Source:http://tinycartridge.com/post/39314237825/not-everyones-happy-about-the-3ds-hacking-news

According to my favorite portable gaming news blog, Tiny Cartridge, hacker Neimod has made some strides in cracking the 3DS. Like the soft modding of the PSP, this may eventually allow for homebrew, emulators, and of course, pirated software to run on the 3DS. 

So what does this mean for us? Well, one major benefit some gamers are happy about is the ability to finally remove the 3DS's pesky region locking which prevents us from playing imported copies of Japanese games for example. And while that is definitely something to be excited about (Bravely Default Flying Fairy anyone?) we can't help but admit that many gamers wont stop there. 

Whether we like to admit or not, piracy hurts the industry, and smaller game devs and publishers suffer more than their billion dollar budget big brothers. Renegade Kid's Jools Watsham, developer of the very cool Mutant Mudds on the 3DS eshop, had this to say about it: 

"Piracy on the Nintendo DS crippled the DS retail market, especially in Europe. We’ll never know how/if Dementium II landed in as many hands as the first game, Dementium: The Ward, due to the rampant piracy at the time. Dementium: The Ward sold more than 100,000 copies worldwide, which is a great success for an original mature-rated title on the DS. Recorded sales of Dementium II are less than half that. We’ll never truly know why that was so, but many seem to believe that piracy had a lot to do with it.

If piracy gets bad on the 3DS, we will have no choice but to stop supporting the platform with new games. Some say that piracy leads to more game sales, claiming that it enables players to try before they buy. Bullshit. The percentage of people who will spend money on a game that they already got for free is surely very small – especially with so many “free” games already in the market. The line between what should/should not be free is getting very blurry." (http://joolswatsham.blogspot.com/2012/12/3ds-piracy.html)

While many gamers who pirate games will take up a "damn the man" stance, convincing themselves that they are getting back at big name companies who charge an arm and a leg for on disc DLC and such, this statement gives us an idea about how piracy affects the little guys. 

Let me just climb dowb from my high horse here for a moment. Years ago, a friend and I hacked our PSP's in order to play Japanese titles before they were released in the US. Yes, I pirated a few games, but in all honesty, they were games I eventually purchased once they were released in the US. My friend, on the other hand, would download ISO's as they were made available, gigs and gigs of games that he never finished. I didn't see why he had created such a huge backlog for himself. I hate to use anecdotal evidence to support my argument here, but I've read about publishers and devs choosing not to release games in the US because their games have been pirated too much.

So where does that leave us? Piracy can prevent some great games from being released and it can hurt small game devs and publishers. Sure, lots of gamers like to try before they buy, which speaks to the importance of demos. I for one think that for a handheld like the 3DS, which is in a constant battle to keep third party developers as it is, would likely suffer from it's hardware being hacked. Sure, more 3DS units might sell, but what about software? Especially that of smaller developers? 

What do you think?