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Nintendo Network shutdown – The beginning of the end

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Re: Nintendo Network shutdown – The beginning of the end

#41

Post by jdbernard »

advael wrote: post #11
acdha wrote: post #3

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I wish there was some way to tie it to copyright where if you want to lock the rights up, you have to provide the game in a playable form at a reasonable price. I’ve seen proposals which would implement that as a kind orphan works tax with a threshold so a small indie game wouldn’t be expected to provide unlimited support.

A tax small enough to not harm indie publishers is almost tautologically unlikely to affect big publishers at all. The incentives created by fines and taxes are greatly overestimated. For something like this to work, it needs to be achievable without the continued cooperation or even existence of the original business

Personally, I think we should consider making legal IP protection opt-in. In other words, with a product like this you should provide a way to remove the protection to the Library of Congress, for example. If you fail to provide this, then you cannot use the courts to enforce copyright/patent/etc.

Re: Nintendo Network shutdown – The beginning of the end

#42

Post by noirbot »

nine_k wrote: post #27
advael wrote: post #21

Earlier quoted context omitted.

So you'd like to incentivise more obfuscation of revenue to boot? I think an effective remedy for this kind of situation can't just be fiscal, we need requirements to publish adequate technical specifications and strong IP carveouts to make it likely to move the needle. Forcing companies to maintain continuous support is a non-starter. We should instead focus on enabling unofficial support from outside the companies,…

Obfuscation of revenue is a really bad idea, all the way to a federal criminal investigation. The idea is that the continuity requirements should not be onerous, given the revenue, say, less than 1% of it, "a good problem to have". Publishing a reasonable spec would be a part of that.

Pretty sure that hasn't stopped Hollywood accounting for the last century, and I see no reason why EA can't pull off the same things that Warner Brothers has been doing.

Re: Nintendo Network shutdown – The beginning of the end

#43

Post by phone8675309 »

daydream wrote: post #37

I wonder long will the backend infra supporting the Switch will last. Especially now that they’re selling download-only versions of the games. Online services for earlier consoles like the Wii were more basic, and IIRC in some cases were developed and maintained by third parties, not Nintendo themselves? I understand wanting to get rid of that overhead especially if it wasn’t driving incremental revenue. But now the…

This is why I don't buy a console that doesn't have a functional jailbreak/softmod.

You can't count on these companies to care about the consumer past the initial purchase. If you can jailbreak your console there are plenty of sites that preserve the released games that you can install after the online services are shut down.

Re: Nintendo Network shutdown – The beginning of the end

#45

Post by doix »

naikrovek wrote: post #32
amlib wrote: post #24

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I'm surprised the 3DS hasn't been hacked trough this functionality. It would be an awesome opportunity to create some kind of worm that quickly spreads around the world and you also get to name it with a trendy name like "Fail Pass".

Fortunately, small protocols like this are pretty easy to write securely if you sanity check all of your inputs and bail if anything is wrong. I don’t know the Mii format but it can’t be large, and the only arbitrary input there is the name, I believe. Nintendo themselves are pretty good at writing secure stuff; it’s usually libraries or 3rd party games which have been responsible for the software exploits in Nintend…

Aren't pretty much all the wii exploits string parsing bugs?

The original one was actually a name parsing bugs in the twilight princess(first party title) save file.

And now people use the letter bomb exploit which abuses a string parsing bug in the letter system of the wii.

I'd say Nintendo have a pretty bad history of writing secure format parsers.

Re: Nintendo Network shutdown – The beginning of the end

#46

Post by lbourdages »

daydream wrote: post #37

I wonder long will the backend infra supporting the Switch will last. Especially now that they’re selling download-only versions of the games. Online services for earlier consoles like the Wii were more basic, and IIRC in some cases were developed and maintained by third parties, not Nintendo themselves? I understand wanting to get rid of that overhead especially if it wasn’t driving incremental revenue. But now the…

I bought physical copies of my Switch games for that exact reason.

I can dump the carts somehow and play the games legally using an emulator if/when they pull the plug on it.

Re: Nintendo Network shutdown – The beginning of the end

#47

Post by philistine »

daydream wrote: post #37

I wonder long will the backend infra supporting the Switch will last. Especially now that they’re selling download-only versions of the games. Online services for earlier consoles like the Wii were more basic, and IIRC in some cases were developed and maintained by third parties, not Nintendo themselves? I understand wanting to get rid of that overhead especially if it wasn’t driving incremental revenue. But now the…

Look at the one company who owns a vibrant operating system: Microsoft.

They dropped the original Xbox like a box of bricks. They shut down those old servers quite rapidly. With the Xbox 360 however, they will stop the ability to buy games on an original Xbox 360 next year. That's a long era of support!

https://news.xbox.com/en-us/2023/08/17/xbox-360-store-will-c...

I'm fairly convinced new credit card standards are probably what is closing down the 360 store. They're only closing down the ability to buy things. Nintendo is also shutting down the Wii U and 3DS around the same time and Sony has already stopped allowing credit cards on a PS3.

https://www.theverge.com/2021/10/6/22713526/sony-ps3-vita-bu...

But getting back to Microsoft, the Xbox One and the Series consoles are running the same store. The OS is for all intents and purposes exactly the same. Any 360 game that has been migrated to the new One/Series store through backwards compatibility is staying purchasable past the closure of the 360 store.

When the next round of closures comes, Microsoft won't close down a store, they'll prevent the Xbox One from accessing the store. I hope with all my might that Nintendo does the same; that the Switch OS remains their software platform and that they close access to their store, not shut it down.

Re: Nintendo Network shutdown – The beginning of the end

#48

Post by EvanAnderson »

semiquaver wrote: post #25
henriquez wrote: post #8

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The DMCA allows reverse engineering of copy-protected code for abandonware. As a copyright holder you’re not necessarily obligated to maintain working game services, but if you sell a multiplayer game and abandon it, it’s basically free rein for others to make it work again.

To clarify, the DMCA does no such thing. The exemptions you refer to are the result of the Librarian of Congress exercising a statutory “fail-safe” role to specify circumstances that the (otherwise very broad) anti-circumvention provisions in the DMCA will be construed not to apply to. https://copyright.gov/1201/2015/fedreg-publicinspectionFR.pd...

It's also important to note that exemptions granted under this mechanism expire after 3 years unless renewed. When the exemption expires the exempted activity becomes an infringing activity again.

Re: Nintendo Network shutdown – The beginning of the end

#50

Post by al_borland »

lbourdages wrote: post #46
daydream wrote: post #37

I wonder long will the backend infra supporting the Switch will last. Especially now that they’re selling download-only versions of the games. Online services for earlier consoles like the Wii were more basic, and IIRC in some cases were developed and maintained by third parties, not Nintendo themselves? I understand wanting to get rid of that overhead especially if it wasn’t driving incremental revenue. But now the…

I bought physical copies of my Switch games for that exact reason. I can dump the carts somehow and play the games legally using an emulator if/when they pull the plug on it.

This was my tactic as well. Seeing Xbox and Playstaion making console versions without optical drives has me worried about what the future may look like.
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