Switch Piracy Tool Could Brick Your System Because It Contains (Wait For It) A Piracy Countermeasure

The pirates are worried about piracy? What a joke.

So, uh, the creators of the tool used to infringe on intellectual property felt the need to protect their own intellectual property from being infringed? okaaaaaaaaay then?

Well, I knew of homebrew that had better piracy countermeasures than the official software (See how CTGP-Revolution does not work if you are not using a real Mario Kart Wii disc in a real Wii), but this is nuts on a whole other level.

"Here, pirate games. But dont pirate the piracy software"

Cake and eat it huh?

@Mr_Pepperami Isn't it more of a joke that their anti piracy measures are better than Nintendos?

This is the funniest thing i have heard for a while lol

@Jaffacakes01 Where do you get that from? I mean it's written in the article that you can disable the lock if you know what you're doing. Hackers were able to hack the switch in almost a year (not sure exactly) and this was done in a day. So really don't know why these anti piracy measures are supposed to be better.

I can’t help but feel this article is just advertising piracy with its very existence. I wish NL but reduce or even completely stop these articles. Or even how about NL blank out the name of the paid-for piracy tool in the article. It’s clearly illegal. I don’t want to read about illegal stuff.

Irony at its finest.

@beazlen1 the article is showcasing how stupid this tool is

Grab some Popcorn !

Even marios a pirate

@Anti-Matter without paying for the popcorn?

@riChchestM
This debate about piracy can be soooo long.
LOL to see peoples keep arguing.

Btw, here is my money.

I love articles about hacking, more please.

And it's not so surprising, I mean Nero is a paid program with anti piracy measures and you can use it to copy movies for further distribution.

Poor, well, I think it still is, I can remember the last time I've heard about Nero.

Cya
Raziel-chan

@Anti-Matter It's self-service, but I'll take your money

@Jaffacakes01 hahaha sadly true.

I don't get why people here are shocked. This sort of measure has been done before with the now very obsolete 3DS flashcart "Gateway".

LOL the so called 'Vulnerability researcher' NL quoted is part of the team making a CFW for Switch. Their work is the reason for all the indecent modding and cheating online. There's no honour among thieves, these hackers are hacking and sabotaging each other, just sit back and enjoy the show.

Good! I don't give two trots what you do to your system but keep it off my online!

Been blasted on reddit for trying to get this across. Seems like there's a rather large amount of 'innocent' hackers. -__-

If these guys can buy piracy tools. Why can't they just buy the games legally?

@Nincompoop but that's not how this things work. People looking for vulnerabilities and exploits is not a bad thing. It's in fact something that helps companies strengthen and better their products and services. The problem is when some people try to make a profit off of it, that's illegal, unethical and I hope they get banned and prosecuted for it.

@1UP_MARIO yes I realise that! Problem is there is only a very small chance tha this pirate software will randomly brick your console so the overwhelming majority of users will be unaffected. But now we all know that this software exists and is available and some people will be tempted. All publicity is good publicity isn’t that the saying?

@bizcochototal You sir is a moron.

This Mike Heskin or hexkyz is part of a Switch Hacking team:
https://github.com/Atmosphere-NX/Atmosphere

(He is planning to release the cracked version of this piracy software.)

They are responsible for LayeredFS that resulted in the recent cheating online and piracy, not to mention getting lots of kid's Switches banned.

So now the people who makes it possible to unlock full access to your machine (which you own by the way) are somehow responsible for how users decide to use it?

Does that mean knife manufacturers are responsible every time someone gets stabbed? Talk about ignorance

Oh and if you think piracy is stealing, you're a moron. Plain and simple. Let's spell it out

Theft

You have a bike
I steal the bike
Now i have a bike and you don't

Piracy

You have a game
I copy the game
Now we both have the game

Now, if you want to argue it's immoral to pirate games then you have a case. Stealing it is not

I find that this whole story only show how full of BS some pirates are. While I can understand the idea of being able to do what you want with the electronics you bought, and I can, in a way, be ok with homebrew software, most people hack their consoles to run piated games on them, and that's not ok.

