This forum is as bad as slashdot. You try to appear legitimate by banning topics like backup loaders and wads that allow piracy, but you're all fine with emulator talk. And if heaven forbid someone points out this contradiction and tries to encourage a much needed discussion on this point, the thread gets sent to the junkyard. Out of sight, out of mind.

It's things like this that make Nintendo play it's cat and mouse game with homebrew developers like team twiizers. And it's not just Nintendo that has an interest in this wiibrew fight: you can bet that Sony and Microsoft are watching the implications very closely, not to mention Activision and EA.

I'm deleting beta9 from my wii, and praying future Nintendo updates don't brick my wii just because there's a reference to it in my system logs. I'm probably safe, but I'm owning this mistake here if it comes to that. Can you all say the same?

Replies will not be read by me. My account can be deleted and banned for all I care. Just don't say I didn't warn you when the digital entertainment industry comes down and spanks you.

tl;dr: BAWWWWW I'm taking my ball and going home.

I hate people who bash emulators and the run from arguments...

Wad serve no legal uses since Nintendo has a backing up system in place online and by SD card copies
Bootleg loaders are the same since all you need to do is call up Nintendo and get a broken disk or system replaced
Emulators on the other hand, have legal uses since if your old cart breaks you can still play the game you own or, as I uses it for, play game you own on different and newer systems. I just copied all my working nes, snes, and gen games (which I own and are currently sitting on a self in my home) onto my wii so I didn't have to take all of them with me to my dorm room when I went to college. I still buy VC of games I never owned so Nintendo does still get pay for their hard work. True, I'm in the minority but that doesn't mean this side doesn't exist....

But I agree that blatant emulators based piracy should be banned



Edited 1 time(s). Last edit at 10/29/2008 04:46AM by stevey.

I don't think Nintendo even does try to defeat homebrew, so much as fix bugs. Even the anti-TP-hack seems like it could just be an effort to retroactively fix the bug, by ensuring the game never receives invalid data rather than patching the code that has the bug. Notice they haven't done anything to already-installed channels or WADs, legal or not. (And the update message even told you it'd remove hacked save files.)
I suspect they could be in legal trouble with their third-party developers if they don't try to fix the security holes, because they're contractually obligated to keep the system secure, to help prevent online cheaters and the like. I'm no lawyer, but it seems a fairly likely scenario.



Edited 1 time(s). Last edit at 10/29/2008 06:04AM by HyperHacker.

While this is a mega-epic flame, it's something that I'd rather respond to than just toss in the trash. I'm moving this to the Feedback forum.

This forum makes no claim to be specifically anti-piracy. We are just generally against that which is illegal--including things which are against the US DMCA. Many of the administrators are anti-piracy, but political ideals and personal beliefs about these things are just one type rationalization for that which trumps them--Anti-illegality rules.

Emulator talk is very little, and we certainly don't allow talk about "teh romz" and whatnot. You'll also notice that most of the community ignores posts like those.

Of course, emulators in themselves aren't illegal, but can be used illegally. However, there are other rationales for their acceptance that puts them above "backup loaders."

Coding an emulator, and coding for an emulated system, is actually a very educational experience--whereas "loading backups" generally isn't. The interesting topics that overlap with a backup loader can be easily discussed without even the nuance of loading backups--various protocols and IOS modules. Reverse engineering a platform is much more specifically interesting, and implementing code to translate one platform's functions to another quite the project.

Also, the thread you mentioned was asking for support with a backup loader. If you were taking your time to discuss forum politics on that thread, you were certainly not posting in the right place. And, it's certainly not "out of sight, out of mind." It's set in the junkyard, to set an example in hopes that others may stop to think before they try to do something so blatantly stupid.


But, again, all rationales aside: The rules say no. That's all that matters. In the end, it is our website. Being able to post here is a privilege. We can give it, we can take it away. We make no claims to neutrality, or any other position besides the very explicit rules stated.



Edited 1 time(s). Last edit at 10/29/2008 06:11PM by tona.