It seems like Nintendo is taking piracy seriously for the 3DS. Nintendo president Satoru Iwata says Nintendo may very well implement automatic firmware updates on the 3DS without any input from the user.

New firmware updates would bring new features, but also block any potential vulnerabilities used for hacking the system.

During a Q&A sessions Mr Iwata said the 3DS could use the system's Spotpass mode to automatically download new firmware updates.

Spotpass mode is a new feature where the 3DS will seek out wifi hospots and automatically download content while in sleep mode.

"As part of the functionality of SpotPass, we're looking into having automatic system updates via the internet," Mr Iwata said.

He also said Nintendo want to include firmware updates on the games themselves, so newer games would presumably update your system before you can play them.

"We believed this to be doable because the usable ROM size for the 3DS would become much larger," he said.

Mr Iwata said many people in the past did not updated their system's firmware, so he is looking for new ways to bring updates to the users.

It certainly looks like Nintendo will be travelling down Sony's path of constant firmware updates to block hacking. They have already released two flashcard blocking updates on the DSi. Expect things to get even harder with a whole new handheld.

Source : http://www.andriasang.com/e/blog/2010/10/0...rmware_updates/