DS Flash Carts Deemed Legal By French Court 267
Hatta writes with a snippet from MaxConsole: "Nintendo has today lost a major court case against the Divineo group in the main court of Paris. Nintendo originally took the group to court over DS flash carts, however the judge today has ruled against Nintendo and suggested that they are purposely locking out developers from their consoles and things should be more like Windows where ANYONE can develop any application if they wish to."
Vive la France libre! (Score:5, Informative)
If you've read the initial requirements for getting a Nintendo dev kit, you know this is a Good Thing!
Re:Excellent. (Score:3, Informative)
Re:Excuse my ignorance (Score:5, Informative)
A game cartridge where the ROM is replaced with flash(and possibly other hardware) so you can put whatever code you want on it.
Used for developing and homebrew software, as well as just plain copying games.
Re:Windows as the standard? (Score:3, Informative)
Re:Any Application they want to? (Score:2, Informative)
The FSF doesn't sue over GPL violations that relate to the Linux kernel. They don't have standing, as they do not hold any copyrights over that code. Now the GNU toolchain that typically lives on a Linux system - that they can sue over.
Kernel developers, however, do have standing, and hence can sue over copyright infringement.
Re:Excellent. (Score:5, Informative)
Not true by a long shot.
The entire reason that Nintendo is so selective in which games it licenses is because of the flood of games that came out for all consoles in the 80s, and the video game crash shortly after. Companies like Quaker Oats were actually trying to publish games. The market became so over-saturated with games that the public became disgusted with them.
When nintendo finally released the Famicom in the US they had to market it as a home computer rather than a video game system due to the negative connotations that 'video game' still had. You'll notice that every legitimate game that came out for nintendo and super nintendo ( I stopped looking after that) came with the nintendo seal of approval. That's because they started making certain that only reputable publishers were releasing games for their system, to keep their reputation intact. There's a lot more about it if you search for the video game crash of 1983 http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/North_American_video_game_crash_of_1983
Opening up the console to anyone who wants is definitely not guaranteed to increase the quality of games. In fact, history tells us that the exact opposite will happen. But hey, who knows! History doesn't repeat itself all that often, right?
Re:Maybe not the best solution (Score:4, Informative)
Nintendo isn't necessarily worried about the quality of third party games on their system; they make a profit off hardware sales either way. With the iPhone, Apple has proved that people can perceive hardware as high quality despite an overabundance of shitty software.
The main problem to Nintendo is flashcarts make it ridiculously easy to pirate games. Almost too easy - it's far easier to lug around a tiny flashcart than 10 game cartridges. The loss in game sales affects their quality in the long run, and hence the system's chances of success.
Re:Windows as the standard? (Score:2, Informative)
Re:Windows as the standard? (Score:4, Informative)
Re:Copy Apple & Google (Score:3, Informative)
Re:Windows as the standard? (Score:4, Informative)
Just a side note, it is also possible for individuals who wants the Windows source code [microsoft.com] to get it. They simply have to become an MVP (most valuable professional) and be in good standing and sign a few NDAs. I consider that as any person who wants it *bad enough* can get legal access to it.
Re:You shouldn't be really care (Score:4, Informative)
A true Chinese proverb: "I don't care if it is black cat or white cat. You can still pass it off as Kung Pao Chicken"
FYI, cat meat does not taste at all like chicken (light or dark meat). The texture and flavor of cat meat is quite different, and even a liberal dose of spices cannot mask this difference.
Re:Copy Apple & Google (Score:3, Informative)
Crappy games did not kill the video game market. The video game market was plenty strong. The 'video game crash' is a myth. What happened was that everyone started moving to more open platforms C64. These systems had both better and worse games, but they did have plenty of games.
Re:Stockholm Syndrome (Score:5, Informative)
Activision was the first group of game developers to think of making and selling games for a system created by someone else. Atari hadn't put any protections on the console. Hence, Activision (and everyone and their uncle) could sell games for the Atari 2600 with impunity, and the market was flooded with crap.
Tengen (a division of Atari) tried this with the NES. However, Nintendo *had* put protections on the lockout chip. Tengen acquired a schematic of the chip under false pretenses, and released their games bypassing the lockout chip. Nintendo sued, and it was settled out of court without precedent being set.
Accolade tried this with the Genesis. That one, Accolade one, on the strength that they had properly reverse-engineered the lockout protection, and that reverse-engineering for interoperability was legal.
Then came the DMCA, which was a monkey's attempt to understand the internet, and makes basically everything illegal. But you get the idea. Basically, the courts *had* been ruling that any software company can put out for any system, so long as their software didn't break any laws or patents to do so. However, software these days is intricate enough (and the cryptography strong enough) that no company large enough is willing to do so. Also, they would lose marketing / favor with the console makers, who retain a lot of promotional and other sway.
Re:Sad (Score:2, Informative)
You sound like an App£€ supporter (zealot).
Their (corporate) rights end at my front door.
Once the system is in my house, i own all of it, including but not limited to, the software, the hardware and the firmware (aka everything).
Copyright only protects unauthorized distribution, not granting companies immoral monopolies over things they sell you (the public).
I own the chips and i have the right to reprogram them to my needs.
I own the software (yes own, that particular copy, not the copyright) and i can, with the help of 3rd parties, change it to meet my needs.
I now advocate for less corporate rights and more personal/public/customer rights.
95+ years of copyright length, DMCA, DRM will/needs to die a horrible fiery death.
Re:Windows as the standard? (Score:3, Informative)
Visual Studio is not the only development environment for Windows.