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

https://www.theverge.com/2023/10/4/23902615/wii-u-nintendo-3ds-online-shut-down

by c_ris • 3 years ago

138 128 3 years ago

c_ris• 3 years ago

On the positive side: Players will be able to download patches and redownload games purchased from the eShop for the foreseeable future.

buildbuildbuild• 3 years ago

This an evidence of gaping holes in digital consumer rights. People bought eShop software and physical hardware that they can no longer use or update.

Regulators should force companies to open source any games and associated server software that consumers paid to "own", yet companies are no longer willing to maintain.

notamy• 3 years ago

The 3DS launched in early 2011 and the Wii U launched in late 2012. I don’t know that it’s unreasonable to discontinue supporting them after a decade.

goosedragons3• 3 years ago

The 3DS wasn't discontinued until 2020 and the Wii U 2017. Games were still released for a few years after too. There are older Switches than some 3DSs.

Pxtl8• 3 years ago

The Atari 2600 launched in 1977. If you can get your hands on a working console and cartridge, they will still play regardless of the status of Atari's company software infrastructure. You can even transfer ownership of the cartridge to other people at no cost. The license even permits resale!

Cloud-based software allows corporations to rewrite ownership rights however they see fit.

edit: Aside, marking the lifespan of a product from launch is wrong. It should be marked from the date of distribution of the last product from the manufacturer, because that's the last time somebody was able to buy a "new" one, and a buyer has a reasonable expectation of long-term-support for buying a new piece of hardware. For example, I can buy a 2022 Moto G Stylus from the Motorola website today. They promise 3 years of security updates... but that phone was released a year and a half ago, so they're actually promising 1.5 years of security patches.

hoherd• 3 years ago

I think you're missing the point of the parent's suggestion.

Regulators should force companies to open source any games and associated server software that consumers paid to "own", yet companies are no longer willing to maintain.

Nintendo shouldn't be forced to support them, but consumers should be able to continue using them. The hardware still works great, and even if not, we have virtual hardware. This should be no different from me being able to pick up a game of Clue that my parents bought in the 60's and play it. These 3DS and Wii-U games were purchased by millions of people, and they are part of our global culture. People should not have to worry that they are legally prohibited from finding ways to play them.

GuB-42• 3 years ago

Nintendo is happy to make money off the NES intellectual property, defending it more aggressively than anyone else in the industry. They will do the same for the 3DS and WiiU.

That they are releasing emulator-based ports shows that the platform is still alive, and yet, they stop supporting the actual hardware.

It is totally within their rights to discontinue support, and it is not even unreasonable, but unlike some companies that offer some nice "parting gifts" when they do that (ex: open source, DRM free version, or just free credit), you will get nothing but lawsuits from Nintendo.

At least, you will still be able to play the game you bought, there are more evil companies out there.

adra2• 3 years ago

Yeah, I mean I "bought" my Godfather DVDs two decades ago, so it's totally fine that I lose the ability to watch it now, of course.

This sort of well-we-have-planned-obsolescence-built-into-our-product should be a hard red line that's worth fighting now, because pretty much any game released today from AAA studios have at the very least lip service online functionality. If we continue down this path, it'll be like the dark ages of tv where entire libraries of important cultural works were lost due to neglegent preservation (see BBC tape reuse).

It's likely that when this comes to a head, there will be countless titles gone forever and nobody with the skill/licensing to repair the loss of culturally relevant material. If EA decides dragon age is no longer worth their servers kicking, will I lose my BioWare collection? Probably.

goosedragons3• 3 years ago

Games can still be updated/redownloaded at least for now. It's really just online servers for games going down and for /most/ Wii U/3DS games it's not a huge deal. That said you are right and it is frustrating that companies can pull this crap. There is at least some effort already by the community to recreate the Wii U/3DS servers with Pretendo. Sucks that everything has to be reverse engineered though!

filoleg2• 3 years ago

People bought eShop software and physical hardware that they can no longer use or update.

Yeah, about that - ‘FAQ from Nintendo says that players will be able to download patches and redownload games purchased from the eShop “for the foreseeable future.”’ Directly from the link in the OP.

