Disgusting. I'm really starting to hate bootleggers and pirates. Hell, just this past week I got into it with some idiot on another forum because he was bragging about burning Saturn and Sega CD games and feels that its justified because there "isn't anyone to steal from". Ugh.
wow thats fast, question is what type of media does ds use that allows pirates to easily make bootlegs, as well do these games even work?
I'm surprised it took this long, to be honest. Flash carts gave been out now for ages, haven't they? How is this any different?
Because DS flash carts are just a GBA flash cart with a Passme type thingy in the DS slot to redirect everything to the flash cart.
The reason these exist now, and not earlier, is because in January, the author of no$gba broke the DS cart encryption. Which is why you see products like datel's media thing pop up. They don't need passthroughs (messy for an official device). So, naturally games can be re-encrypted and sold. Probably a bit pricier to produce than GBA bootlegs, but I'm sure you can charge a bit more too. I'd be interested to see a disassembled one. Can only imagine how crappy the insides look, given that they can't even place a sticker on the front correctly.
Did he release details on how to break the encryption, or was it included in the source code somewhere? I guess I'm sort of surprised that an emulator author would crack the encryption before the HK pirates. The monitary payback is far greater for the latter. What "media thing" have datel released, by the way?
Reading the protected ARM7 BIOS: http://forum.gbadev.org/viewtopic.php?t=8254&postdays=0&postorder=asc&start=15 I guess the following info, on how the encryption works, must be a result of his reverse engineering of the dumped ARM7 BIOS (and sniffing the cart<->ds communications): http://nocash.emubase.de/gbatek.htm#dscartridgesencryptionfirmware The only thing that is not on the net now, for everyone to see, seems to be Nintendo's RSA secret key. CF
Great... now it's going to be a serious risk to buy DS games in MercadoLibre an DeRemate (Ebay Mexico) for a while. It does make me curious, so I will check the black market to see if I can find other details about this. Great pics, Roi.
These fakes are created for the Asian market as as rule - you make it, they copy it. It's those pesky exporters that are at fault - I remember first noticing a GBA bootleg and being staggered at the sheer detail (and expense) of such a thing. I agree, if the stickers not even straight it does suggest that this is not 'high quality' production from the get-go... It's worth bearing in mind that many Nike fakes (as an example) are actually bad batches and intentionally designed sub-standard products 'produced' in real Nike factories. There is a law in place on mainland China (for example) that prohibits any foreign company setting up their premisese alone - Meaning they must have a Chinese partner (national) who owns 50% of the company. For this reason alone they must some products for sale within the mainland; as are the terms of their contract. If the Chinese cannot afford what everybody else pays for a dvd/game/sports shirt then what usually happens is that the factory moulds and some mechanical devices get occassional use by the (perceived) black market. Over there it isn't a black market - believe me, they pay taxes on these things, just like we do over here. It becomes a pirate only when it is offered for sale outside of these regions. All we are seeing above is an Asian variant. The cheaper parts reflect the costs put in initially - if you are only selling it for a fraction of the price (we talking pence, not pounds) then why bother making it better? It's very much a case of miss-information nowadays - the above discs aren't pirated, they are just sold outside of their intended domain illegally. Piracy is supplying a self produced copy of 'X' to someone else with the specific intention of cutting out the developer and distributor. As an example, living in London (UK) if I attempted to sell one these DS carts shown above on a stall on my local high street I would be at fault because the same products (better even!) ARE available to buy in the shop behind me at a price that respects the developers and distributor. (yes, i have just woken up...)
It just means ebay auctions will have to take pictures of the contacts. From the looks of it that seems to be the most noticable difference, assuming they can't further refine it.
Bad indeed, I could understand a guy who gets a SDtoDS adapter so he doesnt have to carry all his games around (I know I would) but bootlegs are always bad for the industry. Me too, they seem easier to make than DS bootlegs
Easier? I believe the discs are encrypted and they are a different wave length than DVDs. If someone posts all the nessisary info on that, then you might see PSP bootlegs. Arnold, I don't know what exactly you were trying to say but it doesn't make it ok if it stays in China. Copyright are violated reguardless of what country the pirate product is in. It's WRONG and hurts developers. Unless the developer has some kind of contract allowing them to produce shitty cartridges and are getting their cut, it's illegal.
I said they SEEM easier to pirate from the hardware standpoint, but if all about encryption, they said the same about DVDs and then Jon cracked the system.
Thats the thing, its China, not the US or UK. China may not have the same copyright stuff that we have. Wrong? Yes. Illegal? Not unless theres a law against it. Im no master of Chinese law though, so Im just going off what he said
Yep, there's several laws againt piracy in china, yet nobody, not even the government seem to care since the software industry there is nonexistant, and the fact almost nobody could afford the original version of the basic windows version. At the same time the government has a deaf ear about all the infrigments of laws against slave work from which several corporations take advantage, thus hurting the population. Is a "I didnt see anything, if you didnt saw anything" relation of sorts...
In the case of nikies yes (actualy alot of manufactures in the states setup outlet stores for made goods that are not up to retail perfection). In the case of GBA/DS games it is not. There is a division of nintendo setup in china called iQue which sells their games at a cheaper price for the chinese market. Thoes carts are nothing but pure bootlegs.
From what i know the disc are not encrypted. Just the Binarys (which is why you cant modify them directly). Also it's posible the wave length is different but it wont be by much since UMD is based on duel layered DVD technology.
