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Home Halt, criminal scum! updates

Nintendo supports U.S Copyright circumvention raids
8:39 AM on 08.03.2007, Jim Sterling 17 comments

Nintendo supports U.S Copyright circumvention raids photo
     Halt, criminal scum!

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."

Next page: More Legal System stories




CannibalCalvin 's Avatar
CannibalCalvin at 08/03/2007 08:45
Oh noes! Ma R4 makes meh a Pie-rate!
BlindsideDork's Avatar
BlindsideDork at 08/03/2007 08:48
Cause Ninjas are better! Why do you think they are getting Ninja Gaiden: Dragon Sword?
bhive01's Avatar
bhive01 at 08/03/2007 08:56
Us East Coast peeps appreciate the morning updates as well.

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.
Johnny Blaze's Avatar
Johnny Blaze at 08/03/2007 09:01
I think this wouldn't be a problem if they would make it Region Free... Damn Japan getting all the good shit...
Professor Pew's Avatar
Professor Pew at 08/03/2007 09:24
Ah, time to go research some modchips then! Not that the 360 modchips really do anything worthwhile or that there are PS3 modchips.. I just want to play a good singleplayer game on the Wii this year, please.

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...
Jim Sterling's Avatar
Jim Sterling at 08/03/2007 09:26
Ha, really Pew? Man, fuck Nintendo. Luckily I bought mine a week after launch, and hearing that has made me want to mod it even more. As soon as I have the spare dubloons, this is getting done.
slapme7times's Avatar
slapme7times at 08/03/2007 09:27
omg i love these captions... haha,.

nintendo hates pirates!
zardoz's Avatar
zardoz at 08/03/2007 09:40
I like to think of it as a test, how much shit can Nintendo give it's European fans base, Nintendo fans in Europe are made of strong stuff or do we just have battered wife syndrome? Do they deserve the success they are having in Europe right now? No.

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.
jerrt's Avatar
jerrt at 08/03/2007 09:41
i really think this whole thing is corporate lobbying to get things done. if we have to have lobbyists [which i wish we didn't] couldn't they lobby for positive things. this is getting out of hand.
entropyman's Avatar
entropyman at 08/03/2007 09:50
the truth is that I love me my m3 for the FUNCTIONALITY it gives my DS- I use it as a pda and for homebrew SW- most of the people I know that have a modded Xbox use it for network streaming of media (audio and video) with Xbox media center. The truth is that modded units are usually just plain better because they are no longer catering to the lowest common market denominator
Xeniteone's Avatar
Xeniteone at 08/03/2007 10:05
And I was just looking to get my Wii modded too. I don't want to take the chance of my poor widdle console ending up on America's Most Wanted.
Professor Pew's Avatar
Professor Pew at 08/03/2007 10:13
@Jim: if you know someone who is handy with soldering and electro-engineering, you can make your own chip/patcher for 3-5 pounds. This open source solution could theoretically be found on the internets. Other info with a lot of links to all you need to know is available on wikipedia.

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 :)
michiyoyoshiku's Avatar
michiyoyoshiku at 08/03/2007 10:14
Of course nintendo would........they are copyright nazi's and twist the laws in their favor even if the law doesn't exist.

We the people need to step our efforts up to get the DMCA overturned.

h3lios's Avatar
h3lios at 08/03/2007 13:14
So does this mean using a Freeloader to play NTSC U/C games on my PAL GameCube is a crime?
RJG's Avatar
RJG at 08/03/2007 19:24
I live in Australia and my Wii just got modded so that I can actually play some games on it this year. Specifically, I didn't want to wait until December for Metroid and next year for Brawl (TBA 2008 for PAL territories MY FUCKING ASS).

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.
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