Nintendo's Old School DRM

Nintendo claimed the lockout chip was required for quality control in the post video game crash era...
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Sources / Further Reading:
- www.nesdev.org/wiki/CIC_locko...
- en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/CIC_(...)

[@PoisonedAl]

You can bypass it by overvolting it. Unlicensed games smack it with too much power and it would rollover. This was fixed in later version of the NES tho.

[@zachoman420]

A famous example of such was colordreams, but Nintendo threatened to remove licensed games if distributors didn't stop selling colordreams games

[@jasonblalock4429]

I don't believe they ever fixed it. They just ended up removing the lockout chip entirely from the NES 2 redesign.

[@thePalindromeCrafter]

That's what some old bible games I had did! It just fried out that chip so it wasn't a problem :P

[@Eduardo_Espinoza]

damn that's smart!

[@nunyabeezwax6758]

Overvolting it of course, fried the cart and possibly your board too. Thanks Tengen... looking at you. At least Zelda II was the replacement game...

[@TheCode-X]

I soldered a wire from psu to that chip to bring that pin constantly high, and got the same result

[@SubscribeToMeForCookie]

How don’t make sense, how would giving it power help? If needs to be connected to the motherboard and why tf would you need to solder

[@chrismofer]

Your solution, pulling it up, is more stable. Floating it could randomly fail half the time or be sensitive to static electricity

[@sasabarisic8864]

@@chrismofer i doubt they float, it probably has an internal pulldown

[@100brsta]

@@sasabarisic8864very unlikely

[@joemann7971]

​​@@sasabarisic8864depends on how its made. The pin could be connected to something else internally but without a schematic, you have to assume it's floating. Connecting it to the PSU eliminates any guesswork. Not to mention, cutting a pin is irreversible. Desoldering a wire is not. If you just want to remove the pin, would at use the socket method with the pin cut on the socket. At least that's what I would do.

[@landstrider6304]

I had no idea that was a thing. When I was young we would go to the market and get a single cartridge that had 100s of games on it for the same price as a single game.

[@sh0sh0n3]

Nowadays you can download an emulator and every game made in less than an hour 😎

[@lyianx]

@@sh0sh0n3 emulators which are not 100% accurate. But that only matters with like 10% of games out there.

[@Alacritous]

@@sh0sh0n3 And buy USB game controllers for NES, SNES, ATARI, etc from the usual sites.

[@myria2834]

​@@sh0sh0n3 for the NES, less than 5 minutes.

[@anunnymous3222]

@@sh0sh0n3 Nowadays = Late 90s... Emulators have been out a long time bro.

[@zedwhitepawandfriends1607]

So all those times my game kept resetting and wouldn't play it was this chips fault. I remember endlessly wiggling some carts around to stop the resetting.

[@oaf-77]

Yes

[@spgilmorespgilmore]

Most of the time it's due to dirty contacts on the ZIF slot or the cart caused by spitting (blowing) on it. Dirty sockets seldom work. CICs usually do.

[@backwoodsjunkie08]

This drove me insane and I never knew about the chip!!! Just shows how much knowledge the Internet gives you! I wish I had this video when I was 10, I had a shit ton of games that wouldn't work! I had this game shop I used to get so many games Thier and the owner was a short fat guy with a gold tooth and chain. I think he sold A LOT of unlicensed stuff.... including cocaine (looking back on him as a 40yr old adult😅

[@scamchan]

Most of the time it wasn't even from DIRT it was bad contacts of the NES itself being forced down creating less than ideal contact. You can open up the NEWS and pull those contacts up again making the contact firm like new. The whole blowing and huffing and puffing is just garbage.

[@jerrycanople4005]

@@scamchan hmm could this be a long time scam affecting cartridge blowers?

[@HerecomestheCalavera]

And just like all DRM it was easily bypassed and in the end only effected legitimate customers.

[@dr_birb]

How did it affect legitimate customers playing legitimate games?

[@massivive]

​@dr_birb your console or cartridge has a defect due to dust, age, or an electrical fault in a way that messes with the lockout chip? built-in DRM kicks in and needlessly locks you out of booting the game

[@nisonatic]

@@dr_birb You pay for an NES console, making you a legitimate customer of Nintendo. You pay for a game by RandoSoft, you're also their legitimate customer. That RandoSoft has a dispute with Nintendo is none of your concern.

