Nintendo on DRM

[Demon_Skeith]

It's clear what Microsoft thinks of game ownership—the Xbox One's policies don't communicate much of a belief in it. Sony scored a lot of points on Monday, but to be fair, it was a defense of the status quo. Where does Nintendo come down on the subject?

Shigeru Miyamoto, the creative face of the company, considers video game ownership to be akin to toy ownership, roughly speaking. To him, that means "as a consumer, you want to be able to keep those things for a long time and have those things from your youth that you can go back to and experience again," he told Eurogamer.

Miyamoto drew the metaphor from the idea that Nintendo is "almost like a toy company where we're making these things for people to play with." But it's a very useful counterpoint to those who think a game license versus a game ownership is no big deal—those who think no one will care about the games they bought today when the servers are turned off in 10 years. (As Halo 2 itself showed, people do care.)

If you imagine games as toys—or, hell, comic books, or DVDs of classic movies—then, hell yes it matters, and not because they're collectibles. The interactive experiences these things offer are still there, still may be enjoyed, whether or not they're outdated. Even if they are, your memories may make playing them a richer experience.

That said, Nintendo could take an additional step toward this toy-ownership ideal. As it stands, you may transfer digital content you own from machine to machine only. If your Wii U or 3DS is lost, stolen or fried, there's no way to pull down what you purchased from the cloud—as you can, incidentally, with an Xbox Live or PlayStation Network account. Nintendo's been forgiving in very extreme cases, but it would be nice to see them finally take that step.

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I doubt Nintendo will ever do this, since they go after online footage instead.

 

[Spiritwarrior]

Yeah it wouldn't be good for Nintendo to do this since it cares more about its fans.

 

[jmoore93]

Let's hope they at least keep status quo going. I've never had an issue with game license issues, and thankfully none of my equipment has ever been stolen. Perhaps at some point in the future Nintendo will add more cloud-based support and implement some kind of proof-of-ownership system while still avoiding a license system. 

 

[Canadian Lover]

I am really bothered by the fact the Microsoft iis even bothering with this "Game ownership". Back in the 1980a/1990s, you could freely trade/sell games and not worry about DRM. It really bothers me that any big business would do this.

 

[Demon_Skeith]

I am really bothered by the fact the Microsoft iis even bothering with this "Game ownership". Back in the 1980a/1990s, you could freely trade/sell games and not worry about DRM. It really bothers me that any big business would do this.

it's the greed that has taken control of them these days.

 

[themubs]

almost like a toy company where we're making these things for people to play with."

A perfect way to put it. I couldn't really articulate why I felt so violated by DRM, but this is exactly it. It's like being bullied at the park, and having your action figures stolen. Or having your parents put you in time out, and removing toys from your daily routine. DRM is the high school bully of adulthood.

 

[Nuke]

DRM really isn't bad.

Megacorporations just go too far with it, what with "online only" and "only this many copies" bullshit.

I mean, if your game is disc-only, I can see not giving new copies when machines are stolen, alright? Too much availability for fraud exists.

But download games should be available, since the record of purchase is stored on a server.

And TheMubs...seriously? I can see this intrusive stuff, but DRM generally isn't bad unless the dev is incredulously intrusive like a big name. However, these big names have put such stigma upon DRM that "DRM-free" is now a marketing point.