Brick Nintendo?

The Nintendo 3DS has been creating quite a stir lately, and most of it has not been good for publicity. Defective by Design, a consumer activist group, is demonstrating about the Nintendo 3DS's End User License Agreement (or EULA). Defective by Design is taking donations to send Nintendo a bunch of bricks in reaction to Nintendo reserving the right to "brick" (or make useless) your 3DS.


Nintendo says:

"After the Nintendo 3DS menu is updated, any existing or future unauthorized technical modification of the hardware or software of your Nintendo 3DS System, or the use of an unauthorized device in connection with your system, will render the system permanently unplayable. Content deriving from the unauthorized modification of the hardware or software of your Nintendo 3DS system will be removed. Failure to accept the update may render games and new features unplayable."

Defective by Design retorts that:

 Nintendo states that they "may update or change the Nintendo 3DS System or the Nintendo 3DS Service in whole or in part, without notice to you." This includes "embedded software" — aka the firmware on your device (Chapter 6, Nintendo 3DS End User License Agreement).

Worst of all, Nintendo has claimed the right to use the information they collect from your device to judge if you are allowed to continue using it.

And this is just a part of the many problems Defective by Design has with the 3Ds's EULA! To read all of them, go here.

So what do you think? Does Nintendo have the right to "brick" anyone's 3DS?