FLATMII streams games to your Wii, via USB
By Joseph L. Flatley 
posted December 31st 2008 1:24PM
posted December 31st 2008 1:24PM
Nintendo has gone to some lengths to keep one step ahead of the modding community, but to little avail. We've recently seen a product that enables DVD playback on the Wii, and now we've been hepped to FLATMII, a device that plugs into the Wii's drive ribbon, letting you stream ISO backups of your games (or the Gecko OS, Mplayer, emulators and more) from your Windows XP or Vista PC -- which your console now takes for its DVD drive. If you're the sort of sane and sober Wii owner who figures that it is wise and prudent to backup games that you own legally -- the kind who would never ever think of stealing software -- hit that read link. And be sure to catch the video after the break.
[Via Max Console]
[Via Max Console]
$10 says Nintendo actually invented this thing. I've seen a Wii in a hotel that had 30 pre-loaded games that could be selected through a menu, something tells me Nintendo developed a way to load all those games on a drive, and someone got their hands on one.
if you lose, will you paypal me the money?
$100 is a pretty steep price to pay for playing backups. I would rather purchase 5 more games from gamestop rather than pay $100. Somewhere around 25-30 would have been more economical for a backup player.
You can get wii modchips for 10$ now, but this is something completely new so that is why it costs so much.
like always its to much work. im afraid ill mess something up inside, which they just come out with simple plug in and play like the DS homebrew. i dont know
The problem with our soceity is that people want everything for free.
No accountability.
Eventually we all get affected. If developers cannot make money they will not make games. (or good ones)
Without games what the hell good are the "Mods"
Everyone wants kick backs (Hadouts!/BAILOUTS!) and free stuff...."Give Me Free Stuff!Let someone else get SCREWED! No consequences mentality....is SAD and does not deserve to last. And should not be rewarded.
If you want something you have to work for it.
If you don't work for it. You probably do not deserve it.
Regardless of this statement.
I wish you all a happy and healthy New Year.
Hope we all have great gaming future.
Pirating wouldn't be nearly the problem it is today if the prices of games were under 30$
As a software developer, I'm not a fan of piracy.
That said, I also can't fault people for looking for ways to get access to media unavailable in their region. Just because Nintendo or MGM or ABC or BMG hasn't found a distributor in my country for something I want to watch, won't keep me from getting my hands on it. (i.e. Top Gear UK)
That said, I've gone so far as to pay for U.S. satellite (payment direct to the service provider), pay an admin fee on top of that to maintain the US address and recently created a US itunes account so I can buy TV shows I can't get OTA. For the amount of TV I watch and the fact I'm locked into my cable providers PVR system (terrible) it's in now way worth it to pay for cable service. But I'm not about to just bittorrent everything I watch either. I've gone from $1,100 a year for satellite service in SD, to about $250-300 a year to "own" 90% of what I watch in HD and PVR OTA HD. That remaining 10% is not worth $800 a year.
It is a little weak to try to find justification in it, but it's a balance between excess capitalism and what's fair as a consumer. If it's easy enough, you should what you can to make sure those who should get paid, get paid.
For example, I've purchased over 900 DVD's and am creeping up to 100 BD/HD-DVD (with a previously large VHS and Laserdisc collection). If I rent a movie and I can't watch it in time. I'll "timeshift" it, which I used to do to a DVD-R but now that I've got a easier way to view them with a 10 foot interface (W-A-F) now it's just digital and I delete the old ones when I need space for new ones. And I've also bought a number of movies I've timeshifted after the fact. There's also a handful of movies one would have otherwise bought but have made copies of due to the nature of the home video market. For example, I refused to buy Kill Bill on DVD knowing a huge multi disc set will come out. I'm not going to buy it twice, I've done that too many times. Or I bought "A Few Good Men" back in the late 90's on DVD when it first came out, then they released an anamorphic version... What did I do? .... Damn straight. Then it came out on HD-DVD and I bought it. :) Anyhow, all I'm saying is I try to be fair. Who's ripping who off when I pay for a movie 3 or 4 times? At least with the Godfather's on Bluray there was a rebate for owners of the DVD set. Pathetic $10, but considering Blockbuster was only offering me $6, I guess it's not so bad. This is sort of why I'm more interested in purchasing a license to view rather than a physical copy. This way if they remaster it, I should technically still have a license for that film and that gives me the Iphone version or the DVD version or the HD-DVD version or the streaming online version, etc... That said, I'm a movie person... someone who doesn't buy movies at all and just copies them.. well far less of a grey area wouldn't you say?