And the fact that a tool to enable piracy on a console contains anti-piracy measures is irony to the Nth degree... Feeling the need to protect work made to circumvent the protection to other's work.... I mean... Wow.

Putting anti-piracy measures to protect your work.... because you feel you've put hard wort into it, is right. But when said work as only one purpose: to circumvent protection put in place by others for the same reasons.... I mean.... wow... That's what I call being, profoundly, and stunningly, full of feces.

@Nincompoop SciresM is the only one who made LayeredFS, hexkyz isn't a part of ReSwitched, he is just working on atmo, and he's working on the bootloader AFAIK. And atmo will release without any piracy software.

@jn2002dk Technically they equate because you are "stealing" money from the publisher and devs, but by the literal definition you are correct

@GumbyX84 Right but that's not a valid equation since it implies the pirate would have bought the game if he couldn't pirate it

the pirates didn't get their gold it seems...

@LilVoidBoy yah!... People who do it should be locked up and fined

@Petraplexity Romhack is what got those kids banned.

@Monado_III Don't be naive, we all know what a CFW is used for. It's an open-source program, they made it for others to add backup-loader.

@Petraplexity Exactly. Stay offline and away from my paid service please.
I say innocent with sarcasm as I'll bet my hat over 50% of people who visit hacking sites pirate games.

I'm just a bit bitter after being argued the toss over on reddit that people who do anything against TOS should expect to suffer consequences and not get free passes.

I actually understand the pros of hacking but you can't deny the major con of eventual piracy end of. I actually dont care about piracy on older gens anyway but that's personal.

Also is that "literally immediately banned" in bold as you think it's wrong for Nintendo to do that? That's the attitude I've been getting off others and it's selfish and childish. (Not calling you this atm, just feel irate lol)

Seriously, the attitude of most people I've seen who are pro hack don't help any matters. It's the exact same attitude people on the wrong end of the law are like, "That ruddy copper took me in coz I did 'X', it's not that bad, I can do what I want with my 'x'/life/whatever."

No...the rules are there for a reason. So we don't suffer. If you're gonna compromise something you're not supposed to or reverse engineer this and that at least fess up and admit it's not exactly pro-company and pro-consumer.

Edit 2: Obviously I didn't know the ins and outs of the below statement and others have provided decent feedback, therefore I retract the following;
Edit: And for all you pro hacking, anti piracy guys who say that finding security vulnerabilities can help improve a company's product and make it more secure actually believe that, why not just foward the information to the company instead of making it available to literally the entire world?
Why would you?

And don't give me "to discuss it further" as I'm pretty certain the company employees would have lengthy conversations with the person who discovered these.

I knew all that stability wasn't just for show...

TBH, there is a couple ppl working on reversing it to share with the open community. Also, the fee you pay to TX is for both the "license" and the hardware that they want us to use. If you don't want to pirate, wait til atmosphere is fully released. Team X is a joke anyway. In fact I'm fairly sure they stole most of the work from open source community to start.

@DABYX you are right. Nintendo offers bounties. Although it wasn't Nintendo software that they found the hole. it was the X chip they used that was exploited. Nvidia already knew about the exploit, they just didn't want to tell anyone at the time, at least not until they basically we're called out by the community. The switches fate, AFAIK, is pretty much laid out now.

@zever Yea that's pretty bull on Nvidia's part. It's a shame, I know most people won't want to pirate anything but if this is constantly being reported and becomes known to devs/publishers, it could be seen as another reason not to bother with the Switch.

I´m surprised...

not, I´m not surprised...

Yeah, how about we just don't?

I mean, one of the reasons people pirate is because DRM makes it difficult to play games legitimately sometimes. This tool... is just part of the problem.

Just relax, legitimate homebrewers. Wait for the free one that will come out in the next year or so.

Big Lesson for parents: Teach your kids to use things in LEGAL way, even video games. Show the attitudes that AGAINST video games piracy by purchasing the Original machines & games to show our RESPECT with the developers who had work hard to create a little masterpiece.

