gbadev.org forum archive

This is a read-only mirror of the content originally found on forum.gbadev.org (now offline), salvaged from Wayback machine copies. A new forum can be found here.

DS Flash Equipment > Potentially Damaging SPOnG News Item

#45360 - PhoenixSoft - Thu Jun 09, 2005 11:28 pm

http://news.spong.com/x?art=8799

Quote:
Nintendo Company Limited will be reeling today as it sees widespread plundering of its Nintendo DS handheld platform explode across the Internet with the sad news that full-scale piracy is now well underway.

Nintendo DS Flash cards are now available, along with USB writers. This situation is compounded by the fact that ROMs of DS games have become widely available on Internet piracy sites and, private FTP servers, and via peer-to-peer networks - a damaging blow to Nintendo?s new handheld console.

Nintendo has struggled with piracy for its portable products since the first Game Boy launched almost 15 years ago. Within months of the original machine?s launch, cartridges from China and Taiwan offering up to 30 games each were available for around the price of a single official game. This problem continued through the days of the Game Boy Color and persisted on the Game Boy Advance, with card writers and associated peripherals remaining available throughout Nintendo?s battle to regain control of the situation.

As you may remember, Nintendo acted aggressively and successfully against Hong-Kong-based Lik-Sang, forcing the well-known online games store to withdraw its line of Game Boy ?development? tools. Nintendo DS emulation software is also now widely available, with reports claiming to have a near perfect clone of Nintendo?s machine running on PC with software to boot, as it were.

A typical package being offered to potential home pirates consists of a 512MB card, a USB card reader, a Game Boy Advance Flash card and associated software, including emulators for Game Boy, Game Boy Advance, NES, PC Engine and GameGear. The asking price is generally a shade over ?100 for this package, a worryingly tempting proposition for technically-minded gamers, already with a proven appetite for such systems.

SPOnG contacted Nintendo for clarification of its position on this news but was unable to get comment at time of going to press. We expect feedback later on today and will update this news piece accordingly.


You can see from this story just how wrong they are. DS flash cards? Near perfect emulation? We wish! I have already emailed them, and I suggest that others do the same. This is giving the whole scene a bad image.

#45363 - Diskun - Fri Jun 10, 2005 12:03 am

PhoenixSoft wrote:
You can see from this story just how wrong they are. DS flash cards? Near perfect emulation? We wish! I have already emailed them, and I suggest that others do the same. This is giving the whole scene a bad image.

You know.... SPOnG is just a piece of shit. Don't bother sending e-mails to them as Nintendo will not even reply to their's.

Greets

#45367 - cory1492 - Fri Jun 10, 2005 12:41 am

Quote:
Nintendo DS emulation software is also now widely available, with reports claiming to have a near perfect clone of Nintendo?s machine running on PC with software to boot, as it were.
ROFLMAO - it took how long to get VBA to where it is today? Maybe they are speaking of the official Nintendo emulator (IRIS/Ensata/Nitro?)

And a single flash cart that costs more than the DS itself, requiring specially patched commercial dumps before they work with it - being a threat to Nintendo????

#45368 - Lynx - Fri Jun 10, 2005 12:43 am

I like this one:

Quote:
512MB card, a USB card reader, a Game Boy Advance Flash card


I want that.. 512MB (bytes) card (guessing it must me DS) and if it has a 512MB DS card, why would you need the GBA Flash card mentioned 2 items later?

They are total dipshitz

#45373 - MumblyJoe - Fri Jun 10, 2005 1:02 am

Wow! 512MB(yte)! Thats way better than the 512Mb(it) cards that they are actually talking about but just don't know it!
_________________
www.hungrydeveloper.com
Version 2.0 now up - guaranteed at least 100% more pleasing!

#45481 - The 9th Sage - Sat Jun 11, 2005 3:17 am

PhoenixSoft wrote:

You can see from this story just how wrong they are. DS flash cards? Near perfect emulation? We wish! I have already emailed them, and I suggest that others do the same. This is giving the whole scene a bad image.


I think we can assume they did no reasearch whatsoever. If anything, blame NeoFlash for taking tech designed by homebrewers and then hiring a group of corporate hackers to create bootable copies of NDS games playable using said technology rebranded. I think it's safe to assume NeoFlash really does know nothing about how the NDS really works...perhaps their hackers know some, but not their company especially since all they have produced so far are rebranded technologies that already existed.

They even think you can dump an NDS card by hooking it up to a magical USB cable with a box on one end (I assume that's where those idiots got that bit of the 'article' from). I mean, I am NOT a homebrewer...by that I mean I don't know how to program for the NDS. But even I know this. The reason I am here is to see all the neat stuff that has come out of, and will continue to come out of this scene, not to pirate games.

The NDS is an exciting piece of hardware, I would never want to see it fail by doing the whole piracy thing. I never even pirated anything for GBA although it would have been infinitely easier than pirating an NDS title.
_________________
Now with 20% More Old Man from Zelda 1 than ever before!

#45513 - PhoenixSoft - Sat Jun 11, 2005 12:20 pm

Well, there is a USB dumping device, actually:

http://www.neoflash.com/

[Images not permitted - Click here to view it]

#45517 - TheMikaus - Sat Jun 11, 2005 2:56 pm

Yeah, but even Neoflash says it doesn't work quite right yet. It just gives you random data segments or the SRAM.

#45534 - Evil_MK - Sat Jun 11, 2005 6:55 pm

Bleh, why can't news people get the facts straight...

I'm for legitimate development, we don't need legitimate development being given a bad name...

#45560 - The 9th Sage - Sun Jun 12, 2005 12:57 am

PhoenixSoft wrote:
Well, there is a USB dumping device, actually:

http://www.neoflash.com/

[Images not permitted - Click here to view it]


Yes, but it doesn't work because dumping a DS card, as I understand it isn't really the same as dumping a GBA cart to your harddrive....because of the encryption as I recall (the encryption screwing up their copies).

Actually, I think in the thread about that on their forum Darkfader even says something about a device like that not being able to dump NDS cards. I think he'd know better than I would.

Anyway, NeoFlash just rather pisses me off, so I should probably stop ranting about them. :P
_________________
Now with 20% More Old Man from Zelda 1 than ever before!