Gaming Do you think upcoming piracy will lead the console to EOL soon?
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The Switch is lucky in how fast the RCM flaw was found, exploited, and patched. While nearly every other exploit on the OS has already been burned.
Since this platform, like all platforms today, is made as an evolving platform, we're dealing with a 'piracy scene' of maybe a hundred thousand, maybe two, out of something like 18 million Switches with an incredibly stunted growth trajectory due to the first two sentences of this post. The majority of the early sold Switches, while hackable, are in the hands of very active gamers with accounts on their Switch + mobile, and who play online and have a lot of money invested. So 90% of the 18 million might as well not exist if you want to talk about hackable units and piracy applications. For those coming in down the line, when the Switch is far more affordable after price-cuts, they won't have (easily) hackable Switches available.
Early Switches will eventually EoL themselves either by getting broken by people jamming tinfoil in their rails, or by usual wear-and-tear, and the Mariko unit will be Alcatraz compared to FG-Switches.
Money for games isn't even a definitive driver towards piracy any more as you have many growing F2P options, including the biggest game in the world. Many of these F2P games are huge multiplayer games. And even Nintendo's biggest marquee sellers are multiplayer oriented.
Between F2P, inconveniences and consequences of piracy, a patched bootloader, and an increasingly more secure OS, I don't really see a problem with the Switch's long term prospects. I'd maybe want to reverse the question and ask where the Switch hacking scene will be in a year if the ability to grow straight forwardly is cut-off and entering the scene starts to requiring going throw a checklist while jumping through hoops like a well trained dolphin.
Since this platform, like all platforms today, is made as an evolving platform, we're dealing with a 'piracy scene' of maybe a hundred thousand, maybe two, out of something like 18 million Switches with an incredibly stunted growth trajectory due to the first two sentences of this post. The majority of the early sold Switches, while hackable, are in the hands of very active gamers with accounts on their Switch + mobile, and who play online and have a lot of money invested. So 90% of the 18 million might as well not exist if you want to talk about hackable units and piracy applications. For those coming in down the line, when the Switch is far more affordable after price-cuts, they won't have (easily) hackable Switches available.
Early Switches will eventually EoL themselves either by getting broken by people jamming tinfoil in their rails, or by usual wear-and-tear, and the Mariko unit will be Alcatraz compared to FG-Switches.
Money for games isn't even a definitive driver towards piracy any more as you have many growing F2P options, including the biggest game in the world. Many of these F2P games are huge multiplayer games. And even Nintendo's biggest marquee sellers are multiplayer oriented.
Between F2P, inconveniences and consequences of piracy, a patched bootloader, and an increasingly more secure OS, I don't really see a problem with the Switch's long term prospects. I'd maybe want to reverse the question and ask where the Switch hacking scene will be in a year if the ability to grow straight forwardly is cut-off and entering the scene starts to requiring going throw a checklist while jumping through hoops like a well trained dolphin.
Right, somehow the study concluded that movie downloads led to fewer cinema visits but for everything else there was "no robust statistical evidence of displacement of sales by online piracy." That however isn't evidence that piracy doesn't harm sales, it's just lack of evidence that it does.
Look how long it took to find the higgs boson, it took ages to find it and nobody said that was evidence it didn't exist.
It's just really hard to prove a link between piracy and lost sales. I accept it's not going to be 1:1, but there is a link. You can't easily survey it, because people would have to admit to a criminal activity & most people would lie.
What evidence do you have that piracy is limited to only maybe 200,000 switches? It seems only fair to ask considering the level of evidence seems to be required for arguments going the other way.
I would hope the 18 million switches don't all die irreparably within the next few years, so there is growth potential there. I do wonder what they'll do if you send an old switch back for repair, whether they will trash every mother board or send you back an exploitable console. I also don't expect that nintendo have completely fixed the switch yet.
Last edited by smf,
Here are a few things to keep in mind:
- A pirated game is not equal to a lost sale. Potential lost sale, yes, but not equivalent.
- People pirate for different reasons. Some pirate games they won't buy, and save their money for games they really want. How many would actually buy all the games they pirate if they couldn't pirate?
- Since we discuss topics like this a lot, it's easy to forget the vast vast majority of switch owners will never actually pirate anything.
- Purchasing used games will have the same effect as piracy on the company's bottom line. That is to say, they will be unaware of it happening and their sold numbers won't increse. This is partly why companies really want to go digital only, so they can get rid of the used market.
