TRADING Standards chiefs at Warrington have called foul on a local retailer offering to “flash” games consoles at a knockdown price.
“Flashing” allows counterfeit games to be played on genuine consoles by overriding the built in copyright protection.
As well as being illegal, the practice can also cause serious damage to consoles and invalidate their warranty.
Roger Mapleson, the borough council’s consumer and business protection manager said: “This type of activity has a serious impact on our local economy. Retailers of legitimate games and gaming accessories suffer as a result of this criminal activity and we will take action to protect both consumers and local business owners.”
He said if left unchecked, illegal gaming could have a serious impact on companies that develop and sell computer games as they would have less money to develop new games which could result in job losses and a reduction on the number of new games reaching consumers.
Mr Mapleson added: “Many may think this is a harmless activity but we want to get the public to think twice before attempting to ‘flash’ their consoles or buy illegally copied games.”
TRADING Standards chiefs at Warrington have called foul on a local
retailer offering to "flash" games consoles at a knockdown price.
Calling foul on illegal games
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Gary Skentelbery
Experienced journalist for more than 40 years. Managing Director of magazine publishing group with three in-house titles and on-line daily newspaper for Warrington. Experienced writer, photographer, PR consultant and media expert having written for local, regional and national newspapers. Specialties: PR, media, social networking, photographer, networking, advertising, sales, media crisis management. Chair of Warrington Healthwatch Director Warrington Chamber of Commerce Patron Tim Parry Johnathan Ball Foundation for Peace. Trustee Warrington Disability Partnership. Former Chairman of Warrington Town FC.
2 Comments
SInce when was “flashing” a console illegal? At worst it invalidates your warranty, but simply changing the software is no difrent from changing the radio in your car, its you car, your console, you can do what you like with it providing the modification is not in breach of the EU directive (ie includes software that you do not own an valid user license for). Its only the copying of the software that is illegal.
In fact a better analogy would be to modify your cars engine so that it can do 200mph, the modifying is not illegal but doing 200mph is and your car manufacture would not be responsible for repairs to your modification..no diffrence.
There are perfectly legitimate reasons to mod consoles, you could be a budding games developer wanting to test your own games, you could legitimately own a console purchased from the US and have emmigrated here so need to adapt for UK region games. As for Piracy destroying the industry…WRONG! piracy creates the indusrty, I have been in the software/computer industry for thirty years so you can consider me an expert. And I say no computer or console that has ever suceeded has been piracy free, infact the most succesful consoles and computers of all time creating multi billion pound industries are as as direct result of software availabilty through dubious methods. The pirate software availabilty creates console sales, the console sales promote software development. piracy and software sales are two sides of the same coin and when you take piracy out of the equation you kill the console.
Well said Richiepooh, to many people in this world try to tell us what we can and cannot do in our own homes and with things we own. I’m sure that Trading Standards should concentrate their efforts on more serious matters.