179: The Slot-1 Secret

[Sam Machkovech]

Thinking a bit laterally here.

Why haven't Nintendo established an itunes or Steam style site to distribute proper, paid for DS games to Flash cart users?

Your hopes may come to pass with the DSi's online store. That store should allow you to save games to an SD card; for piracy's sake, those SD games would have a console-specific encryption key, just like on the Wii. Seems Nintendo has finally stopped fearing selling games that go directly to an external disk.

 

[Dom Camus]

What danger?

Making the choice to create a far simpler class of product for what appears to be a much larger market, then discovering that because the product is simpler it's more-or-less commoditised from day one and so sales are terrible.

A quick link to an article discussing some actual data on the subject:

http://www.gamedaily.com/articles/news/wii-games-discounted-at-a-faster-rate-ndash-eedar-/?biz=1

...so it's not like the whole market's proven non-existent or anything, but I wouldn't recommend any developers head in that direction for easy money. Right now, it's oversupplied.

 

[boyitsme95]

Very intersting article. I had no idea about flash carts before hand, so this was a very good read.

 

[Valalvax]

Now I normally don't complain, but the white man with the games in his hands/bag (obviously stolen), with the black man's face photoshopped ontop of it, is very obvious racism, and quite offensive at that.

Uh, no. It's a white man with a stocking on his head. Look at the picture *before* making your animal-like grunts.
Also, I'd never even heard of these until now. Maybe they're just not as well known in my part of Europe? Or maybe just not by me.
I like the idea of user-created, unwarrantied software but not the idea of all the good designers leaving the DS to work on say, the PSP. I'll stick to paying for stuff, even if I'm paying too much.

Ok ok, you're right, I THOUGHT that would have been a pretty bad photoshop, I was like "Wow, you left the ENTIRE freaking neck" but now I see the excess cloth on top of the head, I guess you see what you want to see..

 

[wildcard9]

It's quite disheartening to know that we, the hardcore crowd, are to blame for Nintendo shunning us. Ever since E3, we've been condoning Nintendo for selling out to the casual crowd, when in reality they were snubbing us as thieves. I'm very much anti-piracy: we live in a capitalist society that ideally rewards good producers with profits. With piracy, we're giving a big "fuck you" to good developers such as Konami and Intelligent Systems who are losing money in appeasing the hardcore crowd.

I currently own a DS lite and have no plans to upgrade. If Nintendo wants to nip this problem in the bud, they have to capitalize off flash carts. They should sell compatible flash carts for the lite so we don't feel burned when the DSi crowd can instantly buy and download the newest games steam-style.

 

[HectorTheLamerGamer]

While there are a number of great points here, especially concerning straight up piracy, I have to disagree with removing these devices altogether. I myself own an R4 but I use it for a very different purpose. I like to switch games frequently while I'm out but I don't have the space to carry my entire library of games with me. This usually forces me to pick one or two games to take on my excursions into the outside world and I often get bored of them fairly quickly (There's only so many times you can play brain age in an hour before it gets repetitive). However by putting a game I've purchased on my R4 I can carry all of my games with me without filling any extra space. It's this convenience that is the main draw of slot-1 devices to me and I'm sure to others as well.

 

[olicon]

I think we can all say that all of us owners want to be able to carry all our games together. I will gladly pay a few extra bucks if Nintendo would give us the option to do so.
..well.. as long as they let me listen to my music, and use my DS as a day planner. Honestly, why include a calendar, ability to draw and write, but not make it so people can save these things? The DSi now plays music, hooray! Now go all the way, dammit!

I understand that Nintendo wants to be different from the PSP, and thus wouldn't allow their "game console" to be useful in other areas, but dammit--the functionality is practically there. Just say you can use this to keep track of your table top game or something if you want--that way the organizer/calculator functionality would fit neatly into the "gaming" category.

 

[ferrit]

R4 revolution is most popular slot-1 card for Nintendo DS out there on the market (list others if you think otherwise). R4 SDHC recently came out which supports up to 32GB sdhc memory - thats plenty to store a lot of games. For those who are interested in getting one i suggest visiting this online store [http://www.bigboxstore.com/r4-sdhc-revolution-slot-1-card-for-ds-with-sdhc-support-with-4gb-memory-card.html] for their special deal on r4 + 4gb memory to get you started.

 

[HectorTheLamerGamer]

i still do not get why the DS is so popular
1. it has almost no good games
2. the grafics suck
3. the gameplay usualy sucks
4. the screens are very small

i figured the PSP would have won out over the DS...

Note: I am not a Nintendo fanboy. I own both a Sega Dreamcast and a Playstation 2 and am working on getting a PS3 and XBOX360. As far as handhelds go I would consider buying a PSP if I had the Spare cash to do so.

With that being said I offer an explanation/rebuttal to the claims made by you, Pyromcr.

1. Good game is a relative term. What one person considers a good game can differ greatly from what others would choose. Most every console has at least a handful of decent games and certain consoles will have a higher concentration of games that a specific individual enjoys. This is why a variety of gaming consoles is preferable. It provides a greater amount of choice. There are a wide variety of games on the DS that appeal to many different varieties of gamers.