- The higher the difficulty of getting the piracy set up, the fewer people will pirate.
- A pirated game is not equal to a lost sale. Potential lost sale, yes, but not equivalent.
- People pirate for different reasons. Some pirate games they won't buy, and save their money for games they really want. How many would actually buy all the games they pirate if they couldn't pirate?
- Since we discuss topics like this a lot, it's easy to forget the vast vast majority of switch owners will never actually pirate anything.
- Purchasing used games will have the same effect as piracy on the company's bottom line. That is to say, they will be unaware of it happening and their sold numbers won't increse. This is partly why companies really want to go digital only, so they can get rid of the used market.
- The higher the difficulty of getting the piracy set up, the fewer people will pirate.
Last edited by osaka35,
You cherry-picked that quote from the article and left out the part where it said that the study suggests a positive correlation with games purchases made by pirates who wouldn't have bought them without playing them
I should mention that I am, for the most part, against piracy (during a console's lifespan, anyway), but given that the thread topic is asking whether the Switch will suffer from being open to piracy, I'd say it's really hard to argue against a 340- page study that suggests almost the exact opposite
I think something else to add is that pirating is associated with a lot of negative outcomes such as being banned or deemed a bad person. Seriously, some of the comments sections for when something hacking related comes out on a non-hacking website are pretty ruthless.
I don't think custom firmware/SX OS will impact the EoL of the console too much. After all, between the automatic firmware updates, per console unique certificates, and mostly well thought out security, the cat and mouse game is a lot harder this time around. Since Nintendo seems to be willing to ban at the slightest indication of tampering (non-existent error codes), and them requiring authentication with the switch's unique certificate to access the CDN, and fairly aggressive patching of bugs, it will be a lot harder for pirates this time around. Sure, there is the F-G bug, but that is being fixed with new units. Even with emunand, that will be a fairly small percentage of users. And since it seems that a lot of games have online features, a lot of people may want a second switch, or not mess around with piracy for fear of being banned from online services.
So I think that the switch will continue to go strong for quite some time.
So I think that the switch will continue to go strong for quite some time.
It's hard to know how many switch owners will pirate, it's early for huge numbers but in a years time when friends get bored with the game they are playing and find out that you have a hacked console and start asking you to do their and their friends and their childrens etc then it can add up. Other than that I don't disagree with anything you've said, it's just not evidence that piracy has no effect.
I didn't bother reading past the point where it was obvious the report was meaningless. They essentially did this:
Q: have you pirated?
Then counted the different answers...
A: no
A: yes, oh bbbbbbbbut I bought the game straight away honest.
A: yes, I'm poor so I wouldn't have bought them anyway.
A: yes & I could have afforded to buy them but I just felt like being evil.
I suspect people who should answer with the last one will feel more shame and lie.
I strongly disagree with this line of logic and find such phrasing to be dangerous -- much like you never want to surrender rights to speech you similarly never want to hamper your ability to sell stuff you own.
Reselling of items goes back... probably before recorded history and indeed much of our earliest recorded history are ledgers and such ( https://www.bbc.com/news/business-39870485 ). No sane legal code, or indeed economic system, would preclude resale of general safe consumer goods either.
With that in mind nobody can argue they did not see the potential for second hand sales coming when they made their work.
Piracy of intellectual works, for at least the last few hundred years anyway and certainly in the modern world, is a different matter entirely and would be argued to fall under a moral wrong.
My usual response here is if a game company wants money from second hand games either offer the service or invest in a company that does. For the former I am sure they could also spin it such that people that want to give them money for something can do so. Beyond that I can not see why in any legal, moral or logical sense they should be entitled to anything from second hand games. Legally I could see how online passes can be a thing but morally I find them to be incredibly dubious.
Similarly digital only does not remove second hand sales -- there are already laws in place allowing resale of digital software/keys in the US (though it is a bit hazier) and Europe (not checked Japan and elsewhere but they have similarly strong protections). It seems more that nobody has taken them to task yet about not providing the service.
https://www.theregister.co.uk/2016/...here_originals_are_damaged_destroyed_or_lost/
https://www.fieldfisher.com/publications/2012/07/eu-court-allows-resale-of-downloaded-software
https://www.eff.org/cases/umg-v-augusto
https://www.eff.org/cases/vernor-v-autodesk
I was comparing only in regards to the company's bottom line and and an individual choice between pirating or buying used. From the company's perspective, if you will. The company gets no money or sales numbers from either transaction, be it legal or not.