HideousKojima• 3 years ago

If the original Wii and DSi are any indication, the store shutdowns should follow in just couple of years.

Pxtl8• 3 years ago

Honestly, I hate blockchains, but I feel like they're the ultimate solution for digital goods. I don't want to own NFTs for their own sake as "speculative assets" or "stores of value" or nonsense like that, but an NFT that is my certificate of ownership of a copy of like a videogame or a streamable movie, etc. would just make sense. Combine that with a requirement that (a) binaries be freely redistributable, and (b) binaries must authenticate against a blockchain and not against private servers.

I mean that still doesn't solve the problem of games that require servers to operate for online play, but at lest that would return digital goods to near-parity with physical media in terms of copy-protection and transferability and ownership.

If you go the extra mile and require that companies publish free dedicated-server-binaries for end-of-life products and allow clients to point to custom servers, you could still run the game while still protecting the seller from piracy. I mean, you'd have no security patches so if you're running eg your own Star Wars Galaxies server you'd want it to be invitational-only and secured with a VPN, since playing with strangers would get the server and clients hacked.

That seems like it would be a reasonable compromise for video-game preservation - old games are therefore available indefinitely to anyone who purchased access to them (and this is transferable), but without companies having to abandon their copyright protections.

I mean this approach would probably have to be mandated by a government or a near-monopoly e-store like Valve, so I'm sure it would get screwed up and fail, but a boy can dream.

blincoln• 3 years ago

a requirement that (a) binaries be freely redistributable, and (b) binaries must authenticate against a blockchain and not against private servers

If the software runs on general-purpose hardware, it would be trivial to modify it to bypass the blockchain authentication step. If the software is only compatible with some sort of locked-down platform that won't run modified code, then it already has an enforcement mechanism (whatever is used to prevent running modified code), and a blockchain is redundant.

Cerium• 3 years ago

Why should society protect copyright for goods that are discontinued? Discontinuation of a product is generally a financial decision; in essecne you are making a public declaration that the product is unprofitable and throwing up your hands.

Your right to protection against piracy should end when you discontinue a product.

jncfhnb3• 3 years ago

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

VyseofArcadia• 3 years ago

I wonder, if there were legal requirements to maintain services like this, would we see fewer of them? Suddenly, your service becomes, after a certain point, a liability.

Zambyte2• 3 years ago

Not just open source, it should be in the public domain.

CM30• 3 years ago

Fortunately there is a fan run project that's working on recreating the online services for these consoles/games, in the same way that Wiimmfi has gotten the DS and Wii's multiplayer functionality up and running. See the Pretendo project here:

https://pretendo.network/

It's not exactly feature perfect yet, but 2024 gives them time to fix up many of the features they haven't gotten working, and hopefully expand support to more games.

raytopia2• 3 years ago

I know it's not realistic but it'd be cool if pretendo made a e-shop replacement.

linkpuff• 3 years ago

It is technically possible, but it will only hold homebrew at best, due to licensing nightmares. They published a video recently of a PoC of it happening in their discord

I think this could replace the likes of Universal Updater (3DS's main homebrew browser) if it gets to public. Not that UU is bad, it just lacks the tiny eshop dudes :)

HoppyHaus• 3 years ago

There is something just like that for one of the largest 3ds piracy sites. I won't link to it, but it isn't hard to find

kristofferR• 3 years ago

https://hshop.erista.me/ is basically that, it contains nearly all 3DS abandonware.

haunter• 3 years ago

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...

jandrese• 3 years ago

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

itronitron• 3 years ago

Technically, no... because that's already obvious.

antifa• 3 years ago

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.

derstander7• 3 years ago

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 creator of revenue.

Actually, looking back at what I wrote, I think maybe I’m just describing the Copyright system as it was originally envisioned before times were extended to such ridiculous lengths. Whoops.

12907835202• 3 years ago

But the value of something is often its scarcity...

The owner of Once Upon a Time in Shaolin by Wu Tang would be pretty mad if it was freely shared because it couldn't be bought or rented.

