Nintendo's Mad Banning Spree Targets Owners of Rooted 3DS

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3DS owners woke up to a pleasant surprise today: Nintendo banned their 3DSes from Online play. Ostensibly targeted at cheaters and pirates, the banwave affects all owners of hacked 3DSes.

A hidden setting, on by default, sends all 3DS usage data to Nintendo for analysis. For years, Nintendo has quietly been observing the usage patterns of 3DS owners… and has chosen this moment to lash out.

This isn’t Nintendo’s first banwave. That honour goes to the Sun/Moon Pirate Banwave, which banned people who played online before the street release day. But this is the first that has targeted all 3DS modders and not merely pirates.

Strangely, the banwave does not prevent users of FreeShop from downloading games, nor does it prevent banned users from accessing the official eShop.

Somebody call Doctorw. This is what a war on general purpose computing looks like: when a device manufacturer can completely destroy the functionality of devices that have been modified to run all code, not just a limited subset of games.

Further Reading:
https://gbatemp.net/threads/regarding-the-recent-3ds-banwave.471781/

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I mean, Nintendo JP bans all uses of game footage online too. Try also only got into PC ports and the mobile space like two years ago. They have the worst model for IP protection in the entire industry.

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Sigh. The only way I see out of this is if it costs the parent company money. Basically just say, “okay, if you don’t respect I bought this box from you fair and square, and that it’s mine now, I don’t see the point in giving you any more money.”

It would be hard to make enough impact for that to be heard out, but one can always dream.

The likes of Nintendo would do well to remember that the start video games is still within living memory. Nintendo itself is older than commercial video games. What starts, can mutate… or end.

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