Everyone's an expert.

@DABYX I really don't like your type. Who let you be the one to decide that you're morally better than all hackers?

@DABYX this is kind of just general hacking because I don't really know anything about hacking game systems in particular. But, in general there are plenty of hackers that send the information they obtain to companies.

First, many companies rely on these types of hackers to test their product and find these things that can be exploited because the amount of time and money spent to find them all in security testing would have the product make them $0. If it's in the internet, even better, because they now have an immediate focus point on what is the most important to fix rather than waste time going through emails to find all the possible issues and lay them out.

So don't think that companies for one minute are little lambs that have now been surrounded by wolves and never saw this coming. Everything in a business is money related. Nintendo employs hackers and some of them are far better than any hacker distributing software. They're not stupid.

Another example (because there might be a lot of them but...) :

Sometimes they ask the company for a fee for their information or if it's particularly tricky they might off to even resolve the issues for a fee.

If the company ignores the hacker and situation for whatever reason (and yes it is extremely possible they would ignore someone, think about how many emails they get a day from people with 'issues' on their systems they should know about that don't even exist.) is one reason a hacker might release it on the internet for others.

Others may not even bother contacting the company and just release it online.

Releasing a bunch of hack that are proven to work because the community uses them (including those wanting to pirate games) is a really attractive digital job portfolio. It demonstrates skill in a manner that isn't something you can show off any other way other than his many users are able to use this vulnerability to their advantage without it being addressed. It's not about "discussing it further" so much as "look at how big my discovery actually was."

That's not the only example, but the hacker above would describe and answer your question fitting under this 'innocent' hacking view. I hope it was an actually helpful example.

@DABYX The hackers who found the vulnerabilities held on to them and went through the responsible disclosure route to let NVIDIA/Nintendo know about them. However, when it became clear that the creators of the piracy device were about to release their solution and charge for it, those hackers decided that they should release their product for free.

As for the rest of your comments, yes, people should be able to hack their hardware to do whatever they want to do with it (as long as it's legal). People do the same thing with iOS for jailbreaks and Android for custom roms.

@PipeGuy64Bit I don't think I'm morally better at all, sorry if it came across that way. Probably just my rage lol.

@catbox Right ok cool, thank you for providing an insight. See, I wouldn't know this. I wish some people on Reddit explained this to me instead of just downvoting me to hell and telling me their rights.

@McHaggis Same to you. Thanks for the insight!

I still don't feel bad for anyone who gets banned for doing things that they know could ban them though.
Apparantly that's an uncommon opinion lol

What's funny is that some pirates out there probably don't fully understand the paradox involved here.

(Again, I'm fine with Homebrew. Piracy and cheating? Not so much)

@DABYX np!

I'm not really sure because i don't go there, but if this is a 'Homebrew' for gaming part forums of reddit, i can't imagine a lot of them know much at all what they are talking about to be able to give you explanations. The majority of them i would assume are not hackers themselves, anyway, they just are users who want to use the software and get free games but like to 'blend in' by pretending otherwise.

Your mileage will vary on reddit areas and the level of intelligence you are dealing with as a majority, so keep expectations low. Your internet experience as a whole will be less disappointing.

Pirateception

Honor among thieves is as it has always been. Nice to see!

Who gets the golden cutlass award?

@LilVoidBoy
I agree completely. How hypocritical can you get? You steal, and then expect people to not steal from you!

@Nincompoop so you are not only wrong but also into calling names. Good, good...

I miss the old Wii days where you could easily back-up your NAND and generally had a very low risk of bricking your console (and even if, you could just restore the NAND back-up).
Also, back then Homebrew was about more than piracy, you could do lots of legitimate stuff with it, like installing various apps and playing your original copies of games from previous Nintendo consoles.

Piracy is pretty much dead compared to the old days because games are getting cheaper and easily accessible via digital stores.
But as I mentioned before, Nintendo are basically encouraging hacking by leaving out crucial features and putting up a wall around the Switch.

