{"id":978,"date":"2011-07-07T14:55:50","date_gmt":"2011-07-07T21:55:50","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/superfamicom.org\/blog\/?p=978"},"modified":"2012-10-12T20:40:37","modified_gmt":"2012-10-13T03:40:37","slug":"comparing-the-satellaview-to-the-current-gen-my-fears-about-drm","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/superfamicom.org\/blog\/2011\/07\/comparing-the-satellaview-to-the-current-gen-my-fears-about-drm\/","title":{"rendered":"Comparing the Satellaview to the current-gen; My fears about DRM."},"content":{"rendered":"

So, lately I’ve been disturbed by how the next generation of gaming is turning out.
\nWhy?
\nWell, there’s this.<\/a><\/p>\n

The very fact that this happened again doesn’t hold well for me either.<\/a><\/p>\n

And, while I can’t find a source-link, the Sonic Retro thread where this was all being discussed in<\/a> mentioned that Nintendo was considering a “pay to continue playing” style of DRM itself.
\n(EDIT: Ok, so they were referring to post five on the PS3hax.net thread? I’ll need a better source than that…)<\/p>\n

Most people are disturbed by this because it hurts legitimate customers, who may now be expected to pay money to play games they already own.<\/p>\n

I think there’s another reason to be concerned about this, though; one that’s more painful to the customers as well as the developers. DRM is damaging to a game system’s legacy… and I feel the Satellaview makes for a very good example.
\nI made this post there. Here’s a copy of the text for those who can’t log in\/register to see.<\/a><\/p>\n

“You know, much of the reason I look up the Satellaview is because I’m disturbed by how DRM basically damaged the add-on’s legacy.<\/p>\n

I mean, a significant number of the available games for it are no longer playable because of the software-based restrictions the system had. Now, the motive for this was a bit different, because in the Satellaview’s case, any downloads after the initial set-up and subscription were [at least as far as I know,] free (much like Sega Channel, although the Satellaview had a more expensive setup.), so Nintendo (Rather than doing the smart thing and simply not allowing saving to private-owned memory, lulz) put the restrictions on them so they wouldn’t fear losing profits from retail carts – the results were games that locked up after a preset number of boot-ups (in the case of the Soundlink games, the DRM, which enforced playing on a specific schedule, prevented the game from booting up after the initial downloat\/”stream”.)<\/p>\n

What games were affected by this? We don’t know – new ROM dumps show up now and then with things that have -not even been documented on the internet prior-. Many of these are from packs where the DRM was activated. Thankfullly, a lot of emulators ignore the DRM (but -not- BSNES. True hardware accuracy has it’s catches!), although the possibility of poor\/glitchy emulation is still high as a kite.
\nThe vast majority of Satellaview games fell into an obscurity worse than “failure” systems like the Virtual Boy or true “limited releases” like Nintendo World Championships, because of a combination of factors – not limited to, but certainly including, the DRM – that led to a – lack of knowledge about the system, [and] a ridiculous amount of difficulty just trying to play the software again[.]
\nThe disturbing thing about this? We’re not talking about things that would’ve gone into obscurity anyway; we’re talking about Mario games, Zelda games, Squaresoft games that AREN’T boring JRPGS, and interesting first-and-third-party titles that would’ve at -least- been cult hits if they were released on any other platform.<\/p>\n

Now, think about this in the context of the current generation.
\nImagine if that Zelda Tech Demo for WiiU ran off the DRM idea Nintendo [allegedly] proposed recently. Now, even if the game is initially a success, there will become a point where no one will want to support the pay model anymore. What will happen, then?
\nYet another Zelda game – of all things – will fall into obscurity. No, I don’t mean that people will consider it a black sheep like Adventures of Link. I mean people will -forget what the game is like-. This happened to the BS Zelda games, and it took -years- (going from the initial BS Zelda broadcast to NND upload dates, 12 years,) for some folks at NicoNicoDouga to encode their old, slightly decayed, likely-EP VHS tapes and remind the world how that game played once before.
\nDo we really want the memories of the video games we play restricted to old, manual recordings? I shouldn’t need a DVD+R to remind myself how Super Mario Galaxy 3 was like 30 years from now.”<\/p>\n

Sega fans, BTW, are probably already familiar with The Sega Channel<\/a>, which was a service that many directly compare to the Satellaview due to their similarities. Among those similarities, of course, them having faded to obscurity due to a lack of content archival for years. I’ve still been seeking out documentation on the Japanese side of the Sega Channel to this date.<\/a><\/p>\n

(EDIT: Since I’ve tracked down the source of the claims about Nintendo I’m questioning it’s legitimacy. The article has been edited accordingly.)<\/p>\n