Context from Wikipedia for those who don't know it: "Once Upon a Time in Shaolin is the seventh studio album by the American hip hop group Wu-Tang Clan. Only one physical copy of the album was created, with no ability to download or stream it digitally. Purchased directly from the Wu-Tang Clan in 2015, it became the most expensive work of music ever sold."

You'd have to have special categories whereby quantities could be intentionally limited.

But then Nintendo would presumably argue that they intended there to be a limited number of Wii's or Pokémon Red or whatever.

derstander7• 3 years ago

You'd have to have special categories whereby quantities could be intentionally limited.

This is artificial scarcity, especially when applied to things that can be distributed digitally. I don’t particularly see a reason to encourage it. It’s not like 1s and 0s are in short supply compared to, say, precious metals.

And omitting that carve out will explicitly prevent Nintendo and other companies from making that argument.

makapuf2• 3 years ago

The owner of Once Upon a Time in Shaolin by Wu Tang would be pretty mad if it was freely shared because it couldn't be bought or rented.

Indeed. And? If you say that in that case it would never have been produced, well this does not change much for the N-1 current and future humans.

In the other hand, yes sometimes you might want to limit diffusion somehow, it's your right and it might be complicated. Better to have full copyright, but for 20 years. (That would mean Wii games out of copyright in 3 years), LGTM.

NoMoreNicksLeft2• 3 years ago

By what meaning of value?

The speculative gains such a person hopes to receive aren't a good measure of value.

If something increases pleasure via entertainment, this is objectively quantifiable. Every pair of ears that hears it increases its value. Preventing it from being heard drives that value down near zero (to 1, presumably). Even if we posit that each person who would listen would be willing to pay a different amount for that privilege, then the person who is hoarding it is driving that price down below whatever paltry price the million listeners might each pay individually.

I see no reason why copyright policy should be driven by the needs of lame publicity stunts.

_aavaa_5• 3 years ago

But the value of something is often its scarcity...

But the value to who. We have copyright laws (ostensibly) for the benefit of society as a whole by allowing creators to have a limited time monopoly on selling their ideas.

then Nintendo would presumably argue that they intended there to be a limited number of Wii's or Pokémon Red or whatever.

Them arguing it doesn't make them right. Any more than it makes sense to allow Disney to keep extending copyright decade after decade simply because they're greedy.

skeaker3• 3 years ago

Let him be mad, then. I don't know why you think the masses should care if one greedy guy gets upset.

kmeisthax2• 3 years ago

Further context: Once Upon a Time in Shaolin was bought by Martin Shkreli, who then got arrested, and the album fell into US custody. It's probably been auctioned off since.

Wu-Tang Clan intended this to be a weird kind of performance art, so I won't judge them for this. However, this kind of artificial scarcity is absolute bullshit. The whole reason why we have copyright law is so that creative works are created and made widely available, not to create new asset classes for the ten-figures class to park money in.

Nintendo's argument wouldn't be that they only intended to make so many Wiis. Their argument would be that copyright is about control, they're entitled to control, and if you don't like it you can go fuck yourself[0]. To them, Once Upon a Time in Shaolin is just copyright maximalist extremism: yes, if we think we'll make more money selling one copy and denying the rest of the world access to the work, then it's our right, and anything less than our right is equivalent to setting loose a home-invading rapist[1].

[0] This is rhetorical, I do not actually intend for any commenters on HN to do that.

[1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Jack_Valenti#Valenti_on_new_te...

ibejoeb3• 3 years ago

Hmm. I don't think I agree with the philosophy of it, even if the outcome is good for consumers. For one, just because something is not available for purchase does not mean that the creator is not deprived of the would-be revenue. An existing owner of a copy of the media should have access to it for the duration, but I can't get to why it should become freely shareable. Secondly, that puts an unfair burden on creators. If I do a run of of my book, and it sells out, I don't think it becomes open season on duplicating it digitally, and I shouldn't have to always carry excess inventory just in case it's a hit.

