14 DAY TRIAL // Nintendo's prolific year is about to end and that can only signal the start of yet another success for the maker of the brilliant Wii and DS. As such, the producer is ready to unveil a new flash card, designed for the DS, with the sole purpose of allowing the owners of the portable consoles to play Game Boy titles.
It will also support Game Boy Color games and tons of titles from the past, which will be sold through a service that resembles the Virtual Console, extremely popular right now on the Wii. Curiously enough, the new device uses technologies which are similar to those that pirates and homebrewers work with. It turns out that the new flash card can store and allow you to play golden oldies, so this really sounds like a hybrid between homebrewing action and a legal device produced by Nintendo.
"If you can't beat them, join 'em" we could say, but we all know that Nintendo is one of the major fighters against piracy, specially since their consoles are plagued by this issue. By launching the new device, Nintendo will also grant some freedom to third party developers and their marketing move can be compared to what Apple recently did with the iPhone. Open platforms seem to be the future of all major technologies and devices, from consoles to phones and Pocket PCs. The only problem is that, once everyone starts producing games and launching them on unlocked platforms, the game developers will go bankrupt...
The only reason for the existence of game producers and developers is the fact that they stand for professionalism and order, because otherwise the gaming industry would be reigned by chaos. Platforms with a strict list of supported technologies and games may seem limited, but they keep great names like Nintendo and Sony in the biz, bringing them enough profits to deliver your beloved PSP, Wii, Zelda or God of War.