A Case Against Console Hacking
Posted on Mar 1, 2011 in Rants
Well, nice work, Nintendo. Flash cartridges work on the 3DS without any hardware or software modifications required. Admittedly, they're only running DS games, but it's already a step towards the whole system going under. After one day, a significant part of the console has already been hacked. I can only hope that the 3DS part of the console will remain locked down for a long, long time. Unfortunately I doubt that's a likely scenario.
As an owner of a DS flash card myself, it's understandable to ask: why do I not want this console hacked? Firstly, I'm not a pirate. I only play games that I own on my flash card. Secondly, I'm a huge fan of the DS and want to see the successor to it succeed in places where the original did not.
Flash Cards
While I own a flash card, I'm one of the few who uses it to play games that I actually own. I'll buy a new game and then download it for convenience. It's unrealistic to carry all of your physical games around with you - a flash card solves this problem splendidly.
Often heard when the Nintendo Lawyer Squad have a meeting.While it would be a slight annoyance to lose this convenience with the 3DS, I believe that the positives far outweigh the negatives. Flash cards on the Nintendo DS have received a lot of press coverage, as well as attention from the Nintendo Lawyer Squad. This makes it seem like everyone in the world is pirating DS games, when in reality, it's less than you'd think. Still, it is the easiest current-gen console (last-gen, once the 3DS is out worldwide) to pirate games on.
This attention would have scared off potential developers for the platform. While the DS has loads of fantastic titles, the decent-game to shovelware ratio is far higher than it should be. I'm not saying that there'd be less shovelware, rather that there would be more high-quality releases if DS piracy hadn't gotten as much attention as it did. While I have no actual proof of this, it seems like a good theory to me. Take it with a grain of salt.
Playstation 3
Another group of suits - this time the Sony Lawyer Squad - has been very active recently. This is over the recent shenanigans with George Hotz and his hackery antics of the PlayStation 3. While Sony have handled the entire incident poorly, Hotz is not exactly a pillar of integrity. Don't get me wrong, I'm sure he's a smart guy. But he comes off as an arrogant prick who just wants the attention. Basically the Julian Assange of the hacking world. And while he claims to stand for the noblest of causes, I just don't think he cares about anything besides lapping up media attention and his fifteen minutes of fame. Hey, prove me wrong.
And of course, before that, there was the release of the PlayStation Jailbreak device, which allowed pirated games to be loaded from the console's hard drive. Sony patched the exploit the device used (as well as subsequent work-arounds). As of the latest firmware release, these devices cannot be used. What I don't understand is the flak that Sony has been getting from the general gaming community - although this is probably a case of the loud minority. Sony patched a vulnerability in their software - this is completely reasonable and there is no valid criticism that can be made against this (besides such a flaw existing in the first place, but hey, bugs are inevitable in software, even if you're Sony).
The Homebrew Argument
Ok, I'm kind of glad that I have no readers and that I haven't implemented comments on the site yet, because this is not something that will go down well with some people. Fortunately those people will never read this anyway. The entire console hacking scene has one single argument to support what they do: Homebrew. They say that that piracy is only an unwanted side-effect of hacking - that the real goal is to support homebrew on the platform.
The scene will get extremely defensive and righteous when confronted on this matter, citing free speech and the right to modify devices they have paid for. They are correct, though they could stand to shut up and consider the impact they are having on the gaming community as a whole. Consider the cases outlined above - both the Nintendo DS and the PlayStation 3. In essence, the vast, vast majority of users are (or will be) using flash cards, mod chips, software exploits, and so on (for the point of this post, let's collectively call them "hacks") for one thing, and one thing only. You guessed it: Piracy. Let's use an optimistic figure and say that 0.1% of users of these hacks will use it in a completely legal fashion (first ignoring the questionable legality of the hacks themselves).
So we have two different types of users - people who only use the hacks for homebrew, and software pirates. The latter group being far larger than the first. If all hacks were declared illegal overnight, how many people, realistically, would be upset purely because their freedom to modify their devices has been violated? Compare that to the number of people would be upset that they can't play games for free any more. I'm not saying that it should happen, mind you - it's just an example to think about.
Let's get one thing straight. I think it's perfectly okay for any hardware to be re-purposed and reused to do something it wasn't originally intended for. This goes from installing Linux on your toaster to using your old original Xbox as a media center. But as soon as you get into the realm of exploiting hardware or software to circumvent security measures, you are effectively supporting piracy. The homebrew argument just doesn't hold water - hacking a console to support homebrew guarantees that piracy is not far behind. So despite arguments claiming otherwise, the scene hackers are pirates themselves, because they know the final result and are enabling it for others.
Don't Hurt Me, Please
When I read about console hacking news (and the subsequent lawyerly action on said hacking) on various gaming websites, I always see a lot of comments complaining about suppression and censorship and free speech, blah blah blah. What my mind interprets these comments as is: "I want free games!". I also see a lot of overblown examples, like: censoring console hacking gives Sony permission to eat your babies! Okay, I haven't really seen that example, but you get the idea.
So let's finish with an attempt at damage control. I am fully supportive of the homebrew scene - install Linux on your PlayStation, use it as a media center, turn it into a barbecue - I don't care, it's completely fine. Just don't open it up to piracy. This argument only applies to the topic at hand, too. I'm exclusively talking about console hacking, so no overblown argument can legitimately be applied. The piracy that console hacking enables does a lot of damage to the gaming community - whether it be fewer good games on a certain platform, ridiculous DRM schemes that hurt the customer more than the pirate, extra development time and delays, bad ports to certain platforms, higher game costs, or other undesirable outcomes.
A Solution
There is a way to fix this! The game developers can be happy, the console makers can be happy, the gamers can be happy, and even the homebrew users can be happy! How can so many people be happy, you ask? Well, it's pretty much impossible. But we can dream.
I offer a solution that would make the most people happy: the consoles support homebrew officially. I mean full and proper functionality for homebrew built into the console itself, as well as an official SDK available for free to all users. The advantages to homebrew developers is clear: suddenly, the target audience for their work has increased significantly. Console hackers, if they are as righteous as they claim, have no reason to bypass the security of the console. Game developers can be happy, because not only will the console not be hacked (which would enable piracy), they could also offer free "professional homebrew" to owners of their games to make the games more interactive, immersive, and desirable. Console makers can be happy because everyone else is happy! Right?
Unfortunately I think that the big three are too scared to make a move like this. If they open up their consoles to homebrew, doesn't that make software exploits that much easier to find? I don't think so, if it was done correctly. And if it was, there will be no reason to hack the console. Considering that the 3DS was (partially) hacked within a day, I think that if Nintendo attempted such a scheme, they would not have much to lose, but they would have much to gain.