Back then, the Wii had no apps, so you needed Homebrew to add them.
The Switch on the other hand is a normal tablet which would be totally capable of having tons of apps. But for no reason whatsoever (other than potentially not understanding hacking and being afraid of it for the wrong reasons) Nintendo have decided to scap these basic features - just like A2DP - from the Switch.

Just remove the shackles and let the Switch reach its true potential and suddenly hacking won't be such an issue anymore.

@catbox Well you certainly know your stuff.
To be fair I probably come across as a bit of a d!#* lol. Not face to face and all that.

I'll certainly be sure not to comment on the subject again after today though!

@jn2002dk what is the point of drawing the distinction between piracy and theft if you agree that it's immoral either way? Please understand, I'm not writing to attack you or even your position, but I'm very against piracy and I feel like even a vague suggestion that it's a "victimless crime" deserves a response.

The argument about devs and publishers not getting their cut is only part of the story. Piracy is anti-competitive and ultimately bad for not just devs, but consumers too. Even if you don't assume that a single pirated game equates to one lost sale, it has a tangible financial impact.

1. Devs spend $1mil building a game.

2. They think they can sell 200k copies at $60, for $1.2mil revenue, or $200k profit.

3. Devs don't build any piracy countermeasures because they naively believe people won't copy and redistribute the software.

4. The game becomes very popular, enjoys a robust fan base, of no less than 300k regular users.

5. But the game falls short of sales projections. Devs sell only 100k units, generating revenue of $600k, for a loss of -$400k on the project. The game is pirated at a 2:1 ratio of unlicensed to licensed users.

6. The developer axes the IP and halts all further work because they are bleeding money (This is EXACTLY what happened with EA's Spore).

7. For their next project, devs have two choices. A) increase the budget to build in piracy countermeasures; B) reallocate their money away from programming, QA, or art direction in order to fund piracy countermeasures.

8. They now need to either A) sell more units at $60 in order to turn a profit; or B) plan on less sales because the game has known issues from a lack of funding for QA or development (funding went to combat piracy instead) which make the game worse.

8. Either way, as a direct result of piracy, it is harder to greenlight production of new software with a price of $60 per license.

9. As a result, one of two things will happen. Either the cost of software will go up, or the amount of software on the market will decrease because it's not financially viable to sell something people can get for free.

Push it to the extreme. If developers didn't have the exclusive right to dictate the terms of software distribution, then the only way they could earn any money at all would be to sell the first copy of their game (the only copy they're guaranteed to monetize) to some "philanthropic" pirate for an exorbitant price. And what incentive would he have to distribute copies for free anyway? Capitalism doesn't work that way. He'd keep a copy for himself, and then compete with the developer for further sales.

The conversation about the costs and benefits of piracy look very different from the inside of a developer's board room. You aren't depriving anyone of anything directly, but there are a lot of moving parts and Piracy affects the industry in a lot of ways. Piracy could easily be used to justify an industry wide increase of the retail cost of games. And if the cost of a game goes up to $70, the people who are shelling out are going to feel like their extra $10 subsidizes other people's illegal behavior. Not a good public image for pirates, and those purchasers won't care if you call it theft or not. They'll feel the same as if those pirates reached into their wallets and took the $10 themselves.

Mr. Damien, the writer of this article, will you please be so kind to stop obsessively writing articles almost every day about pirating and thievery? Don't you understand that this is not news and that you indirectly promote criminal acts?

@1UP_MARIO not stupid at all. I'm running it right now and loving all my free games

Viva la team xecuter

@flex360 enjoy man.

I feel the need to find the website hosting this program and provide the link to Nintendo. Bring down the hammer of justice onto these fools. They want to protect their piracy code, and still have the audacity to charge for using it? Someone needs to take them down.

