Do bottles of diet Coke explode with deadly force on the owner's command?
If so
yes, they should probably be illegal.

And Erbs, I guess that makes sense, but it's more like shutting down a brownie factory, when their employees who fill/top the brownies include ice cream, peanut butter, weed, LSD, crack, and heroin in them, and the factory does nothing about it.
Yes, it is a damned shame for those who enjoy peanut butter brownies, but the bad outweighs the good massively.

They're being used 95%* for piracy, 5%* for homebrew. It's like those who bitch about torrent sites being shut down because quality original content is being lost. Yes, the sites were providing a home for much grand legal downloading, but a vast, vast majority of it was illegal content. And the sites didn't give a shit, and allowed the illegal content to grow qithout limits. So it was closed.

Sad for those who loved it for what it did legally, but blame those who pissed in 9/10 of the punchbowls, not those who poured all of the punch out cause it was easier than taste-testing each one for piss.


*statistics pulled out of writer's ass

wtf? do R4's explode? I'm not quite sure I understand the connection you were trying to make.

And can you please provide sources for your percentage claims? Otherwise that's all they are. I hear the RIAA pulls stuff like that all the time.

Guns kill people, in addition to being helpful by killing animals.
You said diet coke can kill people, in addition to being helpful by getting you wired and quenching your thirst.
I was exaggerating to point out that guns are much more efficient at killing people than diet cola, and that if diet cola were capable of killing with the efficiency of guns, it should probably be illegal.

Do note the little disclaimer. Seems fairly accurate to me, though it may be closer to 90/10.

Going to have to go with Terra here. I don't disregard the potential of homebrew with the R4 - but it's obvious what most people are using it for.

The difficulty is proving the intent of the manufacturer. This is why they haven't been banned to fuck in the US/Canada yet.

how is it obvious. There have been no independent studies into this. all you have is assumptions.

I have known many people who have R4s.
None of them have used it for legitimate purposes.
Or, in maybe one or two cases, they used it for homebrew + piracy. Never just homebrew.

Judging by my personal little study, it is used exclusively for piracy. But I know that's a ludicrous thought, so I estimate that, while piracy rates are extremely high, there are people who just use it for homebrew.
So I added in a 5-10% legit group.

Fun idea: All of us count up everyone we know who has an R4, and list, in unadjusted ratio format, how many of them use it for piracy, and how many for entirely legit purposes.

For me, it's ~20:0.

I prefer my assumptions. I know quite a few people with DSes - none of them use them for homebrew development. Do I agree my data is flawed? No doubt. But I stand by my perspective.

that's great. I know one person who has one. They use it for homebrew. So by my perspective there is no piracy issue.

I know lots of people with flash cards for their DS - including me and Cassy.

None use it for legal purposes.

However, me being the conscious pirate I am, I download a DS game, I like it, I buy it. I don't like it, it gets deleted. Same with movies.

However, most of the people with flash cards do it for the free games and nothing more.

It costs developers a lot of money, there's no denying it. But want a rather controversial answer to this debate?

Devs: Stop making shitty rehash games with no imagination and kick the shovelware to the kerb, and maybe - JUST MAYBE - people will reward you with the money you so rightly deserve.

End of.

Owning an R4 isn't anything like owning a gun, or an exploding bottle of Diet Coke (the chemical is Aspartame, and it's MS that it can give you), but the principle remains the same.

No there's been no studies but I don't need studies to say they're bad. You don't need studies to know exactly what people use them for. Then again they can't ban on rumour alone so they must have some kind of evidence that they're doing the piracy, even if just for a case to take to the courts to get them banned in the first place.

It is very much like guns though. The effect isn't the same but it's a known fact that they're not gonna bring anything good. They COULD, but you know full well they won't. Might be a rare occasion but it's mainly gonna be used for the negative reasons. The positive use VASTLY outweighs the negative. If you have a DS you should be allowed to mod it, I agree. But you shouldn't be allowed to download the games which you don't own, which is what people are doing.

I see it like this. You have a naughty child. He's going into next door neighbours lawn and he's pulling up all of the prize-winning roses. You tell him not to but he continues to do so. You want him to go out, and on the odd occasion, rarely, he stays in the family garden and destroys nothing, but he's constantly going out the other 99% of the time to decimate the work of your neighbour. Now, I believe that every child should be allowed to play out in the summer, and this child should have that chance. But what we're saying is that, even though the child is doing this, we're gonna let him go out anyway. We can't watch him 24/7 as it takes two minutes to pull these roses, however we don't want him to be denied the time when he goes out and dosn't cause havock.

You have to stop this child, or he will cause trouble most of the time. Yes he has the right to go out but he's abusing that trust. It's the same with piracy and the community. We're putting bars on our games, digital rights etc, but we're, as a community, not adhearing to the laws which we're given. Then we whine about the lack of it when it's taken away, and how we should have the right.

The Majority spoil it for the minority, but hey that's life. I don't want the majority spoiling it for me, so be it. Ban the card.


That's just my thoughts anyway. Sorry I do go off on one sometimes, was just trying to explain my reasoning in the easiest possible way haha.

Edit: Haha, love it Bwokah.

also lower the cost. $40 for an snes quality game?

Super Mario World.
Unirally.
Legend Of Zelda: Link To The Past.
Donkey Kong.
Mario Kart.
Super Street Fighter II.

Not worth $40?

Nah, I agree. DS games are far too expensive. Even in preowned, MKDS is still like £30 here or some shit.

I tend to only pay full price for Atlus games because I preorder them from Amazon. Otherwise I wait and/or abuse some trade promotion, which admittedly knocks me off my high horse a bit.

That being said, $40 is reasonable for a really good DS game. But for some of the stuff it's way too much. Luckiliy in Canada DS games tend to be $30-$35, with $40-$45 generally being S-E games. Stupid Square Tax

copiers can be used to copy textbooks
dvd/rw's can be used to pirate movies and games
video cameras can be used to pirate movies
the internet can be used to pirate pretty much anything

guess we should ban all that too then.

Those are all practical, though, and used far more for their more practical purposes than for pirating(except maybe the internet, but that's like saying that stores can be stolen from, so ban those). R4s are for nothing but playing free games, some of which happen to be legal.