Music wise, I haven't downloaded a song or album in years.
As for the Wii here.. I've got a system I barely ever use. How it's the best selling system is beyond me. The vast majority of the games are garbage. But I know I'd actually use the damned thing if the games didn't cost me anything (I could say the same of my PS3, but at least I get use of it was a BD player)..I mean.. WarioWare Smooth Moves was fun.. for 4 hours. But $50? W-T-F are you smoking?! As for my 360, I wouldn't think of hacking it. It's brilliant.
Also the price of games should not be a factor as to whether or not you pirate. I mean I get it when you're young, you can't afford this game and that game and that game at the same time. But here's the deal...
1) Blockbuster and GameFly? offer a inexpensive monthly subscription service for games that's < $30 a month.
2) Fallout 3 took me 77 hours, but only cost me $50. That's 71 cents per hour of entertainment. A movie in a theatre at $10 is $5 per hour. Even if the game is Dead Space at 12 hours of gameplay time just to complete you're still up there with a movie. Though frankly, I'd say rent Dead Space. If you feel the need to own it you're getting more than the 11 hours of out it and the cost per hour entertained is even better.
3) You pay $60 for a game, play it and trade it in for $30.. your cost per hour entertained has doubled.
I can't even tell you how many hours I've gotten out of the Guitar Hero's and now Rock Bands. Several Hundred Hours. Easy.
So really.. games are well priced given the market that exists. Good ones anyhow. Plus these days you can get demos for most of the great games and the access to advanced reviewer information really reduces your risk of buying a bad game (which I know was always my concern when I was younger).
BTW.. anyone here who still has this staunch position on anti-piracy (without condition), please consider this.. if you've ever purchased a used game... by your logic, you're stealing from the game developers in the exact same way as if you made a copy.. EXCEPT it's worse, you're letting someone else profit from it.
Though frankly my view on it is that it's putting money into that market and since I trade in it makes it that much easier to justify purchasing new games too.
I guess all I'm trying to say is it's not quite so black and white when it's a consumer product (except music, to me, that one is pretty open and shut for me. The medium is so largely different (You can listen to a song several times in a day, or listen to it throughout your life on a regular basis and TV and movies and games don't afford that by their nature). Besides itunes largely kills the old "I'm not going to spend $15 for 1 song", excuse which was really the only remotely valid one in the past. Plus prices for CD's have dropped over the years while inflation has occured. So way more bang for the buck.
So yeah, I don't think in this case it should be a literal "video game piracy = stealing from your home", nor should it be "I should have the right to play backups." because, while true, it's a really small percentage of people who really damage a disc requiring the need to play a backup and I bet most people who would install such a mod take VERY good care of their gear/games/movies/etc...
Great post Taylor. I am of the same philosophy. Plus, I will always buy any game/dvd that I really love. I just refuse to buy something I havnt tried.
Another factor is the limited budget that a lot of people have. If they pirate a game, it was money that they were never going to spend in the industry anyway, so at least this way, they still have the console out of the cupboard, and are more likely to be interested in buying the next latest accessory when they can afford it. There are others who never would of even bought the console if they thought they werent going to be able to play backups.
These wii consoles have the idea right, get everyone to buy the accessories, because you cant pirate them.