I'm curious, how do Nintendo justify such an anti-consumer protection? It seems like it only really has upside for them.
I don't think it's quite as cut-and-dry as this.
- The draw of a "hack free" platform varies by genre. For competitive multiplayer games, it's a big draw. For single-player and creative games, you might find a larger market in less restrictive, more moddable, platforms (eg, if you were making a Minecraft clone, would you target Switch or PC?).
- If the platform is popular enough, the level of lockdown may not affect the calculus that much.
- And, of course, it depends on how successful these measures are at preventing hacks. There's a big difference in draw between 50%, 90%, and 100% hack prevention, because of how the knowledge of cheaters affects player perception. Eg, in a competitive game, knowing cheats exist can taint the experience of being outplayed, as you wonder whether your opponent was cheating.
Overall, I'm not saying that GP's viewpoint is an invalid one, just that the tradeoffs are a little more nuanced than "more lockdown more games".
This depends a lot on your monetization strategy. If your plan is a free or low-cost game with skins for sale, having a wild west story for modding may not be at all what you want.
In the grand scheme of things, this is a very niche opinion.
How specifically would your use of the Switch change if Nintendo didn’t prevent downgrades in this way?
Uh, how ya figure?
Oh, do you mean in the, "Well, no consumer would ever actively think of that sense!" Because that's downright wrong, and it has been a longtime complaint of mine since childhood, which my family will be happy to attest to the degree of ear bending that results from these types of shenanigans every single time I discover them. Further, if you think that idea is niche, I'd like to point you toward the right-to-repair movement,as well as the bloody Android ecosystem as well.
The only people to whom what you refer to as a "niche" idea, are a niche into an nd of themselves; namely production companies that wish to infringe on the right of First Sale.
Get with the 21st Century. People are not satisfied with planned obsolescence, and while they'll consume things made in a user hostile way, I'll assure you, once an actor that commits to consumer friendly electronics fabrication gets traction in the space, and shows signs of the ability to collect good talent, people will flock to them.
Don't get me wrong. I like Nintendo, I just hate predatory hardware forging practices.
Because most people don't let this affect purchasing decisions when it's a product they really want.
Right-to-repair advocates are not the norm.
People buy iPads, iPhones, Pexels, Switches, whatever because they want them. If the product is desirable enough people will overlook planned obsolescence and a whole lot more, too.
Android is popular because it is inexpensive not because it's more open.
You really think a "consumer-friendly" electronics company will unseat Nintendo, Apple, etc.?
Knowing how to use something is becoming more productive than externalizing that knowledge and letting someone else distill it for you. I see a future driving in the direction of retraction and a pruning of inefficiency to back off of just shoveling more and more into wasteful wank, and getting back to building what you need and taking it from there.
Then again, most of my social circles have been make-do types, so maybe I am in a bubble. I certainly know the more cosmopolitanly inclined infrequently think about things like repurposing or fixing things. I'm praying that'll change and doing everything I can to instill a passion for knowing how thing's work, and caring about how it's made in the next generation, if only because no one ever was interested in being frank with me about all the decisions the market decided to make for me about what parts of my life I should and should not have access to.
I try to get them to pay attention to all the things people don't say, bexause that tends to be at the root of so much of the shit and wrongness in the world we're inhabiting.
Another way of looking at it is that it’s a platform to which they have licensed you access ... of course under those terms it should be lease rather than outright purchase (eg like a proprietary set top box) but I guess the market hasn’t quite wised up to that yet ...
Does buying music online come with unlimited redownloads yet? Or do you still have to make a backup yourself, which is tied to a device and you'll lose anyway?
If someone buys it expecting something different that's really on them.
The iPhone bothers me much more because it's a general-purpose computer.
Android is another path, but perhaps just as capitalistic as Apple, but by different mechanisms.
You are always free to buy raw hardware and build your own phone from scratch, and write all the software for it.
Life is a series of compromises. Choose wisely.
