Nintendo is a company that on one hand fails consistently to provide timely content to the European territories, but on the other hand strictly opposes methods used by Europeans to import the materials themselves. This has never sat well with me, so when I hear that Nintendo supports the recent waste of FBI time that is hunting down modded videogame consoles instead of dealing with dangerous criminals, murderers and pedophiles, I can't help but scoff.
It's not like it's a surprise for videogame companies to support campaigns that save them money and I'm sensitive to the fact that piracy does cost these entities several swimming pools filled with gold and treasures. However, until Nintendo sorts out its European distribution policy, Wii modchips are the last kind of modchips I'm ever going to feel sorry about, even if these raids are in the States and not Europe. I just can't muster the sympathy until I know I'll get Super Mario Galaxy this year.
Press release contained after the jump.
Aug. 1, 2007
Nintendo News
Nintendo Supports U.S. Raids on Copyright Circumvention Devices
Today U.S. Immigrations and Customs Enforcement agents executed 32 federal
search warrants in 16 states as part of an investigation into the alleged sale
and distribution of illegal modification chips for various video game
consoles, including Nintendo's Wii™ home video game system. The mod chips
designed for the Wii console circumvent the security embedded in the hardware
and allow users to play counterfeit Wii software.
This Immigrations and Customs Enforcement investigation represents the largest
national enforcement action of its kind targeting video game piracy. Nintendo
has worked closely with this branch of the Department of Homeland Security,
and fully supports its actions and other investigations currently underway.
"Nintendo and its developers and publishers lost an estimated $762 million in
sales in 2006 due to piracy of its products," said Jodi Daugherty, Nintendo
of America's senior director of anti-piracy. "Nintendo's anti-piracy team
works closely with law enforcement officials worldwide to seize mod chips and
counterfeit software. Since April, Nintendo has seized more than 91,000
counterfeit Wii discs globally."
Jim Sterling serves as reviews editor for Destructoid.com, head of the Podtoid podcast, and produces a number of news stories, original features, one-of-a-kind videos. With his passionate argumentative style, controversial opinions, harsh delivery, and dedication to brutal honesty Sterling is a name that you can't help but recognize.
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Contest:
8:39 AM on 08.03.2007
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Jim Sterling. I love you for posting news on these normal hours of the day for us europeans when the rest of Dtoid is too hung over to wake the fuck up.
Is there a reason for the delay in the sale of these games to European territories? Is it the PAL conversion? Is it because there are so many languages to try and get the titles into (Italiano, Deutch, Francais, etc...)?
Or is it really just BS from Nintendo and the other companies?
Personally Jim, I wouldn't feel bad about importing the games either. In fact, I'd be more than happy to ship them to you.
If there is one thing Nintendo did right it was making the DS completely region free. It's awesome to be able to play anything on it. Although, I don't understand near as much Japanese as I should.
Btw: Wii's produced after a certain date (May 2007?) have had their connector pins shortened, so you can't/it's harder to mod them. Just in case you are a European and are planning on importing one day. Not that you could choose to buy older Wii's from the available stock...
nintendo hates pirates!
Zelda was a rushed Gamecube port, WiiPlay is a tech demo that they chucked in with a controller...in fact the two games I wanted on the Wii aren't even out over here - Trauma Centre and Paper Mario - why are we fucking waiting? The FBI should investigate why Nintendo are still acting like Europe gang raped them, I remember going through this same nonsense with every single Nintendo home console. Bollocks.
There used to be some issues with for instance the Cyclowiz chip and certain motherboards, so if you are having a local "friend" do it for you with a certain chip, make sure it is compatible (ie: check yor retail date/serial number with him). Although by now, all those problems have probably been solved.
Most, if not all chips work on the dvd-drive btw. This means that it circumvents the protection at dvd-read level and thus nothing should be able to detect the presence. Useful for if you want to play Wii games online.... one day :)
We the people need to step our efforts up to get the DMCA overturned.
There's no reason games should take this long to localise. It's not like Nintendo's translation team has to wait until the game is out in the US before they begin the translation, and even then it wouldn't take months. They have the script, they can start early and release it, if not at the same time, then damn near close.
But they don't. So I modded my console so I can play import titles. Truth be told, I would have bought an NTSC-US model Wii from the start, but then Sony shut down Lik Sang and I broke down and bought one locally.
And my Mod Chip still won't let me play Trauma Center due to some bug. At least not yet.
FSGDSF
Rant over.