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First post, by Kerr Avon

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A new act of law in Japan has made it illegal to modify your console, either with hardware or software, even if it's just to alter your save-games, or to allow you to play different region games or DVD/Blu-Rays. You are still allowed to paint your console, or put stickers on it, but any practical change to a console might be illegal there now, depending on how you or the judge interpretes the law, and any change that can even remotely be used to aid piracy (even if you won't use it for piracy) will no doubt be considered against the law.

At the moment, it's only Japan (and no doubt Nintendo and Sony were hugely influential in causing the law to be changed to make all this illegal), but other countries might well follow suit, especially in the US and the UK, where modern day courts happily ignore the rights and wishes of the public and instead love to side with the ultra-rich corporations.

Quote:

"This means that cheat tools, save game editors, hex editors, softmods, hardware mods, DRM circumvention software, or serial code breakers, serial code crackers, or serial code manipulation tools, are all illegal now in Japan"

Source https://www.oneangrygamer.net/2019/01/japan-m … -illegal/74472/

Reply 2 of 14, by cyclone3d

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ZanQuance wrote:

And they plan to enforce this law on the million of consumers that have modded consoles how?

this law ain't gonna last long...

Pretty quick way for them to plan seizure of property.. aka steal "legally" and also make a new generation of prison labor.

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Reply 3 of 14, by Kerr Avon

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ZanQuance wrote:

And they plan to enforce this law on the million of consumers that have modded consoles how?

this law ain't gonna last long...

It's true that this law isn't likely to be used in connection with many private users, as it will be too much trouble for the companies to pursue people who modify just their own machines. But the law can and will be used to penalise companies who earn money by modifying consoles, and even for Nintendo/Sony/Microsoft to get those console-modding small companies (who are often made up entirely of one person or at most less than half a dozen people, and who have no real money to waste on court cases) forced to close down (modern day business-related court cases are very often won by the side that can afford to string out the court-case the longest).

And this is just one more assault on the publics' rights. If you buy something, then you should be free to do with it what you like, providing of course you don't hurt anyone by doing so. And modding a console, so that you can provide a quieter fan, or play different-region games, or load your own games from a hard drive, or to edit your save-games to give yourself more (virtual) health or ammunition should NOT be in any way illegal. But it is illegal now (albeit just in Japan, for the moment at least) and when a company gets the laws changed to benefit itself over the customers, then the people who own/run the company do tend to go for further changes to the laws to benefit that company. The next step might well be to try to make it illegal to sell used or replacement parts for consoles, so instead you'll have to pay the higher prices of the official manufacturers costs if you want to replace the optical drive or the power supply in your PS4, Swtich, or Xbox One.

And in ten years time, it might be illegal for anyone but the company who made the console to open up that console, meaning that any company other than Nintendo, who offer a console repairing service, will by law be unable to fix a Nintendo-made console.

Result, the little companies who repair or upgrade consoles lose a lot of revenue and maybe have to close down, and the public lose even more of their rights. Still, Nintendo, Sony, and Microsoft get even more profit, from the repairs they're now paid to do, to add to their bloated bank accounts, the lawyers get even more money, and the big companies get even closer to dominating the legal and financial structures that run the world.

And yes, piracy is a real problem, but making it illegal to edit or copy your save games, or to add a new fan to replace your older and noisier fan, or even to modify the console to play from hard drive only the games that you legally own, will not reduce piracy at all. Console modding, of all kinds, has all sorts of uses and benefits that don't involve piracy, and it's neither right nor fair to remove the user's rights to do what they like with their own hardware

Reply 4 of 14, by doaks80

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Great. Console gaming should be illegal anyway.

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Reply 6 of 14, by DosFreak

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Console gaming died a long time ago anyway. They are all PC just crappy ones but no worries soon they will be streaming boxes and rainbows and unicorns will be bountiful.

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Reply 7 of 14, by CrossBow777

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My understanding is that Nintendo was largely behind this because some guy in Japan was advertising and selling openly his modded fami classics with added games. So yeah...someone being obvious is why this has happened.

It is irony though at just last year or year before, courts ruled that having Void stickers wasn't legal and that consumers opening their consoles couldn't be considered grounds for voiding your warranty any more. Is this now a way to get around that too I wonder?

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Reply 8 of 14, by SPBHM

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I find this rather stupid, too pro corporations and against the people.

