Nintendo Wii Fanboy

I'm such a self hating racist that my family thinks I'm weird. Anyway, since I'm posting via Wii, I'd rather not go into details.
Since family is going there on vacation, and I have to go, I think I'll be doing a bit of snooping. Would Nintendo care if I called them and told the location of these places as I threatened the store owner with arrest? lol.

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why are all the games rated T??

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Pirated DS and PSP games are quite abundant in the Philippines, too. They sell cartridges (for P2000=$40)modified with an SD card, with 1GB memory, to store downloaded DS roms (for just around P100/game-- roughly $2) and also music files. PSPs are hacked so that it can play ministicks that already have around five or so games inside. It's a far cry from genuine games (DS cartridges sells for around P3000, PSP roughly higher than that, Console games sell for around P4000)

Piracy is so rampant here that I'v never seen a genuine PS2 game. Ironically, most of my friends have PS2s. haha

Besides pirated games, we can also buy pirated dvds of all sorts. From new movies in DVD-quality (like spiderman 3), tv series (grey's to even as old as Mcgyver..lol), even documentaries from Discovery, these DVDs are sold here for P60 ($1++), or lower (depends where you buy it).

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You know... I love my home country... I mean, you know, it's where my parents are from...

But that country is pretty corrupt right now. Even the Education Abroad Program here in my University has canceled all programs to the Philippines due to "civil unrest" or something like that.

Oh, and for the ladies: You can get $1000 makeup for around $100 there... It'll help their economy too ;).

Piracy is how these third-world countries survive. The US and friends get cheap labor off of them... and they find their way to make enough money to feed their family for a day or two...

(To tell you the truth, I'm the type of person who would rather pay the dude who needs those $5, than the big company and games stores who profit anyway if I don't buy from them...)

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I'm booking a trip to the Philippines right now! ^_^

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Was in Philly three months ago. Everything is fake...

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Down here, in México, flea markets started installing Modchips for the Wii.

I caught a friend with a copy of TMNT and LoZ: TP. He was ashamed. Said he'd never do it again.

I scared him off saying false warnings such as Wii Updates that might brick his Wii, so he might remove the chip soon :P

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@theLoneYoshi.

I'm the kind of dude that would rather Dload a pirated movie or music album, than pay the off-the-street pirate.

By Dloading I'm not helping pirates, but leeching off their network, and giving nothing back in return. By paying pirate street retailers, I'm giving them money so they can keep doing it.

Then again, I like buying my movies, music and games (or at least rent the movies and games, and burn discs off of original music discs from friends).

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As someone who grew up in the PI I lived off pirated PC games in the 80's. I was just back over Christmas helping my parents with some typhoon relief work and saw nothing buy pirated software/music/dvd's/vcd's, etc. Even the major name brand stores sell the stuff. Right out in the open.

Cheap too. I picked up a 256 GBA game pack for about $10 bucks to see what was on it. Mostly garbage even though the box had big name GBA game listed on it...

It's a shame but like some of the other posters mentioned the corruption starts at the top and 95% of the people struggle to survive day to day.

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Hmm, just read that article. Greenhills Shopping center is where I was at over Christmas. It's an electronic toy store and every store there sells pirated something or another. Although on the PC side of things they do have a ton of legitimate items now. So somethings improved from when I was a kid. But as far as PS2 and XBox...yup...open up a 3 ring binder and point to the game you want and voila. They burn it on the spot.

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Ofcourse the issue isn't as black and white asit seems. Most people in such countries would never be able to afford games if they werent pirated. But the phillipines have extremely lax pirate and copywrite protection laws. There are stores in teh Phillipines that are called Nintendo and they sell all sorts of electronics.

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Oh and for the record, I'm not rich. Never was.

Ever since I've been a kid, I've bought original games. Sure, some used, some new. Never pirate.

I didn't game much when growing up, but thats what Bikes where for, "soccer" balls, and the like.

To all those who justify pirating by saying "but I can't afford".... Suck it up. You don't deserve it. Go play soccer with some friends, or tag, or whatever. You don't deserve to be called a gamer.

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Nintendo never launched a console in the Philippines. Heck, nobody ever did. When original games go for $40 - $70, you know that people would rather go for cheap.

The funny thing is pirated DS games are usually less than $10 cheaper than originals. Original GBA games are almost non-existent and your average consumer doesn't even know that they are/were buying pirated games. Pirated PS2 games could go as low as $2.

Unless there's substantial support for the surprisingly burgeoning videogame industry in the country, there is little that can be done to curb piracy.

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best place to buy pirated games? Hong Kong. It's where all pirated games in the Philippines came from.

