Gateway: The 3DS Piracy Tool Whose Anti-Piracy Tactic Bricks Your 3DS

[Foolery]

You know, I can see the appeal of one of those cards. Just so I could import titles that Nintendo didn't bother to localize. Shit like this wouldn't happen or would at least be minimized if Nintendo did away with region locking. At least on the current Playstation devices, if you want to pick up some obscure Japanese titles or whichever, there's nothing preventing you from doing that.

 

[IamLEAM1983]

This just shows how pirates need a modicum of honesty.

If you're enabling piracy, be honest about it. Don't pull a holier-than-thou routine because someone else stole your tech; it was bound to happen. You're a pirate; ergo own up to it and just do your shit in complete awareness of the fact that your illegal status makes it so you have absolutely ZERO claims to make on your own work, regardless of the time you spent on it.

Or else, Scene groups might devolve into ridiculous debates about who copied who's intro, who cribbed the modded executable from which team - oh, wait. They already do!

Hypocrisy at its finest!

 

[medv4380]

Hypocrisy at its finest. If you're a script kiddy using other peoples hacks you're asking for trouble. You could never trust other peoples hacks let alone trust someone else's illicit hack. The only hacks you can ever trust are the ones you do yourself. Soder, code, and all. Then you're just hoping you don't do something that doesn't brick it yourself. I applaud Gateway for teaching another generation that you can't trust someone else's hacks. Now they can go off and try to learn to do it themselves. 5 3DS's later they might have made some progress, but that's the cost of learning.

you can never trust another persons cooking. never eat any food another person made. i applaud the guy that put poison in his restaurant, that will teach the lesson to those who eat food another person made. sure some people died but thats the cost of learning right?

Your sarcasm, and false analogy isn't even an argument. You would have been better off with a car analogy. The problem with your analogy is that everyone is deeply familiar with food. There are very few people who haven't learned the basic prep work by the end of their lifes save for nobels that barely exist anymore. A car on the other hand people can go their entire lives without ever learning how to change the oil. No one trusts their car mechanic unless they're insane, or know how to fix it themselves just don't have the time. You can never tell if your mechanic is charging you for unneeded repairs or not, but people do it because they need their car to get to work, and it needs to be running. The difference is you don't need to have your 3DS hacked, and if you don't need to have something done learn to do it yourself because there is no reason to trust a hacker giving you a clearly illegal hack.

 

[lacktheknack]

That is the worst anti-piracy measure I've ever heard of. Why don't we save everyone in the industry a LOT of time, effort and money by saying right here, "If what you are doing to combat piracy makes piracy a better method of obtaining content than using your service, YOU ARE DOING THE WRONG THING."

You didn't even read the article. OR the comments. -___-

I know this, because if you did, you'd realize that this is PIRATES roasting 3DSs with the DRM they wrote into their illegal chip for pirating.

This is a pirate company who's actively making pirating a worse option.

Your little stab there is not only misguided, it's literally the exact opposite of what you were aiming for.

Say what you want about industry money-wasting; when they dump time, effort and money into figuring stuff out, at least they have better aim than "opposite direction".

 

[Triaed]

Since Gateway's product is itself illegal [...]

Can someone educate on this? What makes this product illegal, as opposed to the actions taken by its users? In which jurisdiction? Under what law?

I understand that Nintendo's warranty would be void (policy, not law) and that the cartridges are banned in Japan (local law). By being illegal, are owners of Gateway cartridges and other R4s criminals?

 

[Roxas1359]

Since Gateway's product is itself illegal [...]

Can someone educate on this? What makes this product illegal, as opposed to the actions taken by its users? In which jurisdiction? Under what law?

I understand that Nintendo's warranty would be void (policy, not law) and that the cartridges are banned in Japan (local law). By being illegal, are owners of Gateway cartridges and other R4s criminals?

Nintendo, and 49 other companies, lobbied against R4 carts a few years ago and got countries to make them illegal to sell, so technically you could only buy them either on the black market or online. The only large country that can legally sell them still is the United States, but R4 carts are illegal in most other countries. It was mainly because of piracy, even if not everyone was using the carts for piracy.

 

[Yopaz]

OT:

It also seems disingenuous to call this a "Piracy Tool". By that logic we can call the internet a "Piracy Tool", we can call computers "Piracy Tools"

Actually, apparently, the Gateway product can't even run homebrew. Only pirated commercial software.

Just... I can't even anything anymore.

Seriously? It got no other uses? And they whine about people ripping off their hard work?

Do I even need to make a joke here?!

 

[Triaed]

Since Gateway's product is itself illegal [...]

Can someone educate on this? What makes this product illegal, as opposed to the actions taken by its users? In which jurisdiction? Under what law?

I understand that Nintendo's warranty would be void (policy, not law) and that the cartridges are banned in Japan (local law). By being illegal, are owners of Gateway cartridges and other R4s criminals?

Nintendo, and 49 other companies, lobbied against R4 carts a few years ago and got countries to make them illegal to sell, so technically you could only buy them either on the black market or online. The only large country that can legally sell them still is the United States, but R4 carts are illegal in most other countries. It was mainly because of piracy, even if not everyone was using the carts for piracy.

But I thought the ban was just in Japan.
Of course, it would be expected that an owner of a Gateway cartridge would use it to run pirated ROMs, but in absence of this user action, would owning the cartridge make them a criminal?
I know I am repeating myself, sorry, I am just looking at clarifying the point of the cartridges being "illegal". I would guess they are legal in most countries, while piracy itself is most certainly not.

