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Comment by lostgame | Hacker News Reader

I replied to a comment on some other Nintendo-related post here the other day that began with something like ‘…Nintendo isn’t petty enough to…’ - to which I jokingly replied that I’d stopped reading after that.

Honestly - Nintendo is the pettiest and shittiest to its incredibly passionate fan base.

Where SEGA hires people who have created great fan content, for instance; Nintendo sends out C&D’s.

Nintendo shut off their own revenue stream by closing the 3DS store.

That was their choice. They could still be making at least a bit of money from the 3DS store, but they chose not to.

So…punish the homebrew devs for their own stupid decision? I have never been able to understand Nintendo’s behaviour, especially having grown up in the ROM hacking and fan gaming scene where SEGA and Nintendo could not be more parallel opposites.

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Well, here's actually an easy way to rationalize part of it:

Sega doesn't represent anyone. They are in charge of their own games, and that's it. They feel free to allow, or disallow, people to do whatever they want with them. Also, Sega of Japan actually feels not that much love for Sonic and was surprised by his US success - they don't really care; but if you touched some of their other franchises on their home turf they'd have a little more bite.

Nintendo, on the other hand, has wildly successful IP in Japan and the US; and also represents all of the developers on their platform. All it takes is for one developer to complain that people are pirating their old 3DS game and Nintendo should do something about it, and Nintendo doesn't really need to disagree and cause a 3rd-party developer to be upset. It's an easy enough fix, takes little effort, is a reasonable enough request, and keeps the relationship happy.

Edit: Also, as I elaborate here, Sega has paid a price for lax copyright practices. https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=36048593

>I replied to a comment on some other Nintendo-related post here the other day that began with something like ‘…Nintendo isn’t petty enough to…’ - to which I jokingly replied that I’d stopped reading after that.

Lol hello again. I stand corrected.

> Nintendo is the pettiest and shittiest to its incredibly passionate fan base.

Eh... Not really?

I mean, what are we even complaining about here? That a company did some minor step (in a too little too late fashion) to block their old console, that everyone and their dog already hacked?

And even still, how does it impede the homebrew people? Plenty of emulators for every Nintendo console available anyway.

And let's not pretend like this is not going to be bypassed as well. I would be surprised if in half a year there is not a new way to just hack it anyway.

If you really think Nintendo isn’t extremely petty, read up on how they deal with the Super Smash Bros competitive scene.

I am aware of it. And I don't think it's petty.

It's almost ironic. Blizzard tried multiple times (and failed) to create some title that made a breakthrough in the e-sports scene.

Nintendo on the other hand had something without even trying, and could have monetized it to no end. But they decided to keep away from it, and took some effort to shutdown the usage of their IP for it.

I can sort of understand the rationale. They are very careful with how their brands are used. Contrary to other videogame companies, Nintendo lives and dies on their brands and IPs. It's their biggest asset, and the only thing ensuring they remain meaningful.

I’m aware of sonic mania, has sega hired fans for other games?

https://tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pmwiki.php/PromotedFanboy/VideoG...

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