Games Consoles and Modchips: What Are the Benefits of Modding?
Throughout the history of computer/video games, gamers have had a compulsion to tweak both software and hardware for fun and/or for monetary gain. Be it simple POKE tweaks on microcomputers such as the Commodore 64 and ZX Spectrum to allow you infinite “lives” on games back in the 1980s, to DSi flashcarts enabling you to run a wider range of apps on their Nintendo DSi.
Software makers and system developers have had an uncertain relationship with the hacking and soldering crowd. In one way, modders/hackers add extra value to the systems and games – for instance modchips give great convenience to games players who can play backups on their consoles. Likewise, games hacking breathe new life into very challenging games, and these days it’s normal for games producers to actually secretly plant “easter egg” cheats for games players to discover.
But to balance that out, games developers state that this type of chip modification damages their revenue, as chipmods can also be applied to circumvent measures to try and prevent illegal copying, and bypassing hardware that fixes cartridges to work only in particular countries. These are compelling grounds for console and games producers to forever develop new steps to make chipmods more difficult to carry out.
But no matter how compelling the arguments are against modifying chips, chipmodding is a huge market that isn’t going to disappear anytime soon.