Beyond that, as you say, it'll never happen, because entities like Disney are not going to forego their ability to drum up demand by "vaulting" their properties.

derstander7• 3 years ago

but I can't get to why it should become freely shareable.

A side effect of this would be to encourage the creator or company to continue making it available.

Secondly, that puts an unfair burden on creators. If I do a run of of my book, and it sells out, I don't think it becomes open season on duplicating it digitally, and I shouldn't have to always carry excess inventory just in case it's a hit.

That’s why I explicitly included a short time period to account for such hiccups. And, for example, if you’re talking about books then print on demand is certainly a way to satisfy the for sale criteria.

adra2• 3 years ago

I think vaulting was relevant in the 90s-00s when physical movie sale revenues were relevant, but the business model of movies has changed... a lot. I wouldn't be surprised if all their back catalog are on Disney+ now or released slowly in a few years whenever new content production hits droughts.

_aavaa_5• 3 years ago

An existing owner of a copy of the media should have access to it for the duration, but I can't get to why it should become freely shareable.

Because copyright laws (in the US at least) are (supposed to) provide to creators a limited time monopoly on their work in order to "To promote the Progress of Science and useful Arts".

Getting the right to squat on a piece of art that you claimed copyright over but not doing anything with is counter to that whole purpose of providing copyright in the first place.

Secondly, that puts an unfair burden on creators. If I do a run of of my book, and it sells out, I don't think it becomes open season on duplicating it digitally, and I shouldn't have to always carry excess inventory just in case it's a hit.

This is a strawman interpretation. There is a lot of room between "I ran out of stock today" and "this game hasn't been on sale for 3 decades".

realusername• 3 years ago

For one, just because something is not available for purchase does not mean that the creator is not deprived of the would-be revenue.

That's what the large conglomerates keep saying, although they haven't been able to produce any study proving that.

Since there's no proof of it, the loss of revenue is some urban legend.

sumtechguy• 3 years ago

One instance I recently saw in the eXo project was them trying to figure out who owned a magazine. First guy 'i sold it to second guy' second guy 'i sold it to thrid guy' third guy 'never owned it first one always owned it'. Basically one of those 3 own it but do not even care anymore about it other than 'not mine'. There are a lot of instances of 'lost ownership'.

josephcsible• 3 years ago

If I do a run of of my book, and it sells out, I don't think it becomes open season on duplicating it digitally

Nobody is asking for that. We only want it to become open season on duplicating it digitally if you choose not to do any further runs of it.

gjsman-10003• 3 years ago

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 responsibly. There's even a growing argument that copyright actually prevents unoriginal ripoffs and shock content more than it stifles creativity.

Emotionally, I do understand the sentiment. Especially when more content like Mickey Mouse or The Hobbit (in Canada, just the books, next year) go public domain - I wouldn't be shocked if we get calls to just abandon the concept of public domain from how companies are using it.

Let me be clear: I still support Public Domain. I also think people who make slasher films using childhood characters are the most perfect method you could devise, if you were a corporation, to make people mad at Public Domain's existence. If I were Disney and somehow capable of sending money anonymously, I'd pay for the creation of as much awful Winnie the Pooh content as possible; then send a letter to a local senator asking for Congress to investigate restrictions.

frostiness• 3 years ago

Is that really the fault of the public domain or a reaction to the fact that Winnie the Pooh was copyrighted for so long? The appeal of horror Winnie the Pooh in almost every single instance has been due to the novelty that it's even possible to do legally, and somewhat as an act of rebellion against the company arguably responsible for holding it hostage for so long.

makapuf2• 3 years ago

Uh ... I don't like what Disney made of Cinderella, pinocchio or pocahontas. Commercial reuse handle copyright miserably.

Anyway, people having fun with Winnie ? Who will care in 2 years? Do you often see shock content of cinderella ? Or xxx content of beauty and the beast?

NoMoreNicksLeft2• 3 years ago

Some are even calling for copyright to be eternal because the public is showing that it cannot handle public domain responsibly.

