

Of course, any anti-piracy measures can easily be circumvented, and there are too many flash carts on the market to stop them all, so this does look like a waste of resources for game developers. How much did they already spend on this lawsuit anyway?

[robman84]

Whilst it might appear ham-fisted in approach, the games companies clearly need to do something to protect their income. If it is too easy and too "acceptable" to pirate stuff then we'll see more developers going out of business.

Now I don't subscribe to the old "piracy is the same as stealing a car" thing (nothing gets actually taken - the original item is still there and all that has actually happened is the bits on someone's hard disk have been arranged in a different sequence) nor do I agree with the figures of "amount lost due to piracy" as this implies every pirated copy of something would have actually been purchased at full price if it was impossible to copy. This is clearly BS. But clearly many people must be obtaining for free what they would have otherwise actually paid for. That's sad.

It must be heartbreaking for any company, regardless of its size, to see their latest triple-A title (that they rely on to stay in business) available for free to pirates within days of releasing it.

I've said it before, but I think digital delivery (e.g. download to a flash device) is one way of helping. It won't stop hard-core pirates, and any DRM could be readily stripped, but if the price of the legitimate download was realistic (maybe $5 - $10) then many of those tempted by the convenience of piracy would be, in my opinion, more likely to pay up for the legal version and support the developers. Those who don't believe people will pay for what they can readily get for free are obviously oblivious to the success of iTunes.

[Akoi Meexx]

I'd rather see alternative firmwares that do not support commercial ROMs for people who do not use them, but it doesn't do enough in the way of preventing piracy if that's just optional.

I've said it before, but I think digital delivery (e.g. download to a flash device) is one way of helping. It won't stop hard-core pirates, and any DRM could be readily stripped, but if the price of the legitimate download was realistic (maybe $5 - $10) then many of those tempted by the convenience of piracy would be, in my opinion, more likely to pay up for the legal version and support the developers. Those who don't believe people will pay for what they can readily get for free are obviously oblivious to the success of iTunes.

Well put.

[spinal_cord]

why doesnt anyone leave homebrew stuff alone?

They're not attacking homebrew, they're attacking piracy. R4 has far beter commercial compatibility than it has homebrew compatibility, so they can't really claim they are a homebrew device.

Hardly the forces of evil, and why are they concentrating on the R4 and not the other dozen or more flashcarts?

The R4 is the most popular cart by far. No matter what you thin about the cart, all the forums are full of R4 this and R4 that. It may not the best, nor the most compatible, but it is the most well known.

[Flygon]

Sure, it disappoints me that people pirate video games but if they were cheaper people wouldn't pirate them, more to the fact, disk based systems.

And PAL territory's paying more than 100% for a video game than America? It certainly makes you wonder.

Compare $30 of a US DS game to a $70AUD for an Aussie DS game.

To get a flash cart and 2 gigabyte Micro SD card it only costs $70.50 from the store I use. What would you rather buy in value, the DS game or the flash cart set. Its all about economics, the people that pirate JUST DON'T CARE if they are pirating. Also PS3 games here go up to $120, bit tight don't you think?

Now if all games were $20 everywhere...