For example increasing the price is always anti-consumer, but it might be part of the deal.
So I don't like to look at products from the perspective of 1 party, since it is always a negotiation between 2 parties where both end up with a win.
Sony[1] with the PSP claimed that:
> There's a number of titles from American publishers that will be there, but are we getting full-line support? No. I'm not going to bullshit you on that.
> A lot of the stuff that will be announced at E3 we're very excited about, because they are huge titles. And we also believe that there's a way that you will be able to, not stop, but slow down the piracy in the first 30 to 60 days from a tech perspective. [...] That's been the biggest problem, no question about it. It's become a very difficult proposition to be profitable, given the piracy right now.
Of course they're incentivised to portray piracy as damaging to the platform even if it isn't changing publisher decision making to any significant extent, but it's an argument that makes sense, and I find it difficult to believe that it wasn't dampening publisher enthusiasm to at least some extent.
In some ways, I'd like to see a phased path to openness, where say ten years down the line or when official support is dropped, some of the barriers are taken away (most platforms get there anyway due to third party efforts, and as Sony allude to above, _slowing_ piracy can be sufficient), even if only to aid game preservation and avoid games being forever tied to a particular physical hardware platform.
[1] Specifically, Sony Computer Entertainment America's then senior vice president of publisher relations, Rob Dyer - https://www.gamasutra.com/view/feature/133097/the_sony_situa...
If the device depends on write-once ROM that was written in the factory, is that also anti-consumer?
That depends on the intent.
consumers "caring" about something is not the definition of Anti-Consumer at all, there are all manner of business practices that have been made illegal because they were anti-consumer that the majority of consumers did not care about (and still do not). For example the Warranty if Removed Stickers on electronics. Most consumers do not care if the manufacturers place them on devices however this practice is very much Anti-Consumer and is illegal in the US
>> This is something that target precisely people who doesn’t want to be consumer: those that want to get and play games for free.
Ahh yes, If I want complete control over my device, what to use my device in a non-standard way, or some other reason I do not want a manufacturer to permanently alter my device with a firmware change it must mean I only oppose it because I want free games...
I also oppose the war on drugs, do i only do that because I want to get high as well? or is it a fundamental ethical reason around property ownership and the role of manufacturers as SELLERS not leasing agents of a device
Now the ironical thing is I didn’t even disagree with you rant. Actually I’m all for more open devices. What I’m saying is that it’s not possible right now, so buying a Switch with the expectation that it will run third party code is living in a parallel universe.
I'd call THAT anti consumer.
Correct me if i'm wrong, but that's the impression I got from reading here and there and the reason I don't own Nintendo products.
Moving to new hardware is more complicated than it needs to be but is not restrictive.
So are you absolutely sure that I can buy Nintendo stuff today and get games from anywhere in the world? Because my local selection is laughably small and crappy, and combined with region locks it meant it's not worth the trouble.
Nintendo Puerile Joke (http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/technology/4953650.stm).
> So are you absolutely sure that I can buy Nintendo stuff today and get games from anywhere in the world?
Yes, absolutely sure. You just need to create an eShop account for each region. There are countless articles on how to do this.
[1] https://www.nintendo.co.uk/Support/Nintendo-Switch/Regional-...
I didn't grow up with gameboys but with the zx spectrum, I don't have a childhood attachment to Nintendo. Once in a while (3-5 years) I think it would be good to check what they offer, but usually there's a hoop i have to jump through and it also requires spending money on a new console in addition to my PS3/4 so...
> So are you absolutely sure that I can buy Nintendo stuff today and get games from anywhere in the world?
> Yes, absolutely sure. You just need to create an eShop account for each region. There are countless articles on how to do this.
I was thinking of physical purchases :)
Yes, I have a UK switch that I got (it was the diablo bundle), I have a uk switch account and a us switch account. Diablo works fine. All my us purchased switch games (physical) and downloaded games from the us store on this uk switch.