ZanQuance wrote:

And they plan to enforce this law on the million of consumers that have modded consoles how?

this law ain't gonna last long...

they can still do some damage if they target shops that do the modding for money, also sources of information and parts...

DosFreak wrote:

Console gaming died a long time ago anyway. They are all PC just crappy ones but no worries soon they will be streaming boxes and rainbows and unicorns will be bountiful.

console gaming is actually doing great, PS4 sold I think over 80 mil, Switch over 20mil... call consoles crappy and then play a Sony exclusive like GoW and check the graphics...

also the Xbox One X is pretty powerful, even if the CPU is weak, 12GB of GDDR5 and 2560SPs is quite good.

they are locked and run custom software, I don't see how they are PC; just because the hardware architecture comes from the PC space... they are still using custom parts, no PC BIOS/UEFI and so on.

don't get me wrong, I don't own the current consoles and don't plan to buy one again, I've been PC first since forever, but... they have their place.

Reply 9 of 14, by doaks80

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Button mashing is not gaming.

k6-3+ 400 / s3 virge DX+voodoo1 / awe32(32mb)
via c3 866 / s3 savage4+voodoo2 sli / audigy1+awe64(8mb)
athlon xp 3200+ / voodoo5 5500 / diamond mx300
pentium4 3400 / geforce fx5950U / audigy2 ZS
core2duo E8500 / radeon HD5850 / x-fi titanium

Reply 10 of 14, by Dominus

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Please people, stay on topic 😉
I've heard these arguments since I was a teen and probably will for another couple of years...

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Reply 11 of 14, by Mr. horse

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SPBHM wrote:

console gaming is actually doing great, PS4 sold I think over 80 mil, Switch over 20mil... call consoles crappy and then play a Sony exclusive like GoW and check the graphics...

I'm no console gamer, not since the dreamcast. But I recently got to play a few games on the PS4, the graphics were granny low res looking and the FPS were dipping alot.
maybe it was the games? But I thought ark and red dead were aaa top end games?

In topic, what if someone needs to install a faster/better fan or preform cooling mods for the console to work in a given environment? Or say they need to install dust filters?

No sir I don't like it!

Reply 12 of 14, by yawetaG

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Kerr Avon wrote:
A new act of law in Japan has made it illegal to modify your console, either with hardware or software, even if it's just to alt […]
Show full quote

A new act of law in Japan has made it illegal to modify your console, either with hardware or software, even if it's just to alter your save-games, or to allow you to play different region games or DVD/Blu-Rays. You are still allowed to paint your console, or put stickers on it, but any practical change to a console might be illegal there now, depending on how you or the judge interpretes the law, and any change that can even remotely be used to aid piracy (even if you won't use it for piracy) will no doubt be considered against the law.

At the moment, it's only Japan (and no doubt Nintendo and Sony were hugely influential in causing the law to be changed to make all this illegal), but other countries might well follow suit, especially in the US and the UK, where modern day courts happily ignore the rights and wishes of the public and instead love to side with the ultra-rich corporations.

Quote:

"This means that cheat tools, save game editors, hex editors, softmods, hardware mods, DRM circumvention software, or serial code breakers, serial code crackers, or serial code manipulation tools, are all illegal now in Japan"

Source https://www.oneangrygamer.net/2019/01/japan-m … -illegal/74472/

This sounds like hyperbole. Right on par for most news regarding such things coming from a gaming site, unfortunately, as in general they quite excel at fake news on these kind of subjects (gotta keep readers locked in, eh? 🤣 ).

Outright banning the use of such tools in general would make quite a lot of people jobless overnight, as a lot of the underlying tools (and hex editors of course) are often also used in certain professions legally. That also is the reason the law is vague; it is best left to a judge to determine what is legal and what is illegal. Many other countries already have such laws.

The law may also be aimed at certain countries (*cough* China *cough*) where reverse engineering and stealing of intellectual property is basically state-sponsored...

Finally, even if this were Nintendo's doing to limit who can repair their hardware, it is going to bite them in the arse hard when the ability to repair things outside a closed circuit controlled by the manufacturer is going to be regulated by EU and other countries' courts, where consumer rights are quite important.

Reply 13 of 14, by realnc

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From what I've seen, this law seems to be because Japan has a huge grey market where people are mass-modding consoles and sell them. This seems to be the target, not individual console owners.

Which is still horrible though, IMO. Once you bought a piece of hardware, you should be able to do anything you want to it and sell it if you want to, since after you bought it, it should be yours to do with as you please.