[@dr_birb]

@@massivive sounds like physical mediums degrade over time. Can't relate :3

[@dr_birb]

@@nisonatic If by dispute you mean making a game for their console without their permission, and it doesn't work, sounds like a you issue

[@SterileNeutrino]

I remembered something, namely the fight between Atari and Nintendo about the "right to interface": February 1990: "Interface Specifications, Compatibility, and Intellectual Property Law" by Pamela Samuelson in "Communications of the ACM", Volume 33, Issue 2 (freely available at the ACM digital library): "Perhaps you have read about the lawsuit currently pending between Atari and Nintendo in which Nintendo claims intellectual property rights in the interface between its video game console and cartridges designed for use in the Nintendo console as a basis for blocking Atari’s right to develop and sell compatible video game cartridges for the Nintendo machines. The outcome of this lawsuit may have profound implications for competition in the software industry, as well as for the price you will pay for game cartridges for your child’s Nintendo machine (which you may have noticed are not at all cheap)."

[@TatsuZZmage]

Also very funny since the Nintendo entertainment system was using a unlicensed implementation of the 6502

[@Mrshoujo]

Tengen pretty much won because soon after Nintendo implemented it's "Seal of Quality" mark on "licensed" products and alleged unlicensed games would "damage" the NES.

[@pex_the_unalivedrunk6785]

Also, on a related subject...The entire Anti-trust lawsuit against Nintendo finally panned out...but not until potential competitors had been virtually destroyed (R.I.P. TurboGrafX 16)

[@Dave01Rhodes]

I thought the reason cutting pin 4 worked was because that’s the pin the chip uses to reset the console. So the cartridge still fails the CIC handshake, but the chip can’t do anything about it.

[@NesHacker]

⚠️⚠️⚠️ I DO NOT recommend performing the "pin snip" hack! There are non-destructive ways to disable the CIC (check out the sources in the video's description). Also note: performing the hack will have very little impact on making games playable, and should really only be done if you want to play PAL games on an NTSC system, etc.

[@zetorux]

The second link is broken btw! (it should go to "/CIC_(Nintendo)" but it leaves off the right parenthesis)

[@klaasj7808]

who cares, most nesses you buy have this trick performed back then. i was part of it, made alot of money out of it haha. also with the psx and the 12c508 chip, i cant remember how many i programmed of them haha. i miss that era, it was awesome.

[@christopherdecorte1599]

I have an nes I got the is missing 3 pins can it be replaced with one from a broken gamecart?

[@cybernoid001]

Not to mention there are a handful of games that won't work if the lockout chop is disabled. It's not many. And certain unlicensed games may also overheat due to the way they try and add extra voltage to bypass the cic, if it's missing then the unlicensed cart can't discharge the electricity correctly.

[@klaasj7808]

@@cybernoid001 are you joking me? i sold many 260 in 1 cartridges in the early 90s, never had any complain haha.

[@bucky5869]

I had to snip my lockout chip because it wouldn't accept any carts. It likely had gone bad but now with that pin cut it works just fine.

[@michaelsmyth3935]

Worked on Pinball in the 80s. Always put a socket on the board if you have to change a chip. The I/O chips on Bally were a horror.

[@blarghblargh]

"why did I destroy it" - I'd have guessed because desoldering without a powered desoldering tool is a BEAR! :D

[@electronicscaos]

You can still save this IC, with some effort.

[@NesHacker]

Hmmmm… I think you’re right. Maybe I’ll give it a try🤔

[@klaasj7808]

couldnt you have told me that in 1986 haha. so many nesses is fubarred with it haha.

[@cheezit1427]

Sooooo many innocent CICs and 72 pin connectors have died as a result of people being too lazy to clean their games.

[@TheTurnipKing]

the CIC chip was the WORST thing Nintendo did when they revamped the Famicom into the NES. The chip has ONE job, and it is to increase the likelihood of your game not working.

