I think I wrote it before, not sure where or when, but even though I use backups myself ( for the Wii, DS and GBA ) I was sad when piracy became so easy and wide spread that anybody could do it.
I remember my first flashcart was a whooping $ 180 F2A 256Mb pro for the GBA.
Note , that it was 256Mbits, and it could hold 7-8 small sized GBA games, or 4 32Mb games.
The USB loader was extremely slow ( I was lucky to get one, some people had to deal with the even slower paraller port loader ) and not every game would work at the end , without some form of patching for the increased save files.
It was then expensive, difficult and laborious work to get pirated games even for the GBA ( and let's not forget how slow was dial-up internet 7-8 years ago, it qould take quite some time to download a simple GBA rom ).
So I was ( I am ) a geek, and I like homebrew, and for me the possibility such a " development kit " would open up for my precious GBA where amazing .
It was definitely worth for me and I went for it, but what about the average kid out there ? Would he spent $180 on a flashcart, have it shipped from China ( convince the parents ) and go through the whole hassle of downloading, patching and finally slowly transferring the games to the device , when he could instead buy a bunch of games for a lesser price ( or trade in/out or exchange with friends ) ?
Point is, that piracy was there, was possible, but out of reach for the average main stream casual user.
Note, that by the time I found out about flashcarts, I already had spent a lot of cash on original cartridges as well, so I don't think I particularly hurt the business at the time.
When the DS came out....after a few months people invented " pass trough " devices that would let some of those latest GBA flashcart run unsigned NDS code from the slot-2 of the DS.
Also to get rid of the inconveniently sticking out pass trough device, one had to install an alternate firmware called" flashme " which was an easy task, but nevertheless caused quite a few bricked DSs.
Games still needed to be patched and slowly transferred, and size of the memory on the card was a big issue for larger NDS games.
Again, piracy was there but somehow out of reach for the mass public, thus only marginally hurting the official sales.
It was a healthy type of piracy I think, it really opened up a lot of possibilities but it didn't really deal massive damage to the industry, until ..........fast forward, slot-1 cards came about ( R4 anybody ) .
No pass me required, no flashme required, drag % drop roms to the card and you are good to go, ANY idiot could do it, actually EVERY idiot did it, and that's when rampant piracy really started to hurt developers, publishers , hardware makers and ultimately, slowly, the end user itself.
That's BAD PIRACY, no question about it, the one I like to have, but also the one I hate most.
The same kind of piracy that dictated the end of the Dreamcast, and soon the DS, cause every developer with half a brain would realize the opportunity that a fresh start of the 3DS will offer ( in terms of revenue ) and if piracy will ever catch up , everybody will already have made billions off the new handled.
On the Wii is pretty much the same story.
Early on when the twilight hack was found and exploited, it was necessary to install a ' mod chip " in your Wii ( not an easy task, I know because I performed the first insallation on my Wii myself , and the wires were really thin ).
Said chip had to be imported and shipped from somewhere ( most likely China, again ) and the majority of people were better off seeking professional help ( $$ ) for the installation.
Once again piracy was there, but far out of reach to the average,new wave of the so called casual gamer .
Believe it or not, as much as I love my USB loaders, it was a sad day when I discovered that it was possible to hack the Wii and run commercial games on it without even a modchip.
And even the internet became floated with n00bs guide , fool prof ways to perform such hacks that ANYBODY could do it.
My stand is that at the end, a little piracy ( for the somewhat experienced geek ) could actually help sales ( at least hardware wise ) and spark interest on the system by the homebrew community.
But the kind of piracy we see today, especially on the Wii and DS , can only hurt whoever makes and sells games and hardware, and at the end ( in a long or short run ) the users them self.
I hope that whatever Nintendo does to prevent piracy on the 3DS ( and to the possible successor of the Wii ), will never be cracked or at least it will take it a very long time.
Those are word of a passionate gamer, one who would rather spend money on 5 very good games ( ensuring that sequels will eventually be made and developers would survive ) then having 200 games ( shovel ware ) for free.
Why do I pirate today you ask ? Because unfortunately I can.
I really hope that they would stop me someday, I'm already feeling bad about it ( and I feel double guilty because with all the games I download I can hardly finish a tiny portion of them ) .
Hopefully , Nintendo is on the right track this time, and by the looks of it, the DSi is already a winner, and so will be the 3DS.