If someone is saying "public domain is bad because the people who want to control works they don't and can't really own can no longer control these works they absolutely do not own"... They're really missing the point.

omgmajk• 3 years ago

Not that Blood and Honey was particularly good as a movie but you do miss the fact that even if "most people really, really do not like" it, some people, including me really, really do. The concept of it. And this for me personally is winning and I wish it was done more.

I would Love to see more horror on weird stuff, especially Disney stuff.

wnoise2• 3 years ago

most people really, really do not like that Winnie the Pooh is being expanded in the horror direction.

Fascinating. I have not actually seen that reaction in my filter bubble. Much the opposite, actually.

autoexec3• 3 years ago

most people really, really do not like that Winnie the Pooh is being expanded in the horror direction.

Those people can make the choice not to buy or consume those kinds of works. That's their right, but it does not and must not infringe on the rights of others who don't share their delicate sensibilities.

Some are even calling for copyright to be eternal because the public is showing that it cannot handle public domain responsibly.

There is nothing at all irresponsible about artistic works that appeal to some people but not others. Outside of legal constraints, there is no one person or group dictating to the world which art is or isn't responsible and I'm so glad the decision of where those lines are drawn and when they should be crossed is largely left up to the artists when creating and to the audience when consuming. Artists and audiences self-censor all the time and it isn't a problem.

By way of example, when Gaiman was writing Neverwhere he thought it originally made running away and joining a underworld society of homeless people seem fun and magical, and he worried that making homelessness a bit too cool might inspire young readers to make poor choices. He made changes to his story until he felt comfortable with what he was putting out into the world. I think I'd have liked to read his original version, but I fully respect that he felt it would be irresponsible. Not every writer would have made that choice, and certainly not every writer should be forced to.

Every author should be free to decide for themselves if they're comfortable or not with their own words. Audiences should be free to walk away from things that make them too uncomfortable, and free to stay and enjoy what the artist created otherwise. The absolute worst case scenario would be one where the only art we ever have access to is a bunch of watered down, homogenized, G-rated content that doesn't confront or challenge anyone at all.

There's even a growing argument that copyright actually prevents unoriginal ripoffs and shock content more than it stifles creativity.

I have no doubt that it does, at times, prevent some "ripoffs" or shock content, but I fail to see how censoring art to avoid those things is in any way preferable. The harm to society caused by censorship far outweighs the harm caused by "things exist that I don't like". It simply isn't worth the loss of our freedom to prevent "bad" art.

Worse, even perpetual copyright wouldn't eliminate those things entirely. Shock content, especially those created based on 'wholesome' artistic works has always been with us, and not even copyright has been able to stop it. For just about every franchise you can imagine illegal artistic works created to satisfy 'Rule 34' exist and illegal fan fiction can be found filled with sex and gore. None of it has caused society to collapse. It won't destroy society when that art can be legally made and sold either.

otikik• 3 years ago

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.

fennecfoxy3• 3 years ago

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.

innocenat• 3 years ago

I am not sure how that would work. "Artificial Intelligence a Modern Approach" 1st Edition is no longer available. Should it be allowed to be freely shared when 4th edition is still on sale? The changes aren't that minor, either.

smoldesu3• 3 years ago

Should it be allowed to be freely shared when 4th edition is still on sale?

I think so, even though the context around it might be more confusing/less modern or relevant.

For books and research, you can argue a lot of trivialities. For games and art, I think it's a necessary preservation requirement. For example, the other day I wanted to play Armored Core 4/4A. Digital copies can't be bought now that the servers are dead, and secondhand physical copies run well over $400. Your only convenient option for experiencing AC4/4A is emulation or piracy, which is absurd (but also the inconvenient truth).

Unless we'd rather these old and seemingly irrelevant works fall off the face of the earth, legalizing their preservation and archival should be urgent.

derstander7• 3 years ago

If the changes aren’t that minor, then people would certainly gain extra value from buying the 4th edition instead of freely getting the 1st.

