Marks is out with the hell that is MOCKs, so I'm in the Digest seat this week.

Ahoy Mateys!

Well, it had to happen sometime; the pirates are out. Authorities seized around 300,000 pirate copies of Gamecube software in China during the week. When cartridges go, the pirates arrive. It may have had to happen sometime but it was still quite surprising to find that Gamecube is the newest victim of the great evil that is piracy. With it's 'mini-dvds' (or whatever you want to call them) some might've thought we had pretty much beaten the gangsters, but we haven't.

Perhaps it would be best to clarify my position on piracy first. It is, as I said earlier, a great evil. We know how hard it can be for developers to stay belly-up, and must get profits they deserve for good pieces of software. For Gods sake, of all the surviving US and European companies, only one, Take 2, saw its share price rise during last year. Publishing behemoths suffered a 10pc fall. Ubi Soft and Midway were 70-oddpc and Infrogrames a whopping 80pc. Too many companies are looking for buyers, too many are failing, are dying. The videogame industry is heading for a crash, I believe. But that is for another article, the point is that with all this going on, companies need all the money they can get, and piracy is deriving them of that precious green.

But piracy is no easy thing to stop. Any guy with a CD rewriter can do it, okay more may be needed if it isn't just a simple PS disc, and once he does it's blooming great. Take today for example. A mate of mine has a CD rewriter and used to regularly copy discs for a tidy profit (I was a regualr customer for music - am I a hypocrite? Probably) and recently my cousin gained the ability with his new PC. The topic of the next Championship Manager came up today, and my cousin realised how much he could make by buying the game and selling loads of pirate copies in his school (it is a VERY anticipated game). Apparenly, a guy had made about 200 quid from the last edition.

But lets not lose sight of the focus here, piracy on Gamecube. It's no surprise that China was where they were found, the legal games industry is non-existant in China, pirates rule there. So then, maybe the situation will be contained within China? Perhaps. But Chinas lack of action against this problem will only lead to its growth, and that's the last thing we want right now.

Publishers Not Satisfied

This week came the dissapointing news that UK developers Codemasters have halted all Gamecube development. It's worrying enough that this is happened, but the worst part is this isn't exclusitively with Codemasters, they're just another developer to show hesitation, or downright lack of faith towards Gamecube.

What does this trend show? That things haven't quite changed entirely since the N64. Games companies are still wary of Nintendo, and the suits down in Kyoto better start coming up with something to get companies excited about Gamecube. Many jumped on in the beginning with all these hopes and promises, and are now feeling the burn. It Nintendos responsibility now to ease that burn, and ensure companies that Gamecube is a good choice for their games. Nintendo just aren't doing that.

Losing The Faith

The reason this Digest is up today and not yesterday is that last night I realised something last night that I had to put in here. I am getting bored with Gamecube. The years games (with a little exceptions) aren't keeping me interested anymore. But what is keeping me going is Zelda. Once again, Link is Nintendos saving grace. Just the thought of that wonderuful-looking game makes Gamecubes current lack of a killer punch all worth it. Once I get my hands on Zelda in June (it's on hold because of GCSE's) that'll be it. Eternal Darkness? Smash Bros? Mario Sunshine? All good, but ultimately dissapointing. I am sure that Zelda will hold no such dissapointment. And if it does? Well, this is one Nintendo fan that will lose the faith.