[@Wflash00]

@@TheTurnipKing Wow ok lmfao If your cartridge couldn't handshake with the 10NES, then it was probably too dirty to run properly regardless of the 10NES. Nintendo would never spend millions of dollars to invest in lockout security for *no other reason* than to cause people to not be able to play their games; just keep your cartridges clean and youy won't have any issues

[@TheTurnipKing]

@@Wflash00 probably but its an engineered failure state that doesnt need to be there, it adds several pins to the Famicom edge connector that exist ONLY for the lockout chip and if any of them dont make a proper connection your game wont work EVEN IF EVERYTHING ELSE IS FINE, and despite the NES having more pins than the famicom it results in expansion audio being moved from the cart slot to the bottom expansion connector, so no better music. Everything about 10NES is a fucking abomination and the NES is immeasurably improved when its removed.

[@lyianx]

@@TheTurnipKing Like it or not, console manufactures are making consoles to... *gasp* make Money! And how do they do that? Not by the console. They make pennies off of it. Its by licensing games. Its why most console makers sell consoles AT A LOSS because they expect to make up for that in game sales. But they cant Do that if people skip over them entirely and not give them a licensing fee. They dont exist to provide YOU with entertainment, they exist to make MONEY! And in any case that chip is easily bypassed today even without cutting it.

[@AiOinc1]

Who cares? They're DRM and do nothing else.

[@SpartanJoe193]

#AbolishDRM

[@PANZERFAUST90]

Yeah, abolish intellectual property -- wait what?

[@divinecomedian2]

​@@PANZERFAUST90that would be fantastic

[@PANZERFAUST90]

@@divinecomedian2 fantastic to abolish your own ideas?

[@joshsanders1860]

Nintendo, the original Apple corp

[@KeiNova]

I actually never knew this. Extremely interesting!

[@tetsusiega2]

It’s the main character in Space Station Silicon Valley!

[@trpstrincllc4866]

2nd best 64 game ever.

[@the_Lime]

Yoo first time seeing people acknowledge this game!

[@DeVoN420zz]

There is also a couple pins you can cut and wire in a different crystal osolator to overclock the cpu for less lag in some games but for some strage reason the music also speeds up lol, best to wire to a switch to toggle original vs mod

[@alphanerd2305]

That happens because games don't have their own timers and base their speed off the console's CPU. It was a common issue in the 80s on PCs as well.

[@DeVoN420zz]

@@alphanerd2305 yea the crystal oscillator oscillates at a specific frequency and can be used for more than one input

[@TheGlitchyMario]

Just wondering, how does the console behave without the chip?

[@kakarlsen]

Perfectly fine (and you never get the the reset loop if the game needs a blow). Oh, and it removes the region lock.

[@TheGlitchyMario]

@@kakarlsen sweet

[@lyianx]

@@kakarlsen dont... blow.. on the cartridge! Omg why do people still think this is smart?

[@BitHappyy]

@@lyianxwhy not?

[@TylerFurrison]

Could cause corrosion, just reseat the game and it'll likely work better that way ​@@BitHappyy

[@razbit]

I miss the old Radio shack (chips)

[@m4rkmk136]

its a chip that walks to the rythm of staying alive on a bread board until the end of times

[@onlymediocre7476]

I saw it at the beginning and immediately mentally said "bro is walking"

[@boboften9952]

" Went from being a Chip to being a Twistie . "

[@andrewgiv]

Would have been nice to know this info like 35 years ago!!!!! Damnit!

[@MarkDanielLouwe]

That chip is now a monster in Ragnarok Online.

[@crackerjack4833]

A lock only keeps an honest person.... honest. That's it.

[@Zer0Blizzard]

Nintendo wishes they could beat people with bricks legally

[@ezrawyvern6795]

As extreme as this may seem, I can definitely understand why Nintendo took so many measures, up and to preventing 3rd party developers from publishing more than 5 or so games a year. The Video Game Crash Of 1983 was still fresh in the minds of Nintendo and others, as that was when the video game industry almost got a permanent Game Over. Lack of standards, lack of quality control, and several other things nearly brought about what Jack Thompson and Anita Sarkessian could only dream of, and almost killed video games as we know it.

[@mreese8764]

It's FOUR pins! - Picard probably

[@jamesturncliff5960]

The Seal of quality left Nintendo it's all about quantity now

[@chrisevil7012]

and when this chip malfunctioned and your game stopped working, you were left wondering why it never worked. nintendo has been doing the customers dirty for a very long time.

