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Nintendo’s Wii U and 3DS online services will shut down in April

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Re: Nintendo’s Wii U and 3DS online services will shut down in April

#121

It’ll never happen, but I think codifying a concept similar to “abandonware” in law would be a huge step forward. If a person can’t buy or rent a piece of media, then it should be able to be freely shared. Maybe add a short time-out period in case there are momentary hiccups with a creator. Make it apply not just to videogames, but books, movies, music, etc. After all, if you can’t buy it, you’re not depriving the cr…

The Video Game History Foundation is working to "get expanded exemptions for libraries and organizations preserving video games, which are currently far more limited than their ability to preserve books, movies, audio, etc."

They recently did a study to counter the industry's claims to the copyright office that they're already doing enough to preserve its history. Turns out 87% of classic (ie old) games are unavailable.

See https://gamehistory.org/87percent/.

Re: Nintendo’s Wii U and 3DS online services will shut down in April

#122
post #9

>It will still be possible to use online services for the following software but that may also end at some point in the future. >Pokémon Bank I have 0 hopes tbh, the writing is on the wall. Pokemon Bank is an awesome feature, basically allowing you to play through the whole franchise from Pokemons across all games...

Won't that make it blatantly obvious just how much each game is a copy of the previous one?

IDK how Pokémon is still so popular 20 years later, and with people I played Pokémon with in elementary school, too. I played Pokémon Red and one of the DS sequels and felt like I was just playing the exact same game again. When NFT "art" and generative art came out it, the spammy and uninspired nature of it reminded me of one specific thing: the hundreds of Pokémon released after the original 150.

Re: Nintendo’s Wii U and 3DS online services will shut down in April

#123

It’ll never happen, but I think codifying a concept similar to “abandonware” in law would be a huge step forward. If a person can’t buy or rent a piece of media, then it should be able to be freely shared. Maybe add a short time-out period in case there are momentary hiccups with a creator. Make it apply not just to videogames, but books, movies, music, etc. After all, if you can’t buy it, you’re not depriving the cr…

I don't know if this would work. Right now, Winnie the Pooh has gone public domain, and if you've seen the reaction to "Winnie the Pooh: Blood and Honey" or a new video game called "Winnie's Hole"... most people really, really do not like that Winnie the Pooh is being expanded in the horror direction. Some are even calling for copyright to be eternal because the public is showing that it cannot handle public domain r…

One of the most physical jobs I have ever taken as a student involved emptying a Warehouse full to the brim with Winnie the Pooh VHS tapes.

We had to put the things in boxes, then pallets, wrap the pallets in plastic, label them, and then someone would come with a machine and take them away. It was more than a week of dusk-to-dawn physical work, lost a lot of weight.

In my mind, turning Winnie the Pooh into an horror story makes a lot of sense.

Re: Nintendo’s Wii U and 3DS online services will shut down in April

#124
post #117
post #79

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Nobody is doubting ownership. The problem is your (a).

If the binaries are freely redistributable but worthless without the blockchain auth, then it's harmless to let any torrent site host them, right?

> If the binaries are freely redistributable but worthless without the blockchain auth

How can that happen in our right‐click‐save world?

Re: Nintendo’s Wii U and 3DS online services will shut down in April

#125
post #117
post #79

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Nobody is doubting ownership. The problem is your (a).

If the binaries are freely redistributable but worthless without the blockchain auth, then it's harmless to let any torrent site host them, right?

Binaries are not freely redistributable

Re: Nintendo’s Wii U and 3DS online services will shut down in April

#126
post #117

Earlier quoted context omitted.

If the binaries are freely redistributable but worthless without the blockchain auth, then it's harmless to let any torrent site host them, right?

> If the binaries are freely redistributable but worthless without the blockchain auth How can that happen in our right‐click‐save world?

Other way around. The idea is that anybody can right-click-save whatever game they like. But when you run the game, the first thing it would do is check your blockchain wallets for authorization to execute this game.

Basically, accept that your game media will be copied willy-nilly and do a "does the user actually have ownership rights to this" check that is already common today, except that do this check against the blockchain so that there isn't a single-point-of-failure by putting all reliance on the vendor's auth servers.

