Tuesday, August 07, 2007

State of The Malaysian DS Gamer's Mind

Walk into almost any video games store in Malaysia and ask for a Nintendo DS, you'll certainly be offered some means of "lowering your cost of ownership". One of this would be the R4DS, a Slot-1 solution which allows you to play pirated and homebrew games (or in geek speak, ROMs) and multimedia files such as video and music.

Some shopkeepers present rather compelling arguements like how original Nintendo DS games are so expensive and that nobody buys them, and that the experience of playing pirated games is the same as that of playing original ones. Obviously, no one taught them about the concept of "ownership".

IWhen it comes to new owners (who take advantage of the "lower cost of ownership") being asked about this, the most incredible answer I've heard was..."I don't know much about consoles". Right...like you don't know how to differentiate between a pirated copy of Windows and an original one.

Personally, I find it slightly revolting if someone were to talk about his/her Nintendo DS experience running pirated games with the aid of an R4 (doesn't matter if he or she mentions the R4 or not, as long as it's about pirated games), especially when it comes to blogs and forum postings. No offence, but who are you trying to kid? It's the same as bragging about using a pirated copy of Windows XP or driving your Proton car with counterfeit parts installed.

So please, if you want bragging rights, bring something original to the playing field. Piracy is for lamers who whine alot with denial issues.