If the changes were minor, then maybe it would stop, say, a textbook company from releasing a zillion versions of the same book with minor changes or the question ordering switched in order to extract money out of the next class of students instead of simply allowing them to buy the previous edition used. ;)

skeaker3• 3 years ago

A new edition from an author indicates that they believe there is enough new information to justify selling you a whole separate book. If that is the case they should agree that the 1st edition is fair game since it won't have the same information. If they protest, well... Was the 4th edition ever necessary to begin with if the 1st edition is just as good? In cases like that I still support this idea because editions like this absolutely are used to gouge students at times, and this would stop that dead in its tracks.

bluSCALE4• 3 years ago

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.

fennecfoxy3• 3 years ago

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.

derstander7• 3 years ago

One of the reasons I was thinking this way is that there is a lot of media (certainly video games, but even movies and books) that are already lost. I think being able to share them freely earlier in their lifecycle will prevent some of that.

https://www.npr.org/2023/07/21/1189450157/the-classic-video-...

kmeisthax2• 3 years ago

After all, if you can’t buy it, you’re not depriving the creator of revenue.

A good chunk of the history of copyright law is publishers finding creative ways to front-run their own authors. Publishers would agree to publish your book in, say, the US - where they'd be bound by US copyright law - and then abscond with it in a country where US copyright didn't apply, and therefore the translations would be a new work wholly divorced from the author's ownership. Modern copyright law is written with the assumption that any unauthorized sale is a lost one, because nobody is going to buy the same work twice unless we take away the one that wasn't paid for correctly.

After copyright law was maximized in this way, publishers pivoted to demanding total control up-front. This created the modern creative industry with hordes of "creative working class"/"below the talent line" professions that wouldn't exist if control were atomized to individual creators negotiating licensing agreements for everything. One quirk of this new business model is that certain legacy rights became far more lucrative. Publishers realized that they could take works off the market and then bring them back to profit off FOMO, or sell 'better' versions of the same work twice anyway.

You still come to the same conclusion I have, though, which is that the problem is term length. Instead of carving out new loopholes, variable term lengths, etc... just make them smaller overall. The publishers won't negotiate with us, why negotiate with them?

phendrenad2• 3 years ago

I've suggested that if a book/software/song/movie has not been sold by the copyright holder for > 25 years, it should lose copyright and DMCA protections (but not trademark protections). But the more I think about it, the less I think it could actually work. If something hasn't been sold for N years, chances are the copyright holder doesn't consider it valuable, and won't go after pirates. For example, Nintendo, before they realized that people like old games.

autoexec3• 3 years ago

After all, if you can’t buy it, you’re not depriving the creator of revenue.

Once the copyright for most media stopped being owned by artists and started being owned by corporations there was a lot of value in keeping artistic works locked up by copyright and legally inaccessible to the pubic.

Mostly, it means that companies don't have to worry about old things competing for the time/attention of the people they want spending money on their new things. It also lets them amass huge catalogues of out of print media that can be sold or traded.

It's just one more way that our modern copyright system has been corrupted to work against its original goals, all so that corporations with vast fortunes can get even richer by robbing us of our own culture.

LaundroMat• 3 years ago

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/.

fennecfoxy3• 3 years ago

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.

Sirikon• 3 years ago

Piracy is the only real alternative

raytopia2• 3 years ago

This is sad. I really wish consoles were more open platforms than they are today so people didn't have to jailbreak their devices to run stuff like pretendo and install homebrew. Also imagine how cool a replacement E-Shop would be.

Someone really needs to work on creating a open console or even one with a form factor similar to the 3DS/DS. I mean imagine how cool a analogue pocket DS would be or maybe even a fantasy console based on the DS. But regardless I really wish consoles weren't so locked down.

jlarocco• 3 years ago

Meh. People knew when they bought in that the platforms were closed.

If they wanted "open platforms" they should've bought PC games.

_chu1• 3 years ago

PC does not offer the same experiences Nintendo has. Animal Crossing New Leaf was only on 3DS and is one of my favorite games ever. It's depressing kids growing up after me won't be able to experience what I did as easily, I used to do local and online multiplayer all the time, I had almost every fruit in the game. Still play it now after getting another N3DSXL last Christmas after my old one was stolen.

scblock• 3 years ago

PC games aren't particularly open. Most are heavily DRM encumbered.

godman_8• 3 years ago

Exactly! That's why I can still play Counter-Strike: Global Offensive...oh wait, nvm.

xchip• 3 years ago

I hope this help make the could thing vanish

cultureswitch• 3 years ago

I think having pure data IP protected by copyright should require said IP to be uploaded to a national database in each country. After the copyright elapses, everyone can simply download from that database.