[@bradburnett7576]

I used to blow sweet nothings into the carts until it read the 0 I was putting in XD

[@confirmhandle]

I remember running a small wire from that chip up my butt it created just the right amount of resistance when holding the controller with aluminum foil

[@rRobertSmith]

I miss the good old days when pirating software was also a hardware challenge.

[@xreev0x]

The chip was not included on the Top-loader NES. This actually results in the possibility of overheating when playing unlicensed games due to some of the techniques used to defeat the chip implemented by certain 3rd parties.

[@superoof-ck1cb]

Tengen was like the plague. They were everywhere.

[@imaginoss2468]

Nintendo: puts Anty piracy measurements Everybody else: how about no?

[@hadleymanmusic]

Neat beat man! Ive really wantin to build my own standup arcade style with at least 2 player controls and I wanna play everything like arcade 1 up does

[@Domarius64]

Like it or not, their quality standards rescued the games industry from Atari who allowed crap games to flood the market so badly that no one wanted to buy games anymore.

[@alexsullivan2957]

You earned my subscription today big pimp

[@Marines_Memelevolent]

Nintendo really has always been insane about their DRM

[@sirflimflam]

I knew the moment I saw the 4th pin on both sides snipped removed you cut the wrong one.

[@SlainByTheWire]

All these year later and I'm now just learning that the reason my NES kept resetting is because of a faulty DRM chip. DRM has been cursing my gaming for decades.

[@andreasu.3546]

So what exactly is this chip? - It's dead baby, it's dead.

[@FrightF]

The cartridges would become being called Asian games in my small home town where piracy was no big deal and no-one was making profit. Im told even the old rental outlets like at Lytton road had these cartridges with heaps of games on them. Even my dad had a mate whod just do alll this stuff and give them to us. I have a modified and non-modified NES rn 😊

[@PikaBolaChan]

i’ve only ever seen this chip animated to dance

[@tom940]

I socketed mine too but just bent the pin out so it wouldnt stick in the socket so i could easily return it to stock functionality

[@Kansika]

It's all fun and games until you snip the wrong pin.

[@GabrielShroyer]

You could've soldered the cut pin, and just cut the right pin, but your end result is nice to look at.

[@Billyjoebob420]

I see components like that in my electrical class

[@davidbrabham3623]

Is that the reason why we used to have to fuss with that freaking game cartridge so much🤬

[@jasongooden917]

Explains why some games just worked like crap

[@staden87]

I bought a broken NES for super cheap. The only thing wrong with it is that the CIC would block all game including legitimate games. After snipping the 4th pin it works great.

[@chhakchhuaklalmuansanga2423]

I still have a nintendo but the controller is all broken..i miss the times i used to play it all day

[@generositygamer7971]

I wonder if this chip was the reason so many of my games did that blinking, and not the "dust"...

[@matthewwolfson7204]

Me thinking it's the microchip from back to the future 3

[@se7ense7ense7ense7ense7en]

finally someone that actually knows what theyre talking about and isnt just pumping out content desperately

[@FYCY]

So that's why my console did that when I was a kid because there was something wrong with the chip. Damn DRM.

[@dlite6999]

Omg I didn't know there was a reset button on the underside 😂😂how many new ones we bought and it just need to reset! Funny fact!

[@popixel]

Lol… so you can put an empty socket with the pin removed? That’s too funny.

[@Joshinken]

You can also just remove the chip. Im not sure what the socket is for, but i fear he’s trying to source or repair a cic chip and put it in the socket so it can act as a key and do absolutely nothing in its socket

[@MichaelRobacker]

So, that explains why the NES keeps resetting when you're trying to get a game to work properly. We've always blew into the game cartrage to make it play right.

[@angusjtaylor7745]

I hate the fact that I knew exactly what it was from the first second of the video. My mate once bought me a copy of the legend of zelda, but bought it on eBay from overseas. I had to do this to actually play it.

[@Quickcat21MK]

Nintendo probably gonna request a takedown of this. And sue. They are a very aggressive company that way.

[@E-Kat]

Bunch of data must be another unit!😂

[@maartentoors]

So now I have to sit through an endless YT-Shorts loop because you felt the janky need to screw with Nintendo DRM and wanted to loop-share it with the world.

[@bobhsohi704]

I'll take your word for it a bit over my head

[@dotnetdevni]

the nintendo cart was the best very hard to copy u got reminded we didnt have youtube and github in the day

[@screenapple1660]

Unreal Engine did the same.. They didn't allow google to to make their own game engine that uses UE compiler.