@Jop No, it's not. Do you have any proof what so ever that the pirate would have bought the game had he not been able to pirate it? Nope. It's not stealing. It will never be stealing no matter how many lawyers tries to spin it

@Frontiersmann Completely wrong and here is why. Minecraft and Open Source software. Both proves that it's absolutely possible to make money on software without draconian DRM or other measures

The point of drawing a distinction should be clear - the meaning of words matter. Otherwise communication will become impossible. Call it what it is - illegal copying. When you call it stealing you're only muddying the waters to the benefit of no one

I don't pirate games i don't own but i have pirated games i do own many times because often the pirated copy runs better. The latest assassin's creed for example used an insane amount of cpu because of DRM. That is completely unacceptable. I'm also firmly against being locked out of features on devices i own because some people do copy games. Piracy can't be stopped. They've tried and tried and no DRM will work. So why are they punishing the rest of us by limiting features in our devices to fight something they can't win against?

To quote Gabe Newell
Piracy Is a Service Problem
http://www.escapistmagazine.com/news/view/114391-Valves-Gabe-Newell-Says-Piracy-Is-a-Service-Problem

Also, there is this
https://arstechnica.com/gaming/2017/09/eu-study-finds-piracy-doesnt-hurt-game-sales-may-actually-help/

So the fact is it is possible to make money without punishing legitimate users and there is no evidence that piracy hurts the business as much as anti piracy organisations claim. That's why you can't compare it to stealing

By the way, there is a major flaw in your example - the projected sales. You can't just assume you'll sell a given number of games and then that somehow becomes the metric for how much piracy hurts you. Oh and Spore didn't fail because of piracy. It failed because it was a grossly simplified version of what they promised us. Likely because some bean counters at EA forced them release it way before it met the designers expectations. I bought Spore at release based on what was promised but what i got was not even close to that

@liljmoore The software is like 30 dollars. Pirate 1 game and you've got your money's worth.

@Jonataurus @Petraplexity So you guys are saying it's better to pay less money and steal then paying for the game legally and keeping the IPs alive and paying the devs for their hard work.

Ok

@DABYX Oh my apologies. I just see so many presumptuous people out there that are like that including in the NintendoLife community itself.

...Why would you ever pay for piracy? Free versions of hacking it will be released in time. Look at how useless Gateway 3DS is now...

This is disgusting. First you give people a means to illegitimately recieve copies of games, and you put a price tag on it? That's like reselling Nintendo's stuff, how is that even remotely okay?

Homebrew is not piracy. Piracy is stealing, homebrew is custom made software. I wish Nintendolife would make that distinction.

I do understand the problem, the same programs that can be used to allow you to run homebrew software can also be used to enable piracy. The issues are connected, but they are not the same thing.

@tudsworth Just like with Homebrew on playstation/xbox/etc the intended purpose for homebrew is not piracy. Even with emulators they tell you straight up not to pirate games but to only use roms for games you actually own(ds/other cart systems) and/or to use the iso from the disc you own. The purpose behind jailbreaking anything is not to pirate but is an unfortunate and unavoidable side effect. The purpose behind jailbreaking the system is to bypass developer restrictions. On an Iphone its for things like not being able to use any 3rd party software or being able to add music/ringtones/media to your phone without itunes etc. For consoles it was widely to remove region restrictions, to enable backwards compatitability(ps3 at least) and to run emulators. Nothing jailbreaks do usually endorse piracy so yeah I would charge for my work. Unless these guys are specifically advertising their homebrew for piracy then I do not see any irony here.

@jn2002dk you are right in that piracy is not Theft as the latter is legally defined as the physical taking of something.

However, Piracy is a form of Copyright Infringement, which is the illegal use of intellectual property without a license from the copyright owner. Small cases can merit a cease and desist and monetary compensation. On a large enough scale, copyright infringement can result in jail time (anywhere brtween 5-10 years in the U.S. for example.)

To add, copyright protects the owner's right to make money off of their intellectual property. Also, owning a copy of said artwork/work/game does not constitute copyright, in the same way that buying a poster of Mickey Mouse does not mean you own the rights to it. Distributing said intellectual property is to deny the owner the right to make money from it, and therefore it is illegal.

