Wii U's Restrictive Drm

Submitted By MICKYBOY
Words: 835
Pages: 4
Open Document
Wii U's restrictive DRM is a confusing throwback
The new Nintendo Network ID system that makes its debut on the Wii U is a sign of progress for a company that has, historically, not shown a lot of savvy in setting up its online systems. The Wii U lets users connect up to 12 separate Nintendo Network IDs to a single system and use those IDs to easily connect with online friends and strangers. The new Wii U eShop includes many retail games for download on the same day they reach stores, and does away with the "Wii Points" virtual currency that characterised Nintendo's previous console. The company has even promised to roll out a cloud save feature sometime next year.
Given all of these improvements, it's a bit baffling that Nintendo is still caught in the past when it comes to the extremely limiting digital rights management system that ties downloaded game and content purchases to a single console.
As Nintendo's Wii U FAQ makes clear, "a Nintendo Network Account can only be used on the console where it was created." Thus, any games tied to that unique online ID will only work on the first system they're purchased and downloaded to. This is in essence the same setup that Nintendo used to protect downloaded Virtual Console and
WiiWare games on the first Wii, a setup that not only utterly failed to stop piracy on the system but also caused headaches for many early Wii owners with faulty systems.

Tying downloaded games to a single system means there's no way for a user to access those games at a friend's house short of lugging the entire system along (yes, the Wii is a lot smaller and lighter than other contemporary systems, but still). It also means a game downloaded to the Wii U in the living room won't be playable on a second system in the kids' room, even if the same password-protected Nintendo Network ID was used on both systems.
It also means that if your system breaks down, you can't just go buy a new one (or borrow one from a friend) and immediately recover your content using your account.
Instead, you have to go through Nintendo's official repair process, waiting up to two weeks for the system to be returned just to maintain the system-locked licence data -a caveat I learned about first hand recently. And in the extreme case your Wii U is stolen, it seems there's no way to recover your purchased games (Nintendo has refused numerous requests for comment on its DRM scheme). Sure, you can back up purchases to a USB hard drive, but thanks to this licensing scheme, those backups are no more portable than the actual bits stored on the Wii U's internal storage.

This DRM scheme was already retrograde when Nintendo was still getting its online feet wet with the Wii, but it's really backward in late 2012, when every other major game platform has figured out ways to protect downloaded content while also making it accessible across devices. Microsoft allows downloaded Xbox 360 games to be played on secondary systems as long as you're actively logged in with your Gamertag, and it allows users to transfer an entire library to a new system using a
Show More

Related Documents: Wii U's Restrictive Drm

Gaming: Video Game Sales Essays

Video Gaming & its Effects Adam Rogers West Forsyth High Abstract This paper is specifically about how video games do not have a negative effect or impact on society. Many believe and are mislead to believe that video games provoke violence and other negative effects on teens and adults. You can find in this paper that this statement is completely false. Video games do not provoke violence. In fact, it actually decreases it. Statistics show that as video game sales increase as well as their…

Words 725 - Pages 3

Video Games and Chiropractors Essay

Video Games and Chiropractors Chiropractic (chiro- "hand" + praktikos "practical", means "done by hand.") is a complementary and alternative medicine health care profession (Dr. Gary Johnson, 12/6/12). My life focus has been sports. Any kind of sport: high school baseball, high school basketball, high school football, college football, college basketball, college baseball, National Basketball Association, National Football Association, and Major League Baseball. As a three sport athlete in high…

Words 2547 - Pages 11

Effect of Interactivity and Nostalgia on Video Game Industry Essay

looking into the factors that set video games apart from film and television as a form of entertainment, such as the video game hardware available, the targeted consumers, and the psychology behind interactivity, as well as the nostalgia factor, this paper will discuss the effect interactivity and nostalgia have had on the economic success of the video game industry. Today, video game consoles, controllers, high-resolution graphics and compact discs come to mind when thinking of the video game industry…

Words 4065 - Pages 17

Fabricating Sources /Hum 176 Essay

Americans rely on the media to get the most accurate and current news that they can rely on. When a big breaking story hits the stands we have many options to access the big story. We can access the big story by local news channels, internet, news papers, and many new electronics like our cell phones. Media can have disadvantage and many advantages as well. The advantages of media today are that we can get our information so fast and have many options on how to access the media. The disadvantages…

Words 860 - Pages 4

Blue Ocean Essay

Blue Ocean Strategy Paper Marcia C. Falls MKT/421 Marketing March 5, 2015 Instructor: Jan Peterson Blue Ocean Strategy Paper The blue ocean strategy in marketing is a unique approach to building a customer base. Rather than try to compete in a crowded marketplace with existing companies, a blue ocean strategy looks to build an entirely new market segment that has no other existing firms. With the rapid growth of technology and globalization, the importance of a blue ocean strategy has grown in recent…

Words 695 - Pages 3

How Literacy Shapes Technology Essay

similar way: staring with the pencil and paper and slowing evolving into the use of computers for all your reading and writing needs. This advancement in technologies has made the availability of reading widely available and an increase in the ease and speed of writing. Research articles are now easy to come by and you can find thousands of articles with just the simple stroke of a few keys on the computer. When I was researching articles for my biology term paper, it was amazing how simple and easy it…

Words 1968 - Pages 8

Essay on Technology: Technology and Shopping Carts

this paper, but it is more evident all around us. All you have to do is just look around your surroundings; your home, your work place, even in the bathroom. Can you imagine having to use stone and pieces of clay instead of toilet paper, as the ancient Greeks did? Or using Chūgi, an anal cleansing stick used by ancient Japanese civilization in the 12th century? In the 14th Century, Chinese emperors had paper made specifically for that use. In the early Western civilization corncob’s and paper torn…

Words 1134 - Pages 5

Report on Toshiba and Nintendo Essay

Company and Product Analysis: Toshiba with Nintendo Client Presented to Marsha Yeagley BMGT 331 – Professional Selling Prepared by NAME(S) December 9, 2010 Introduction Toshiba and Nintendo are two companies that have a presence around the world. Both company’s have branches in the Americas and internationally. Toshiba America Inc., headquartered in New York, NY, and Nintendo America, headquartered in Redmond, WA, holds similar…

Words 3480 - Pages 14

Essay about Student: Wii and Example

business, these are called legacy systems. Better management information is required for decision-making - companies using databases to store things because before databases on computers where invented they used to have to work out everything on paper but now excel and access have easy tools to summarise and analyse large amounts of data. Management can make decisions from reports and queries that have been made. The provision of better customer service, this is such things like keeping a system…

Words 1435 - Pages 6

IT 331 Unit 2 Essay

Unit 2 Assignment Kaplan University IT331-01 Part 1a: Describe the hot spot involved in this operation. I am in the airport waiting on the next leg of my flight. I sit down closest to the walkway so that I can reach the hotspots from several different restaurants in the vicinity of my gate. I start up my wireless-equipped laptop and I wait to see what is available and in what range from me. Whatever hotspots show up I have to accept and initiate the connection on the one with the best signal to…

Words 907 - Pages 4