racketboy.com

Monday 10th May, 05:36 AM JST

TOKYO —
Nintendo says that anti-piracy measures will be beefed up in its planned handheld game device with 3-D technology in a move to guard against software theft.

Nintendo Co President Satoru Iwata was otherwise tightlipped about the machine, which the Japanese game-maker said in March will be shown at the E3 trade show in Los Angeles next month.

It’s set to go on sale sometime in the fiscal year through March 2011, according to the Kyoto-based maker of Super Mario and Pokemon games.

The problem of piracy is serious, especially in Asia and Europe, and contributed to the recent drop in game software sales in Europe, Iwata said.

But he declined to go into details on the planned measures, saying such comments will merely give “hints” to the culprits. Iwata was also concerned people were becoming more tolerant of piracy.

“We fear a kind of thinking is become widespread that paying for software is meaningless,” he said. “We have a strong sense of crisis about this problem.”

Nintendo is banking on a new DS-type handheld with 3-D capabilities that doesn’t require special glasses to spur new growth in the gaming industry. But analysts are withholding judgment because no one has yet seen the machine.

Iwata acknowledged people were already worried about the possible health effects of 3-D gaming, such as on children’s eyesight.

He promised it will be easy to turn off the 3-D function on the new machine, allowing people to play games, with or without 3-D.

Nintendo’s earnings dropped for the fiscal year ended March 31, battered by a price cut for the Wii home console and sliding global sales despite some signs of recovery in year-end sales.

It is forecasting sales to fall 2.4% and profit to slide 12.5% for the fiscal year through March 2011.

The company expects to sell 18 million Wii machines during the year following sales of 20 million for the previous year.

Iwata noted Japanese media reports on Wii sales’ losing momentum, but stressed that 20 million and 18 million were both good numbers and a “high hurdle” as a sales record to beat.

“I’m not pessimistic, and this is not a pessimistic forecast,” he said.

Dylan wrote:Honestly, after how bad piracy was on the DS, I'm not really surprised by this.

He promised it will be easy to turn off the 3-D function on the new machine, allowing people to play games, with or without 3-D.

lisalover1 wrote:Piracy on the DS was relatively easy due to the cartridge medium, and except for the DSi, no upgradeable firmware. Hackers always win eventually, so I know for a fact that the 3DS will be hacked.

Applequeso wrote:I don't imagine I'm going to like this "3D" gimmick much.

General_Norris wrote:The cartridge medium was an obstacle to Pyracy because you have to build hardware in order to hack the console while you only need a DVD to hack a PC game and consoles fall prey to Swapmagic and other stuff.

Applequeso wrote:I don't imagine I'm going to like this "3D" gimmick much.

Well, it depends. Do you consider good graphics a gimmick? Because it's the same thing.