@UntoldTruth @Heavyarms55
It's true, homebrew (and jailbreaks) are not piracy, they are "unofficial" modifications to a device.
But, there is a detail, when one of us buys a device, in this case a console like 3DS, we must remember that this purchase includes a "contract", all part of the famous/infamous "DRM" (and I mean by the laws, not program/software);
In that contract, and as, I think, we all know, a clause of that contract is that "our" console should not have unofficial modification; This is especially due to the fact of having the rights of "the guarantee", "free updates", and other free extras that the company, Nintendo in this case, can give us during the support of its "commercial life".
But, if we want modify that console add the homebrew and/or, eliminating the region locked, well, we "may" do it, no problem, but, by contract, obviously, we must accept the goodbye of the free updates, the guarantee and more; However, As some people do not want to accept the loss of those rights and want to keep those unofficial modifications, then this is where the "illegality" comes in, since, in other words, we break the contract and therefore, we must accept the responsibility to break that contract, but, as we have seen, we have always looked for ways to obtain those rights (updates and others) and not lose the "homebrew" or "the jailbreak", then, Why do you think they are still seeing homebrew and other modifications "as illegal" or "piracy"?

and yes, the homebrew is a good program to expand the use of the console, as well as breaking the regional lock, which allows us to play games from other sides, but as long as that contract exists that protects both the user/gamer and the company of a serious problem, we have to accept it whether we want it or not.

@jn2002dk also wanted to add that whether on not the pirate would have bought it otherwise is irrelevant. Just because they wouldn't have bought it doesn't mean they deserve to have it for free, when the owner explicitly wishes compensation for their property.

Just because it cannot be stopped also does not make it OK. Physical theft also cannot be stopped 100%, but it doesn't mean it isn't illegal.

Also there are open licenses, like some of the examples you gave. Those fall under fair use, open licenses, etc. However, such licenses are offered by the copyright owner (or has relinquished all copyright, or the limitations have passed such as in death occurring 50-75 years ago.) Except for death, it is the result of the owner not demanding compensation.

This is one of the best and worst comment sections I've seen on NL in a long time

@Anti-Matter I'll take some of that popcorn

@beazlen1 i feel the same way unless your looking for this it really shouldnt be on this site it as if they want people to pirate games, stop advertising theese hacks hell i didnt even know about this one before today.

@Heavyarms55 yes they are the same, very few people who visit this site and arent looking for homebrew see it as a way to get free games, and homebrew is a term pirates now use to hide the fact that they pirate, so yes homebrew is essentially the same as pirating. the average person has no clue what homebrew is and see it as the term for hacking and getting free games. go ahead ask someone who has done "homebrew" bet you 5$ that they have at least one pirated game.

@SakuraHaruka What you refer to, to the best of my knowledge, has never been seriously challenged in court. Further I don't not believe it would be upheld if it were. The reasoning being that it is perfectly legal to modify any other device you purchase, so long as you are not, say, modifying a car in a way that breaks driving safety standards or mixing common house chemicals to make a bomb. In other words not breaking other, more tangible laws. If it were challenged I believe it would be ruled that companies can void the warranty and even deny further software updates or support, but that is all. Again, I am aware of no cases where someone who had their console bricked actually tried to sue the manufacturer in response, but I suspect the ruling would be that companies can reject future service, but cannot brick the device. The only reason that sort of response is currently allowed, as far as I am aware - is because it has not been challenged.

@Almighty-Koz That is absolute nonsense. Just because the average person is unfamiliar with the terminology doesn't change the meaning. Piracy is piracy, homebrew is homebrew. Going by your logic K2, a synthetic marijuana is the same thing as the natural plant because ignorant people cannot be bothered to actually do the research. Ignornance doesn't excuse false equivalency.