2. While graphics can be an important part of gaming there is a difference between bad graphics and less detailed graphics. Take for instance Pac Man. The graphics on that game are extremely sub par when compared to, say, gears of war or halo 3 (there are probably better examples but those are the two that spring to mind) yet the game remains playable and enjoyable to this day. What really matters is whether the graphics get in the way of gameplay or not. Assuming they don't, anything else is merely extra.

3. Similar to 1, "good" gameplay can be very subjective. I myself cannot get into turn based strategy games yet they are one of the most popular genres (Heck, Starcraft is essentially the national sport in Korea). On the other hand I do enjoy puzzle games such as Picross that many would consider boring and repetitive (Note: this isn't the only genre I enjoy. It is merely a single example). Again this is where variety is such a good thing. The more that is out there the more there is to choose from, which provides a better guarantee that individuals will find games that they will enjoy.

4. While I can't speak for your experience with the DS (assuming you have used one), I personally have never had any problems playing on a DS screen due to its size. The way the screens react to natural lighting on the other hand...

To sum up the DS may not be the right console for everyone but that doesn't mean it isn't the right console for anyone. No console will ever "Win" (nor should it).

Hopefully this answers your question as to how the DS has gained such popularity.

 

[theultimateend]

The Slot-1 Secret

Simple, cheap methods of piracy have made the Nintendo DS the most vulnerable portable console ever. There's a reason why Nintendo doesn't care.

Read Full Article

See what bothers me about piracy numbers is they never address the fact that some people pirate games that they own.

Why?

Well look at it this way.

I own about 20 DS games (some I regret haha but hey it happens).

I have 2 options.

I can carry around X cartridges (all the way up to 20) each costing between 20-40 dollars and possibly lose them.

OR I can carry around one cartridge at 30 bucks and if I lose it oh freaking well.

In fact there are ways now to move your saves from the rom to your actual cartridge so when you are home you can keep on going (heck you can go both ways haha its rather wonderful).

So I think its erroneous to equate 144k piracies to 144k copies of a game lost.

Pokemon Pearl alone I've redownloaded probably 15 times and I could take a picture right now of me holding my legitimate cartridge and case (likewise I'm registered on nintendo with the product) .

At least in the DS world its almost unreasonable to not do that to protect your games, especially since places like PAX have a tendency of magically causing people's stuff to vanish.

Don't get me wrong I LOVE PAX but I've had stuff disappear while I was there (and likewise know many people who experience the same). Lots of hands and not enough eyes haha.

Note: I explain the above because I don't feel what I'm doing is illegal. Not anymore than burning a copy of a game you own so that you can play that instead of the original copy. Which my father used to be quite fond of because he had a pension for leaving his original copies out on the top of his PC and they'd become unplayable from scratches.

I sort of equate it to a personal DRM system. I'm protecting my investment from my own incompetence much like game companies.

Also...

To anyone saying the DS doesn't have any 'good' games (which I admit is subjective).

Disgaea DS
Final Fantasy Tactics A2
Rune Factory
Rune Factory 2
Harvest Moon (the first DS one not that new thing...)
Final Fantasy III
Final Fantasy IV
Pokemon Diamond
Pokemon Pearl
NEW Super Mario Bros
Super Princess Peach
Children of Mana
Mario Kart

If I didn't have to keep getting up to read the damn boxes I could probably name another 5-10. I love both the PSP and the DS for what they do but I can name more for the DS than for the PSP.

In the end the old adage "To each their own" applies.

 

[trakinas]

I think flash cart is a problem to the third party developers (specially). I know a lot of people here who owns NDS, but none of them spent a single penny on original games. Everyone have their flash cart - including me (though I have Portrait of Ruin cart). And everyone use it mostly for playing ROMs. A few people use it as a PDA or something.

Some people pirate it because they don't have the money to pay for new games - if you think games are expensive in US or Europe, you should see our prices... - and others pirate it for the sake of doing so. The last one are the kind of people who would never pay for original title if they can obtain them for free or 10/100 of the original price (Im talking about PS2 and XBOX 360 games here). When Chrono Trigger DS was released a friend of mine asked me: "have you got CT?" I answered no because I hadnt the money (and I still dont). He said something that could be translated as "You dumbass! Im not talking about buying! Dumbass! haha"

So, whatever Nintendo had a online store or anything like it he would not use it - as many other people I believe.

On the other hand, I know a few people from other cities who participates on the same forums I do that use flash cart and ROMs for seeing if a game is worth buying. And, of course, you have some rich people who can afford 2 or 3 original games each month - but they already belong to a minority of Brazilian's society. There are even a dedicated internet forum for those who are against piracy here.

And though I have a flash cart and play ROMs on them, I only play a game per time. Im finishing Zelda right now and I must say Im glad I did not buy it when I had the opportunity - Im not enjoying it as I did with other Zelda games I bought (Ocarina, Masks and Link to the past). Sometimes this game really annoys me with its full-time stylus control + browsing sea. Im eager to finish it, but if I do I will do without having completed half of the side-quests and getting all the heart containers. But this is not a topic about Zelda, so, no rant over it.

Cheers!