Text Hammer

Throughout the history of gaming, people have had a compulsion to subvert and modify games and also the systems they run on. Be it simple assembler code tweaks on microcomputers such as the Commodore 64 and ZX Spectrum to give you limitless lives on computer games way back in the 1980s, to Ninetendo DSi flashcarts permitting one to play a wider range of applications on their Nintendo DSi.

Games developers and console developers have had an uncertain relationship in regards to modders and gamers who are often one and the same. In one way, hackers bring more worth to the games and systems - e.g. modified chips give great convenience to games players who can download non-sanctioned games from the internet. Similarly, games hacking breathe new life into “uncompletable” games, and in the modern gaming era it’s de rigeur for software developers to actually embed “easter egg” cheats for gamers to discover.

But to counter that, games producers state that such chip modification lessens their profits, as mods are also used to bypass steps to try and prevent illegal copying, and circumventing firmware that restricts discs to work only in particular countries. These are strong causes for console and games developers to perpetually develop new steps to make chipmods all that more dificult.

But whatever the grounds in opposition to modifying chips, chipmodding is a large industry that isn’t going to go away.