Ian Curran, the VP of global publishing for THQ has been quoted in saying that piracy of the vulnerable Nintendo DS system has had significant impact on his company. The executive of the firm claims that the rampant piracy of the handheld has all but halted the ability for THQ to produce more games for the DS Lite. That may be about to change and it has Mr. Curran rather excited about game production in the near future.
“What excites me even more [than 3DS games] is that there’s technology built in that device to really combat piracy,” said Curran. “The problem with the DS market in the last few years, particularly with the DS Lite, is that it’s just been attacked by piracy. It’s made it almost impossible to shift any significant volume. The DSi combated it a little bit, but the 3DS has taken that a step further.”
While Curran couldn’t give technical details about what piracy stomping inclusions have been installed into the 3DS, he cites that Nintendo said it’s very difficult explain because it’s so sophisticated.
Curran said, “The opportunity for people to invest more in product development [on the system] and bring more 3DS products to market comes out of that. It’s going to probably cost us more to do it all in 3D – so we want to make sure we get a return on our investment when we do it.”
While it is no secret that piracy for the Nintendo DS has made a significant impact on the sales owed to developers, it is quite naive to assume that their device is foolproof from hackers. Issuing statements like this do nothing but stoke the fire for the underground community who are hellbent on accepting challenges to overcome obstacles and this type of statement that Curran has said, does exactly that. He has inadvertently sent a challenge to the pirating community to usurp the new protection devices within the 3DS and ultimately may spell a quicker demise to the system’s protection scheme.
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