Piracy alive and well on DSi despite firmware updates

OMG Nintendo reports on new technology that could bring the homebrew market and piracy to the Nintendo DSi, despite firmware updates that attempt to stop it.

Piracy is a rampant problem for Nintendo this generation and especially on DS. The ROM images are small and it doesn't take much smarts to get a flash cart working on a DS Lite. So you might think part of the DSi's mission statement to Nintendo would be to let them cut back on DS piracy by using firmware updates to break flash carts.


Piracy alive and well on DSi despite firmware updates

DSONEi hardware will enable the tech saavy to update their DSi with homebrew software and potential (illegal) copies of Nintendo software. It's like the arms race in the Cold War. Well, if Nintendo was America and Internet pirates were the USSR.


As we've covered before, this method hasn't worked well on Wii and it's not working any better with DSi... though the method the pirates are using to get around the firmware updates there is novel. The DSONEi is countering Nintendo's official firmware updates with its own pirate firmware updates. If you're using the cart, then just wait for the makers to post a cracked firmware every time Nintendo updates the official firmware.

Of course, there's a big hole to this approach of defeating the DSi's firmware updates: it relies on a central source of getting cracked firmware. If Nintendo opted to hunt down and sue the DSONEi guys out of existence the way they did the R4 guys, then you'll be left without any incoming firmware updates. The R4 itself has trouble working with newer games because its firmware can no longer be officially updated and that seems an even more likely fate for the DSONEi, provided Nintendo can ever hunt these guys down.

MORE: Nintendo asks U.S. government to fight Wii, DS piracy

THE VERDICT by McKinley Noble McKinley Noble's Avatar Arrrr! Piracy is bad, matey! Don't be getting caught with your video games when ye not be payin' for them, savvy?

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Toneman

Whenever there's an update for anti-piracy... there's usually a piracy work-around update the same day! If software can block it.... then software can unblock it!

aquajolt52

So that's why the r4 site hasn't had any firmware updates... i really want to play sonic chronicles and gta chinatown wars, maybe i'll buy the cyclone flashcart. Oh, and yo ho-ho and a bottle of rum!!!

hikayu

at least you have to buy stuff to hack it , unlike the psp which everything is packed . nintendo is definetly loosing the piracy war cuz i still updating my wii and ds as frequently as i download game for both platform .i buy game , still , but only AAA titles . i support devs who need it , not shovelwares .

SilentGhosteye

if the rom images are small, why don't they just have all the games downloadable through the nintendo shop, and have a lock on them so they can't be copied to other systems.

AMRISTAR

That's why we have brilliant people like the hackers just around us. They are people who like to be challenged by these big games companies. They're pitting their knowhow against the engineers of these games companies. Whatever the programmers of these game companies can come up with regarding security codes the hackers can undo them. So, long live the hackers and let's just hope they don't get employed by Nintendo.

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