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Wednesday, March 2, 2011

Nintendo 3DS to feature intrusive DRM

Nintendo 3DS to feature intrusive DRM

Once Nintendo's 3DS price and release date became official, pre-orders have been very strong, but HULIQ News must pass along a word of warning about the device's digital rights management (DRM) controls.

Nintendo 3DS in Aqua Blue
Though Microsoft's Kinect peripheral and its Xbox 360 console remain the most popular gaming hardware items at retail currently, every indicator suggests that will change on March 27th when Nintendo's 3DS handheld system become available. In fact, in HULIQ's most recent weekly tracking chart, pre-orders for the 3DS took the fifth and sixth spots.
That said, Wired spoke with Nintendo's Bill Trinen uncovered something rather interesting about Nintendo's DRM restrictions for the system. Though Nintendo does allow for owners of a current DS system to import digital purchases (as well as game data) stored on an SD card to their shiny new 3DS, content bought on that new system will be locked to that particular system. This is potentially worrisome for consumers, since Nintendo has a history of refreshing its handheld systems several times during a 'generation' - and could potentially be a major hassle for those replacing a system that was stolen or damaged, something that is always a risk with a handheld device.
Mr. Trinen clearly states that "once you've bought it, it's for the system you bought it on". Curiously, this contradicts Nintendo's own official page, which says that "downloadable software already purchased on a Nintendo 3DS system to another Nintendo 3DS" though only for a limited number of times. This feature will apparently be available only sometime after the system launches, and details are listed as 'coming soon', suggesting Nintendo has not yet finalized its DRM policy.
Consumers who find restrictive DRM a negative factor may want to wait for Nintendo to issue a full statement on the issue before purchasing the system if you see digital purchases in the future. Transferring licenses from one device to another, even when relatively painless (as with the Xbox 360), is still a hassle - so anything that smacks of intrusive DRM could be a potentially damaging feature of the 3DS.
Surveying various comment threads suggests this may indeed be the case for Nintendo, so it will be interesting to track precisely how strong 3DS pre-orders remain as March 27th approaches

from - http://www.huliq.com/10177/nintendo-3ds-feature-intrusive-drm

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