[@ModestJoke]

They didn't give the chips to anyone. They made _all_ of the official cartridges. They licensed the software from the companies who programmed them and then produced the carts. Which is why every official cart says "licensed by Nintendo".

[@gitgud_kryz1738]

Wasnt the video game crash of 80's caused by a lot of unlicensed games being flooded to the market? Hence the "seal of quality" by Nintendo.

[@ElationProductions]

Yeah. Nobody likes being regulated, but it was needed to keep a flood of garbage like Atari's ET game coming on the market and souring out consumers.

[@Music-nn9mi]

That is the chip that does the walking

[@Back_No_Wood]

That's a hex bug man come on 😤

[@DisgruntledPigumon]

Rather than destroy a part of a classic console, you could almost as easily just desolder this, pop it out, bend the pin up, and then place it back in a resolder it. Yeah it’s not lazy, but it keeps the system intact if you or someone later wants to restore it to actual 1980s working order.

[@dougieh9676]

I used to do this in my cable box so I could watch Playboy Channel at my uncles house.

[@SuperHaunts]

Great resolution!

[@XtreeM_FaiL]

If you remove the lock, you don't need a key anymore.

[@eraserrainlantier3040]

When I do hardware installation for the NES I unsolder the chip leg and cut it off. I don't charge for it, It's just a very annoying issue later on and removing the leg doesn't effect the system.

[@haardinc]

GUARANTEED I'd have a plot somewhere by 2025! GUARANTEED!!!!!!!

[@guiltyifudnthavemnybuyinnocent]

Wish, youtube was around when i was a kid..... the things i could have done.

[@alieander]

That poor thing! How could you hurt it so!! 😂

[@-PsychoTheRapist]

poor DRM piece of $hit

[@Gerbert67]

Why would anyone ever have an NES in 2023? Not only did the games absolutely suck, but you can emulate NES on literally any device if you really want to play those games.

[@RonPerillo]

Do these chips exist only on the NES and not on the Famicom?

[@Joshinken]

Yup! Its the reason why nes cartridges actually have more pins than famicom.

[@collectthemall]

Nintendo did not give that chip to anyone. Unlike Japan in the rest of the world only Nintendo was manufacturing cartridges. What is funny in India they were selling NES officially but with removed DRM chip.

[@johnder1203]

Ohhhh, I had a game that did that!!! Now I know why!

[@Freedom1776usa]

No wonder blowing into the cartridge didn't work! 😅

[@shona-sof]

Great video, but one detail is a little off. Nintendo didn't "give" the lockout chip to developers. Nintendo manufactured the cartridges, themselves.

[@groidcel]

Even though the NES had its fair share of bad games, their licensing model and use of lock chips helped prevent the console from making the same mistakes as the 2600. Ironically, later consoles like the Wii and Switch would become a dumping ground for shovelware.

[@coastersandcars]

So even 40 years ago Nintendo was being sleazy

[@Solnoric]

This is why your cartridges didn't work. Pulling the cartridge and blowing in it didn't do anything, just removing and reinserting it was all you needed.

[@Kyle-Manel]

It also frequently malfunctions and results in endlessly restarting nintendo. Another dumb reason why they should just keep their programming language to themselves, and leave the devices without these controls.

[@JPs-Channel]

They did say to cut the 4th pin.

[@hyenahallstrom7034]

That's just a tiny micro hex bug silly

[@volumegamer8310]

0:50 is a jojo refrence

[@The_AuraMaster]

Now play Staying Alive near the chip

[@machtnix9627]

Couldnt those companies just buy 1 actuall game and reverse engineer the chip?

[@iplaywhatiwant3738]

Leave Tengen alone. Nintendo broke their contract with them. No contract = no rules.

[@NotGarbageLoops]

DRM hurts consumers and doesn't stop pirates. Source: * I am a consumer that's been burned by paid software. * During the poorer times of my life I got all paid software for free, never got viruses. * I'm now game dev, so I'm on the other side of the coin. Fuck DRM.

[@MrSBGames]

Nintendo being a piece of shit company since the early days. They haven't changed at all.

[@SerenePlanets-ry3tw]

Nice info

[@elrob20]

I did that 20 years ago