Due to an amendment in December 2018 of the Unfair Competition Prevention Act in Japan, certain gaming-related activities and services have now been declared illegal. This includes:
Distribution of tools and programs for modifying game saves
Selling product keys and serials online without the software maker’s permission
Game save and console modding services
As such, sales of products such as Pro Action Replay and Cybergadget’s “Save editor” have been discontinued.
It’s meant to ban sale of hardware devices and services that allow playing pirated games on Switch and such, but due to the way it’s worded it just bans them all.
We really need to push for more right to repair laws and things not produced by the copyright holder (say for 5 years) should lose all copyright protections.
WHAT? why?..what???
Because:
It’s meant to ban sale of hardware devices and services that allow playing pirated games on Switch and such, but due to the way it’s worded it just bans them all.
Can’t wait for Nintendo to sue Microsoft because VS Code can be used to edit save files.
lol man is just a game. Let me have fun exploring hidden rooms. No one is committing a crime by modifying their own game save.
For some of us, finding ways to cheat IS the game.
In other words, Japan apparently hates property rights.
We really need to push for more right to repair laws and things not produced by the copyright holder (say for 5 years) should lose all copyright protections.
Successful lobbying by Sony and Nintendo I imagine.