UK Piracy "House" Busted - Nintendo Hints at Modchip Detection

[brakken]

Leicestershire’s Trading Standards Department backed by the games industry’s own crime unit has busted a house that contained a machine that produced modchips for the Nintendo Wii and plenty of chipped Wii consoles. This seems like your normal bust, but the press release contains a quote from Nintendo stating they are able to detect and track users who are playing Mario Kart on a modded Nintendo Wii.

"A Nintendo insider said: “A chipped Wii might sound cool but it is useless. The latest Wii extravaganza, seeing Mario back in a racer at the front of the pack, Mario Kart Wii, would be useless on a chipped Wii. You’ll never get the interaction or support when it all unravels. You’d have to be pretty stupid to think online gaming won’t be easily log-able in such digital days! Chip it and you brick it, as we say around the office. There is only one real Wii experience – and it doesn’t come chipped!”"

Read More: Here

[brakken]

A Wii chipping factory has been tracked down to fraudsters in Leicestershire. The Wii is the nation’s favourite family console – so much so that the Japanese corporation hasn’t been able to keep up with UK demand for not one but two Christmases! But an undercover sting by Leicestershire’s Trading Standards Department backed by the games industry’s own crime unit unveiled a counterfeit plot potentially worth £millions.

As a result of enquiries made by TSD officers and investigators from ELSPA, the trade body for the country’s major games publishers, a home was raided in the Coalville area of Leicestershire this week. The raid, which was undertaken by Leicestershire TSD and police, turned up vital evidence suggesting the non-descript home actually housed sophisticated counterfeiting apparatus – including an industrial unit to churn out rogue console chips. At least two people have so far been arrested for their part in the ‘fraud factory’. More than 2,000 counterfeit chips, were recovered from the raid. These consisted mostly of Wii console chips although some were for Xbox 360 and PlayStation2 consoles. A number of consoles were also seized. After the planned trial, all the rogue chips will be destroyed – if only to avoid disappointment amongst the nation’s competitive children and parents.

A Nintendo insider said: “A chipped Wii might sound cool but it is useless. The latest Wii extravaganza, seeing Mario back in a racer at the front of the pack, Mario Kart Wii, would be useless on a chipped Wii. You’ll never get the interaction or support when it all unravels. You’d have to be pretty stupid to think online gaming won’t be easily log-able in such digital days! Chip it and you brick it, as we say around the office. There is only one real Wii experience – and it doesn’t come chipped!”

Following the crack-down, visitors to the offending website are currently greeted with this ominous message: “The site is currently down for maintenance. Normal service will resume shortly, sorry for the inconvenience.” Michael Rawlinson from ELSPA said: “Fraud can cost Internet companies a lot more than just its visitors. Our investigators are out in force working with Trading Standards Departments across the land combing everything from Sunday car-boot sales to auction websites 24/7 seeking-out counterfeiters. The message from the nation’s favourite games publishers is simple, fraudsters can run but they can no longer hide!”

John Hillier, who heads ELSPA’s crime unit, said: “Piracy costs the games industry dear – just like that of any other entertainment industry. Making good and inventive games is an expensive and creative process, with some titles today costing £20m or more to develop. To make a quality title involves teams of highly skilled professionals, from programmers and graphic artists to voice actors and musicians. When a pirate sells illegally-copied games they undermine the viability of our industry and in turn that threatens jobs.”

Paul Jackson, Director General of ELSPA, added: “We would like to thank Leicestershire’s Trading Standards Department, and Police for all their efforts during this investigation. We have now stepped up our campaign against thieves of games software and others who attempt to flout intellectual property rights of our members. We have sophisticated tracking techniques at our disposal these days and as my colleague put it, the cyber-criminals can run but they can no longer hide!”

[ZeldaDD]

Am I the only one who read that quote from a "Nintendo Insider" and thought "Bull." Something about the quote just seems false to me. Ah well, more of a reason to actually buy games like Mario Kart when they come out.

[brakken]

Originally Posted by ZeldaDD

Am I the only one who read that quote from a "Nintendo Insider" and thought "Bull." Something about the quote just seems false to me. Ah well, more of a reason to actually buy games like Mario Kart when they come out.

You should always buy your games. Backups are meant for protecting your investment.

[duffmmann]

I would never chip my wii anyway, hell, i wouldn't even take part in video game hacks if soft hacks like the tp exploit and homebrew channel didn't exist, but I am super glad that they exist

[Ariance]

If this is true then i hope that Nintendo can detect that the game is legitimate. As the main reason i have my Wii chipped is to play imported games.

[Teconmoon]

Hmm... I don't think that is the case. They might be able to detect the chip, but probably not the legitimacy of the disk. I will just not play online until this is confirmed. Especially with Nintendo of America living so close to me!

[RowaN]

Where did that quote come from? I seriously doubt that anyone at Nintendo would officially say that "A chipped Wii might sound cool". Thats like admitting "piracy is pretty great, but.."

[smurfro]

I've never seen tehskeen publish fake news... what happened?!

[FelineCastration]

Yeah, I call bullshit on whatever the source of that news is. I've already been online with my burnt PAL copy of Mario Kart so I guess that means Nintendo has logged whether I have a drive-chip or not?

Whenever you read the f/w or data off of the drive, don't you hear it click first? Like when you first turn your Wii on. If the game does that anytime during online I would be concerned. But I could be wrong, maybe it doesn't.

[InvisibleKid]

Something about the quote tells me this is fake... can we have the source of that quote please?

I'm pretty sure Nintendo wouldn't call a chipped Wii cool, and they wouldn't call users "pretty stupid".