Re: Nintendo’s Wii U and 3DS online services will shut down in April

#127
post #126

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> If the binaries are freely redistributable but worthless without the blockchain auth How can that happen in our right‐click‐save world?

Other way around. The idea is that anybody can right-click-save whatever game they like. But when you run the game, the first thing it would do is check your blockchain wallets for authorization to execute this game. Basically, accept that your game media will be copied willy-nilly and do a "does the user actually have ownership rights to this" check that is already common today, except that do this check against the…

So if one person posts a private key that owns the wallet then anyone can verify that they own the game with a local copy of the blockchain.

Re: Nintendo’s Wii U and 3DS online services will shut down in April

#128

It’ll never happen, but I think codifying a concept similar to “abandonware” in law would be a huge step forward. If a person can’t buy or rent a piece of media, then it should be able to be freely shared. Maybe add a short time-out period in case there are momentary hiccups with a creator. Make it apply not just to videogames, but books, movies, music, etc. After all, if you can’t buy it, you’re not depriving the cr…

But wouldn't that then make contracts such as "periods of exclusivity" or for example the contracts that allow a company like Netflix to have the rights to something for a certain duration impossible to have? Wouldn't that make it impossible to "rent" stuff to people?

I think the thing that most people misunderstand is that Nintendo is "renting" this stuff to you. They certainly don't shout it out but that is the case.

Tbf I'd love if laws were changed so that exclusivity was illegal - it's the reason Netflix wen't from being "oh, this is cool I'll pay rather than pirate" to the absolute hellscape that it is now, Netflix, Hulu, Disney+, Crunchyroll, Funimation, Amazon Prime Video, etc, etc (seems to be a new one every month). It should be illegal to withhold content based on company or region. No more greedy suit & ties shaking their grubby paws for exclusivity on x show for y streaming platform for z months in j region.

But that'll never happen. Same thing as price controls on Hollywood, etc. Why does the movie cost 300 million to make? Oh yeah cause we're paying the main actors & actresses 50 million, 45 million and 30 million. WHY? Because capitalism, movie studios can just offer more than "the other guys", but of course this cost, instigated by greedy businessmen, gets pushed onto us the consumers. "Oh but making a movie is a risk, it might not do well" would it would certainly be less of a fucking risk if it was capped so that budgets were more in the 50 million range. But just like ridding the world of tax havens and other nonsense, it'll never happen.

Capitalism is proving to be more and more anti-consumer.

Re: Nintendo’s Wii U and 3DS online services will shut down in April

#129

It’ll never happen, but I think codifying a concept similar to “abandonware” in law would be a huge step forward. If a person can’t buy or rent a piece of media, then it should be able to be freely shared. Maybe add a short time-out period in case there are momentary hiccups with a creator. Make it apply not just to videogames, but books, movies, music, etc. After all, if you can’t buy it, you’re not depriving the cr…

They should have a window for companies to liquidate their inventory and then release a patch to remove any modding restriction. Nintendo has done the opposite.

Because a large part of their business is their customers crying out for rereleases/nostalgia. Whenever N rereleases or remasters stuff on Switch it sells like hotcakes, because people haven't been able to buy often for more than a decade, since the original release.

Pretty sure Nintendo is internally opposed to the idea of secondhand games and would stop it if they could without a massive outcry.

Re: Nintendo’s Wii U and 3DS online services will shut down in April

#130

It’ll never happen, but I think codifying a concept similar to “abandonware” in law would be a huge step forward. If a person can’t buy or rent a piece of media, then it should be able to be freely shared. Maybe add a short time-out period in case there are momentary hiccups with a creator. Make it apply not just to videogames, but books, movies, music, etc. After all, if you can’t buy it, you’re not depriving the cr…

I don't know if this would work. Right now, Winnie the Pooh has gone public domain, and if you've seen the reaction to "Winnie the Pooh: Blood and Honey" or a new video game called "Winnie's Hole"... most people really, really do not like that Winnie the Pooh is being expanded in the horror direction. Some are even calling for copyright to be eternal because the public is showing that it cannot handle public domain r…

I mean Disney has blatantly started using the "steamboat Mickey" as their "logo" for a while now as they KNOW the copyright is going to expire soon, so I believe they're going to try to pursue it as "but it's our trademark, see?" now.
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