I agree with the rest of what you said X'D I quite like being able to buy used and having more rights over the stuff I've bought. I don't like the move to all-digital, and I like having the option to buy used.
If we are doing accountant style everything is an expense or income approach to the world, and twisting it to the kind of bizarre things seen there* then OK. Don't know if I would encourage such thinking outside of "know your enemy" though.
*others playing along at home. Your department (assuming it is an income generating one**) makes 250000 on a 100000 cost, great no? To some accountants if they look across and saw that your decisions meant you could have done 300000 income with the same resources then you will find yourself in a "meeting" with them asking why you cost them 50000.
**many here will be in or contemplating IT. While you know well that if you flicked the switch then it would all come crashing down the accountants (also known as beancounters in some circles) may instead view your department as a thing that consumes power, space, salaries, funds for hardware/software/support/telecoms while technically not selling anything and try to minimise things (naturally without any knowledge of how things work).
*others playing along at home. Your department (assuming it is an income generating one**) makes 250000 on a 100000 cost, great no? To some accountants if they look across and saw that your decisions meant you could have done 300000 income with the same resources then you will find yourself in a "meeting" with them asking why you cost them 50000.
**many here will be in or contemplating IT. While you know well that if you flicked the switch then it would all come crashing down the accountants (also known as beancounters in some circles) may instead view your department as a thing that consumes power, space, salaries, funds for hardware/software/support/telecoms while technically not selling anything and try to minimise things (naturally without any knowledge of how things work).
They weren't particularly expensive. Most were under $40. They had sold enough that by 2009 Nintendo had successfully lobbied some countries to make the illegal. Not all of the had the 2gb size limit. The M3 DS Real can take a 32gb card, and came with a cart for flawless GBA playback. They had barely stopped making GBA games at that point, so it was a pretty big deal.
The first PSP model accidentally shipped with unlocked firmware. That's how the entire hacking scene on that console was born. It still sold 80 million units and had countless games developed for it.
The 3DS is a 7 year old handheld console, and despite that, it still seems to have a decent list of games continuing to be made. It's even getting Persona Q 2 and one more Etrian Odyssey. Developers are going to stop making games for it as people continue to buy the switch, as most people who own both systems are only going to want to get new games for the switch going forward.
So given all that, I still don't think it's going to hurt Nintendo enough to matter.
Last edited by vincentx77,
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Because the DS library has produced so many masterpieces after DS flashcards became a thing.so piracy kills consoles huh? like what happened with the DS.
Considering the R4 was released in 2006, I would say that the DS did pretty good for itself. Hell there was methods of playing DS ROMs on the DS through slot-2 and passme devices before the R4 came out.
The DS had a wide range of wide of games come out for it and piracy didn't kill the system. I don't even think piracy is going to kill the Switch either consider just how well the system is actually doing. I don't think people realize that pirates are actually an extremely small fraction of the gaming community and though damages are done, they aren't as big an impact as they are made out to be, at least for successful systems.
Not many people knew about R4 in 2006. I'd say that 2010 was the year when people started ordering cheap flashcards to replace original games.
The system still saw a large number of games released for it, despite the fact that the 3DS was looming over it. Flashcarts were actually a rather booming thing for quite some time before that, I would know because I was personally there. Basically my statement still stands, piracy didn't kill the system and games were still being released for it.
The Switch isn't bound to fail due to piracy nor is likely to see an early EOL, the system is still highly successful with new games being announced every day for it. At this point it would require Nintendo to do something foolish like repeat the Wii U's extreme game droughts.
Honestly if you want to see another system with loads of piracy, the 3DS is still thriving and still somehow seeing new games for it. This is despite the fact that you can literally buy pre-hacked systems online or the fact that hacking the 3DS takes about 10 minutes to do. This is also despite the fact that the 3DS was a failure at launch, yet now it's been on the market for over 6 years now. Piracy didn't cause an early EOL for the 3DS.
Also this post
Last edited by The Catboy,
Plenty of people knew about flash carts when they got easy... I was there man.
I would probably instead look at the phones/tablets -- android and IOS were around and jumping by then. Most of the devs that made the interesting stuff for the DS had started to migrate to them, and the homebrew scene had long gone there.
I would probably instead look at the phones/tablets -- android and IOS were around and jumping by then. Most of the devs that made the interesting stuff for the DS had started to migrate to them, and the homebrew scene had long gone there.
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