90%? 90?! Seriously. (This is where I wish I could do the Jon Stewart eyebrow-raise) From gamer reactions around the Internet, it's easy to tell not many have even heard of this DS modification, let alone most of the casual gamers who own a DS. Let's be realistic here, do you think your Nintendogs-playing 8-year-old or that Brain Age-playing businessman are cruising the Internets looking for these hacking tools?The Sunday Post cites a "Nintendo DS user in Lanarkshire" telling them roughly 50 games are available for download with the R4 chip.
A good number of articles have cropped up across gaming and tech sites, but this article appears to have originated on The Sunday Post. The next site it appeared on was GamesIndustry.biz, which has contacted ELSPA to back up those stats.
This provides a chance for a completely insane conspiracy theory. The R4 chip was obviously very under the radar before this morning. Now it's all over the Internet and will no doubt see an increase in sales. If the Sunday Post was the kind of publication you could point a finger at and accuse of having an agenda, which after clicking around their site it does not appear to be, I might think someone in the industry really wanted Nintendo's stock to drop a little more. Alas, I realize this is simply a crackpot, conflict theory idea.
Still, the proliferation of this story on the Internet will hurt Nintendo's sales more than help. While I definitely don't see the DS going the way of the Dreamcast and getting pirated out of existence, it's upsetting to see gamers stoop so low to get free games.
Using an R4 chip would definitely be lowest of the low for piracy. Nintendo DS games are the cheapest in software. It's hard to argue with titles priced at $19.99 or $29.99. True, there are some titles that sneak up to that $34.99 price point, but considering you could be paying half of that per month for World of Warcraft or almost double that for a PS3 or Xbox 360 game, it's not bad. In fact, that's one of the reasons I love portable gaming. It may lack the graphical appearance, but it still provides a solid gaming experience if you know what games to pick up.
Will we see something like the PS2 mod chip raids if this "crisis," as the Sunday Post paints it, continues? (Just FYI, PS2 modification chips were mostly used to play imported games on the PS2; not to play pirated games) Doubtful. I'd like to hope my fellow gamers would have enough integrity to not pick an R4 over the Internets from China, which is where they're made. It's one thing when my clothes, dishes, bootleg anime DVDs, everything, etc. are from China, but when something brings semi-destructive implications to the gaming industry--well, that's when it gets personal.
I shouldn't be saying things like this, especally because it's so ambiguous how much actual harm these chips are doing so far, if any harm at all. Never can tell with the Internet, after all.
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Edit: Feb. 3 2008, 8:00 p.m. EST
The 90% statistic has been officially declared erroneous. GamesIndustry.biz got to the bottom of it.
So at the end of the day, only the Sunday Post's credibility suffers. Yay, Internet.However, a spokesperson for ELSPA told GamesIndustry.biz that, "[John] didn't quote The Sunday Post on any figures whatsoever."
"ELSPA would certainly never presume to comment about America or anywhere else outside of the UK," added the spokesperson.
...
The report, said ELSPA, is a hatchet job consisting of facts from an article from Singapore, false quotes and a genuine conversation with Hillier on the availability of the R4 cartridge in the UK.