@SomeWriter13 Actually it is very much relevant because the argument from copyright lawyers is that 1 illegal download equals 1 lost sale. This is how they estimate what piracy costs them and it's very much flawed. These lawyers are also the ones who attempt to equate piracy with theft. At any rate, my initial argument was not about the morality of piracy

My argument boils down to 2 key things
1. Piracy is not stealing. Yes, it's illegal most places and you can certainly make a case about the morality of it but it will never be equivalent to stealing
2. Hacking a console is not the same as piracy and it's not immoral by default. Just as making knives is not immoral even though lots of people get stabbed

@jn2002dk we may be arguing two different things, hehe. You are right regarding morality. Copyright Law does not actually deal with moral issues--there is a separate set of rights called Moral Rights that covers those. So I agree with you that morality is not the issue. The mistake is to confuse one set of rights for the other.

Those types of lawyers may be barking up the wrong (perhaps self-serving) tree. Copyright Law does not protect sales, nor does it equate infringement with lost sales as if they were guaranteed sales.

What Copyright Law does protect is the right to make money from the intellectual property. Piracy removes this right to sell by distributing the intellectual property unlawfully, without permission from the copyright owner, and without the right for the owner to profit monetarily from the distribution of the property.

It may not be theft, or stealing per se, but it is the removal of a right that the owner has every claim to.

I agree that it is likely not the best course to sue Pirates for "stealing" (when no direct correlatation to "1 piracy = 1 lost sale" can be made). Rather, Pirates can definitely be sued for Copyright Infringement (the unlawful use and distribution of a copyright protected work, which deprives the owner of the right to sell.)

@DABYX I totally agree that anyone playing online with hacks fully deserve to be banned. I don't think Nintendo should ban people for installing homebrew, but I understand that it is their prerogative to do so if they wish.

Some people are arguing that this pirating tool has better security than Nintendo, which isn't the case as people are close to cracking it already. I certainly don't think Nintendo should be able to brick consoles that it detects modifications on. The last piracy device to do this was the Gateway for 3DS, and it ended up bricking a lot of their own consumers' devices in a false positive match.

@SomeWriter13 Yup, i agree with you. I just hate a complex issue being simplified into pirating = stealing

Not just because it's a flawed comparison but also because there are plenty of outliers. For example what about games that aren't for sale anymore? It's still illegal to use such a ROM but what is the alternative? And then there is the consumer rights issue where Nintendo refuses to refund digital purchases, which is very likely against EU consumer law. If i buy something else which is critically flawed or doesn't even work, i have a right to return it. Not so with games. Even Apple was forced to comply with EU law by offering refunds on apps purchased on their Appstore

All that aside, i'm pretty confident that hacking your console is not illegal since you actually own the machine. Nintendo can refuse to let you online on it or even use their digital store and it can void the warranty but i can't imagine the act of hacking the console being illegal

@McHaggis Yea I pretty much agree with you there. I don't think homebrew is morally bad at all but do believe Nintendo have the right and should do whatever they feel necessary to prevent piracy etc.

Yikes though! Didn't realise the 3DS had anti hack,bricking issues like that.

@PipeGuy64Bit No worries, as I say, I was irate yesterday and probably come across a bit o.t.t bulshy.

@stevenw45 I know right

@jn2002dk yeah games that aren,'t available anymore is very sad. Sometimes the companies don't even bother preserving them, leaving fans to do it themselves. (Same with movies.) Some do become abandon-ware (no copyright owner) or go into the public domain.

I'm not learned enough regarding the legalities of homebrewing a console (as opposed to a game) so I dunno, haha.

Thanks for the stimulating discussion! I appreciate the nuanced exchange of views.

@SomeWriter13 Same to you:)

@SakuraHaruka all of that is fine and dandy. I was not arguing the legitimacy or morality of jailbreaking a console. I was arguing everyone's argument about a jailbreak having anti piracy counter measueres in place as piracy is not the intended use of a jailbreak. Every jailbreak I habe ever used typically states not to use the software for piracy.

@Rontanamo_Bay anyone who thinks a jailbreak is designed for and/or only a piracy tool only wants to use it for piracy and thus are pieces of poopy. A jailbreak's intended use is not to pirate games. In the end, even if it was to strictly to pirate games can you do it? Do you know how to reverse engineer the code and modify it to run homebrew? Even with a decent guide would you be able to do it? Doubtful. Anyone who thinks they should benefit from someone elses work without paying is... how did you say? "A fool".