 

[lacktheknack]

OT:

It also seems disingenuous to call this a "Piracy Tool". By that logic we can call the internet a "Piracy Tool", we can call computers "Piracy Tools"

Actually, apparently, the Gateway product can't even run homebrew. Only pirated commercial software.

Just... I can't even anything anymore.

Seriously? It got no other uses? And they whine about people ripping off their hard work?

Do I even need to make a joke here?!

No you do not. Gateway is in the running for "Punchline of the Decade".

EDIT: I'm increasingly sure that Gateway is secretly a troll company who will fold right away after humiliating pirates left and right as it just did.

 

[Roxas1359]

But I thought the ban was just in Japan.
Of course, it would be expected that an owner of a Gateway cartridge would use it to run pirated ROMs, but in absence of this user action, would owning the cartridge make them a criminal?
I know I am repeating myself, sorry, I am just looking at clarifying the point of the cartridges being "illegal". I would guess they are legal in most countries, while piracy itself is most certainly not.

In 2010 it was also banned in the UK as well, and other European countries started regulating them like crazy to the point where they might as well be illegal. But it is funny with how Gateway is acting when it comes to the chip they make, and they really screwed themselves over on this one. XD

 

[direkiller]

Well that's a DRM I hadn't heard until now. "If you change the software,I break your machine that you paid for".
Wow Nintendo.

It's not Nintendo. This is gateway

also this would not be new if it was from them

Sony had killed access to PSN if they detected a Jail broken PS3, Which in most cases was used for piracy but in a few outer it was to regain features they patch out.

Time Warner blocks Jail broken IOS from using there TV viewing app

 

[beastro]

Indeed, it's a hugely dangerous practice and very illegal.

Reminds me of that one Oblivion modder who made your game go to hell if you didn't follow his rules, except bugs in his mod made your game go to hell randomly anyhow.

Whats the story behind this?

 

[Eamar]

Buwahahahaha. Hahaha. Ha.

"We do not answer rumors, speculations and other tactics from people who are not even real competitors but simply companies stealing our hard work,"

Oh man... *wipes away tears of laughter*

Yup, everyone's all for "information being free" right up until it's their own work being ripped off.

Priceless.

 

[Lovely Mixture]

Gateway was always sketchy. I had seen their website awhile ago, they hardly detailed the risks of their device and software and offered no help to those with the latest firmware. They didn't even "break" the region lock, they only got around it using an exploit.

Modifying your console usually has risk of bricking it, just not as an intended feature.

 

[Brian Tams]

This is just... I can't even... WHY?!?!?

You know what? No. I don't even have to make a snide comment about this shit. Clearly, Gateway is doing a wonderful job making fun of themselves.

 

[Cid Silverwing]

Time for a boycott, fellas.

This kind of shit needs to be banned. How can corporations be so cartoonishly evil in their futile attempts to curb innovation?

 

[MeChaNiZ3D]

That is the worst anti-piracy measure I've ever heard of. Why don't we save everyone in the industry a LOT of time, effort and money by saying right here, "If what you are doing to combat piracy makes piracy a better method of obtaining content than using your service, YOU ARE DOING THE WRONG THING."

You didn't even read the article. OR the comments. -___-

I know this, because if you did, you'd realize that this is PIRATES roasting 3DSs with the DRM they wrote into their illegal chip for pirating.

This is a pirate company who's actively making pirating a worse option.

Your little stab there is not only misguided, it's literally the exact opposite of what you were aiming for.

Say what you want about industry money-wasting; when they dump time, effort and money into figuring stuff out, at least they have better aim than "opposite direction".

I read all of one and some of the other. I'm pretty sure they made the chip for people to put digital copies of games they actually own on, which is the excuse all chip manufacturers have. But everyone with one uses it for piracy and Gateway delusionally thinks their product is not just a tool for piracy. I read the article again and have the same impression I did the first time.

EDIT: Actually no, I see what you mean. In this case it's more making other products that enable piracy seem more desirable. I was stupid and I apologise.

 

[Eamar]

Time for a boycott, fellas.

This kind of shit needs to be banned. How can corporations be so cartoonishly evil in their futile attempts to curb innovation?

It's not Nintendo doing the bricking, it's Gateway (whose product is apparently illegal anyway) throwing a tantrum because people pirated their piracy chip. Nothing to do with big corporations.

 

[Triaed]

But I thought the ban was just in Japan.
Of course, it would be expected that an owner of a Gateway cartridge would use it to run pirated ROMs, but in absence of this user action, would owning the cartridge make them a criminal?
I know I am repeating myself, sorry, I am just looking at clarifying the point of the cartridges being "illegal". I would guess they are legal in most countries, while piracy itself is most certainly not.

In 2010 it was also banned in the UK as well, and other European countries started regulating them like crazy to the point where they might as well be illegal. But it is funny with how Gateway is acting when it comes to the chip they make, and they really screwed themselves over on this one. XD

Thanks for the info!

So onto a related follow up question, what makes the Gateway more "evil" than a jailbreak? Jalbreaking iOS devices is legal (piracy is not, of course). So Nintendo has more clout than Apple in courts of law?

Gateway's reaction is funny! I figured that these groups supported each other reusing assets or code written by others.

No honour among thieves, I guess...

 

[lacktheknack]

Time for a boycott, fellas.

This kind of shit needs to be banned. How can corporations be so cartoonishly evil in their futile attempts to curb innovation?

Well, they're already cartoonish enough to attack pirates for pirating their pirating chip.

I don't have a 3DS, and I'm also anti-pirate, so my boycott is already in motion.

(...you DID read the OP and title, right?)