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I think Ill be contacting my brother in the philippines lol

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i live in a country called Laos next to thailand.
i just bought a wii in thailand (udon thani) the games are 100 bath each about 3-4 dollars.
and the wii is 16 thousand bath (including chip)

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@13 rikitiki:
Probably the reason you don't see DS games that much cheaper is because of how expensive ROM can be (even the cheap stuff)

A few years ago in Florida (we're talking US here), I saw some knockoff GBA cartridge with pocketNES and a few NES games burned onto it.

...yes, I bought it. Portable Twinbee pushed me over the edge.

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Wow... My GF said that the Wii has been available in the Philippines for over a month or two now. and it was still about twice as expensive as what it should have been with comparable exchange rates...
I thought they'd at least have waited for it to be available in the country before making bootlegs of it.

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Yup. This is true.

I see modded Wiis being sold at our local Gamestore. Other established stores though sell the original unmodified Wii almost twice the price ( Toy Kingdom ) citing Wii shortages overseas. Other smaller stores will sell a modified Wii for the price of the Wii + a mod chip. Which one would you choose?

Some people I know stick to their convictions and just buy original games from respected retailers (Ex. DataBlitz). Others will try one or two games and buy the original if they liked it than spending $50 on some crappy game (SpiderMan 3).

At least Nintendo are selling them like hotcakes here, compared to the PS3s.

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Hey, you have to remember these countries are third world countries. I came from one of these countries and staying in Australia at the mean time. Look, you guys that say "ashame to you supporting pirates" probably don't understand the situation there. It is almost impossible to buy an original copies of games. Why you ask?
1. internet is not as fast as in developing countries, people don't rely on internet reviews to buy games, they rely on cover art!
2. I'm pretty sure almost all (99.9%) consoles sold there are mod chipped. The options are too obvious too choose
3. it's friggin expensive! customers especially students would not ever consider buying original ones as they are very rare also. Look, don't just flame your anger without knowing the situation. Having staying in Australia gave me some point of view of having original copies.

If you stay in one of those countries and grew up there, you will have different opinion. It's really not a question of morale but more on the environmental influence. People there rather use money to eat than buying original stuffs. Except the developers really go into that enforcing licensing and lower down the price to acceptable price. But it would cause people from US/other countries to import some cheap copies.

Well, piracy is part of the lifestyle there, it is inevitable and ironically it actually helps to boost the sales of the consoles. At least Nintendo/Sony/Microsoft still get some revenue out of it. And if I'm not wrong, I noticed that even all branded electronic device like dvd players are all moded. Yes! even the ones sold in official dealer. SOny, samsung, etc they all stay 'quiet' probably that's the only way to sell their products in those countries. Yeah I believe they kinda support piracy.

Hope you guys cursing the third-world-countries-pirate-supporter would get some insight of what's happening there before flaming us =)

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Apparently the Korean government (south) utterly cracked down on videogame piracy and software duplication. This was a little while ago, but it turned out to help companies like Blizzard who received huge amounts of money from PC hubs that started purchasing 8 copies of Star Craft and what not. Anyway, who's to say the Philippine government won't be next to crack down.

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This sounds outright expensive compared to the prices I see here in China. They'll chip a system for the equivalent of a few dollars, and then all games (Wii, PS2, Xbox360) are 5 yuan, or about $0.65. The only thing keeping things from getting really out of hand is the fact that games are still mainly available only in English and Japanese.

I think companies like Nintendo need to consider what they want to do with these markets. If they're making money off of the hardware, just release it, and take what you can get? Or try to find a price point that these people can afford while offering some minor frills like color manuals and such? This current system of just ignoring the whole thing while shaking a finger at governments that are either without any means of controlling this, or simply have bigger problems, is just not effective.

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Yes, I pirate Wii games. So sue me. When I want to play Japanese and American games on the same console and Nintendo won't let me (see, it isn't all about the money) I pirate. After all, a chipped console doesn't discriminate by region unlike a legit console. When Nintendo said that the Wii would be region-free, I was excited. Then they denied it, and so here I am. And like hell I will buy 2 Wiis just so I can play my Japanese games.

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I live in Laos(a country just above Thailand) and here they sell copied games and dvd's for about 1$ each. So i have got a pretty big Wii game collection of 12 games.

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I agree with what "newguy" said here in Brazil a original copy of a Wii costs R$260,00 wich is around U$130 and its just outrageous topay that much for a game specially when you cant test it before buying. I didnt mod my Wii because im waiting on a more reliable mod-chip but as of now ill have to stick to the only 2 games I have.

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We in England have only originals and i am going on vacation to the Philippines on Monday and i want to know if there is a shop where you can find Real not pirate Wii games but for cheaper then the UK.

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that vacation if for the7th of august

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Why should Wii release in 3 different versions US/Japan/Europe. they themselves are forcing people to modify the box to play any kind of games. Globally there should be one version.

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