That so-called DRM isn't going to last long, mark my words.

@Jop That doesn't make any sense because that's not what i said, at all. Stop being fallacious

As it doesn't effect me, I simply don't care.

@jn2002dk @SomeWriter13. I very rarely see such informed debates on this this topic, and I feel that I myself am more informed as a result of reading through your discussion. Thank you both for being good sports and providing me with a stimulating read!

I would like to add another note on something @SomeWriter13 said concerning companies' lack of preservation.

There are other cases where companies refuse to grant reasonable access to consumers in some countries, whether that be from region locking or lack of localization. Take Mother 3, for instance; a case in which I have personally been invested for some years. Despite overwhelming demand from fans, Nintendo still has not provided access to the software through legal channels aside from importing a Japanese copy, which can be hard to find due to its rarity. Even then, you would need to learn Japanese in order to enjoy the game.

In cases like those, I don't think its immoral at all to pirate a translated copy to play on an emulator illegally.

@Tuosev thank you! I very much appreciate it. It was also a major plus that @jn2002dk was not only passionate about the subject, but also presented fantastic points in a logical and civil manner.

@liljmoore I'm not saying it's a good thing, just that it saves you money. I agree, piracy is bad.

@Jop I don't see how i'm responsible for your reading comprehension. I said do you have any proof that 1 illegal download equals 1 lost sale. You don't. I know this because it doesn't exist. I've already posted this link in another comment but in case you missed it
https://arstechnica.com/gaming/2017/09/eu-study-finds-piracy-doesnt-hurt-game-sales-may-actually-help/
https://www.gamesindustry.biz/articles/2017-09-25-eu-commission-no-evidence-that-piracy-affects-video-games-sales

So when you claim the developer is out 60 euros every time someone pirates, you're wrong

@Jop Yes, that's in fact what you said. You said, and i quote, 'No, it's: You have a game, I want to have the game but I pirate it, you are out of 60 euro's'
That implies the dev (or did you actually mean who ever bought the game? That makes even less sense) losing 60 euros whenever someone pirates a game. It's also blatantly false. As for you trying to discredit the study because 'governments try to destroy storytelling every chance they get' i'm afraid i'm going to need some credible sources or it's tinfoil hat time. In case of the latter, we're done here. Also, the EU actually tried to suppress the study. So much for your storytelling theory huh?
https://www.engadget.com/2017/09/22/eu-suppressed-study-piracy-no-sales-impact/
If i seem rude it's because i find your type of argument pointless. You make wild claims for which you present no evidence and then try to move the goalposts. I, on the other hand, have presented evidence to support my statement that piracy is not stealing, since stealing doesn't usually make money for the victim

Finally, i urge you to read Gabe Newell's statement on piracy. His perspective made Steam the behemoth it is today. He realised that piracy is not about money, it's about service so he made a digital store without region locking, with lots of extra features and frequent sales. A one stop shop for PC gaming and it worked, on the platform where piracy is most rampant of all places

Oh the ultimate sweet ironic justice when their software gets cracked.

@Jop Fake study? Conspiracy theories on EU destroying storytelling? Yea, we're done here. I don't debate irrational people, sorry. That's like playing chess with a pigeon

@Frontiersmann Spore didn't fail because of piracy. If anything, EA actually encouraged piracy with it because they launched Spore with harsh DRM that involved a strict installation limit that didn't apply to the pirated copy. I personally know of multiple people who planned on buying it when it came out and decided against it when they learned not only of the DRM it came infected with but that those who were downloading it illegitimately didn't have this limit. So essentially people were given the option of A) don't buy & don't play, B) pay for it, limitations and all, C) download it free with no limitations. While pirates are nowhere in the right regardless of the situation, EA heavily contributed to Spore's failure by essentially punishing (only) the people who wanted to go the legitimate route.