Something tells me that's a fake quote...

[radorn]

fake or not, whoever said/wrote that, is a douchebag.

Also, they call them "couterfeit chips". Where do we get the AUTHENTIC/ ORIGINAL ones then, smarty?

[ma777]

...............

[ma777]

Originally Posted by radorn

fake or not, whoever said/wrote that, is a douchebag.

Also, they call them "couterfeit chips". Where do we get the AUTHENTIC/ ORIGINAL ones then, smarty?

LMAO.

[ZeldaDD]

Originally Posted by brakken

You should always buy your games. Backups are meant for protecting your investment.

I agree. I have quite a large stack of games here myself. One of the reasons I got my chip was for some of the awesome Gamecube stuff (MFE, Multigame discs...my large Gamecube collection condensed down to far fewer discs) and so my Wii could play imports.

[nehe32]

I lol'd when i saw this

A Nintendo insider said: “A chipped Wii might sound cool but it is useless.

"But its useless you say" just because you might get caught playing online with it?
if its so useless what is up with this "raid" i thought nintendo wouldnt waste there time on something thats useless

I dont pirate games or anything. but i mean come on..if the people modding all these wii's were called a 'fraud-factory' and were producing more than 2,000 chips do you really think it was due to one of them playing mario kart?

if this was the case, i thought we would see a crap load more news about nintendo banning or raiding peoples homes, sending them emails etc about their modded wii's

imo, currently the whole thing about it was because they were playing mario kart on a modded wii seems a bit like scare tactics to me. i could be wrong, but right now i think its bull

[brakken]

http://www.nintendolife.com/articles...y_raided_in_uk

I heard maxslut also posted this story, but I blocked that POS site in my hosts file :)

[brakken]

Originally Posted by smurfro

I've never seen tehskeen publish fake news... what happened?!

Google it ... think it's still a fake?

I didn't post a source, because I got it in email form from.

[adr990]

Maxconsole post LOT fake news...
I mean one of their last fake news aging was :
A chipped Wii might sound cool but it is useless, Mario Kart won't even work

I never and for real NEVER saw TehSkeen (Brakken xD) posting anything fake...
---
BTW I am less active for a while but I am still alive lol

[smurfro]

Originally Posted by brakken

Google it ... think it's still a fake?

I didn't post a source, because I got it in email form from.

If they can see you are playing a backup of mario kart online they can also stop the chip from the begin.... I don't see anything true in this news because there's no technical information that can confirm it.

And yes, maxconsole publish a lot of fake news!

[bubbleboy]

Headline is: UK Piracy "House" Busted - Nintendo Hints at Modchip Detection

should be:

UK "Piracy" House Busted - Nintendo Hints at Modchip Detection

[ADAMAZiD]

I think whats worse is that I had a CycloWiz on order with the very company busted. Now im stuck with a crappy N5 :/

[CZroe]

They claim to have busted a counterfeiting operation but they describe a modchip-fitting operation. WTF?!

Also, that nameless "insider" douche doesn't sound like he speaks for Nintendo in any way... with that much misinformation, I doubt they'd let him even if he works for Nintendo.

Originally Posted by bubbleboy

Headline is: UK Piracy "House" Busted - Nintendo Hints at Modchip Detection

should be:

UK "Piracy" House Busted - Nintendo Hints at Modchip Detection

Considering that there was no piracy described, it would be better if he were the first to step up and correct it. Provided that there were no copied discs to sell, this guy will walk free and the old "misinformation" story will remain circulating to keep the competition wary. That's all they really want anyway.

He should call it "Authorities crowing about latest arrest clearly don't know the difference between legal modding and illegal bootlegging." Egg on their face.

OK, maybe he had some clone chips, but it's not like WiiKey code is licensed and/or copyrighted in the country.

[brakken]

I don't post "fake" news. This was a syndicated press release that was emailed to me. I Googled it to make sure it was legit and then posted it. As for the "Nintendo insiders claims" he states that "You’ll never get the interaction or support when it all unravels." This claim, if legit, hints to modchip detection and the "unravels" part hints that Nintendo has plans to do something about the situation.

Maxslut's post was very misleading as it claimed the game didn't work at all. I never claimed it didn't work - I just reported on the press release. If you are playing an illegal copy of the game then by all means I have no problem with Nintendo doing whatever they are going to do.

[jeffc313]

Originally Posted by brakken

If you are playing an illegal copy of the game then by all means I have no problem with Nintendo doing whatever they are going to do.

I do, actually. If nintendo does brick consoles, then they are no better than the pirates. I have no problem with them making games unplayable if a modchip is installed though.

[brakken]

I doubt they will "brick" consoles, but probably do something else. Although, if I were Nintendo I'd brick your shit for playing illegal copies of games. That's just me though :)

[spsmartguy]

What else could they do to deter besides brick consoles? Give you an e-slap on the wrist? I play BACKUPS.. which is not an illegal copy, I just like keeping my games mint in my collection, and god knows my roommates would end up scratching the hell out of them if I let them use the real copies... leading to me spendin another $50 on the game... if they punish me for that, .. they have issues.

[tehnoir]

Originally Posted by spsmartguy

What else could they do to deter besides brick consoles? Give you an e-slap on the wrist? I play BACKUPS.. which is not an illegal copy

I think that is pretty dependent upon which country you live in and how the law is interpreted

[Teconmoon]

Now I'm scared... I plan on buying this when it comes out in America, but I don't want anything bad to happen. Is this modchip detection confirmed yet? And if it is, can they tell the legitimacy of your disks?

[edracon]

this article made me laugh because I don't have a modchip, nor do i plan on using one.