Sure, there are a lot of works to copyright every year. That's a lot of data. But we need to save all of that somewhere, so it might as well be some place that can't go bankrupt.

hirako2000• 3 years ago

That already got sorted and worked for books, at least in the UK.

The British (National) Library held and still holds the duty to acquire in the form of legal deposit, at least one print of each book published in the UK.

So every single book published gets stored in there, and has been since its inception 50 years ago.

It gathers 170–200 millions unique items, and counting.

With free access to anybody, able to physically access the library. It has a budget of less than £150 million.

I bet implementing an archive of digital content would be a cheaper and despite more technologically challenging would remain do-able with a reasonable number of techies.

Oh isn't it what the Internet Archive is, and even more? Is that not what they've attempted to fulfill for a while now and the primary reason they haven't accomplish it is due to a legal war with large IP distributors and their armies of top paid laywers shaping the interpretation of copyright legislations?

wnoise2• 3 years ago

There are still a lot of non-digital works produced, though it is shrinking in proportion.

slowhadoken• 3 years ago

This is way more common with phones but they handle it better. The iPhone 4 came out the same year as the 3DS. Consoles have to prioritize cross compatibility to keep competing with the Steam Deck.

Willish42• 3 years ago

As sad as this news makes me for the preservation of eShop stuff, the modding community tends to rally around Nintendo products and I have pretty high faith that things will be preserved one way or another by the awesome work of modders and the emulation community.

It's a sad state of affairs for copyright law, but generally by the time Nintendo shuts down "official" access to content for a console generation, rom files are readily available from a few google searches and a relatively well-thought-out and simple modding process for the hardware.

There are many first party nintendo games and remakes that still haven't made it to newer consoles like the Switch yet. Hopefully Nintendo comes up with better backwards compatibility in the future for current Switch titles, but assuming they won't as they often don't, piracy and emulation tend to fill in the gaps pretty well in my experience.

pierat• 3 years ago

Piracy is ethical when purchasing doesnt equal owning.

This is yet another case of falsely advertised "ownership", that is really a rental.

deergomoo• 3 years ago

This will not help a jot with online play, but it’s worth noting that it’s very very easy to softmod any model of 3DS: https://3ds.hacks.guide/

The 3DS has a fantastic library but a good chunk of it is very difficult to obtain these days—either because it was only available digitally, or because prices for used physical copies are unreasonable.

It’s sad that Nintendo don’t give a shit about preservation past their ability to sell old games over and over, but if I can no longer give the creator money for a game I’m of the opinion that largely absolves any immorality of piracy.

INTPenis• 3 years ago

Aww the 3DS is still a very nice retro console where you can play anything from the Nintendo store. I'm assuming they mean the nintendo store for 3DS will shut down then?

I gave mine to my nephew a while back, it's probably broken by now. But it's still sad.

Sometimes I just feel like playing some classic games like Castlevania, Metroid and Earthbound.

jcotton42• 3 years ago

The 3DS and Wii U eShops have already shut down.

slothtrop2• 3 years ago

The interest surrounding these issues suggests to me that PC gaming is going to win greater market share. Steam placed a big bet on this well before the Deck, but they were too early.

The ability to upgrade, and still have easy access to your long-standing library, will be increasingly appealing to consumers, at least those who aren't merely casual. Either consoles will go from glorified locked-down PCs to actual PCs, or gaming PCs will just resemble consoles more through quality-of-life features.

pipeline_peak• 3 years ago

Every generation I wonder when it’s worth it to buy games digitally so I can transfer them over to the following console.

So far I have yet to see Nintendo make any effort and it really should be a crime. These things are literal PC’s and tablets, there is no technical obstacle anymore.

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

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