The issue, as others have pointed out, is that the console and the games are perceived to be part of the "official" package by the general public. If you were permitted to market any game on their console, it could effect the overall perception of the brand in the marketplace; particularly if the public is confused about what is and what is not an officially sanctioned product.

For example, suppose that someone produced an M-rated game with adult content for the Nintendo Wii console and marketed the game as "Wii Wanker". Wouldn't that harm the family-friendly image that Nintendo has so carefully cultivated and protected? If it does, shouldn't Nintendo at the very least be compensated for you harming their brand?

I agree that one should be able to do what one wishes with one's own console, but there has to be some line drawn at marketing arbitrary games for a console brand owned by another. Nintendo has decided that it is cheaper to do this with some level of technical enforcement and legal action rather than through legal action alone. I can certainly understand where Nintendo is coming from on this one.

Theres no "marketing" involved with flashcarts, in no way are they ever portrayed as an officially sanctioned product, nor do they even sell their products in retail stores that sell official games Peoples perception of them as official products is not the responsibility of the flashcart manufacturer, unless they encourage that rumor, which they don't. In fact they usually go out of their way to state that they are not Official Products. (The outside box has a notice saying its not official, then a slip of paper in the box says it, the label of the flashcart itself, etc etc. as for "wii wanker", that's a different story, that's direct trademark infringement. But just an adult homebrew game would be fine and shouldn't get any legal action against them because that's not breaking any laws.

But its completely OK for a console maker to force me NOT to do things with something I outright purchased with my own hard earned money? Since when should their wishes be law?

PDF is a format designed to preserve the original page size and layout, while its certainly commonly (read: usually) used with no regards to those, it really really sucks at doing so. html based options like epub are much much better at having the content universally fitted and sized to the device in question. Also, PDF sucks for conversion to other formats as well.

I've been using a DS homebrew app called DSLibris for a while now, The DS is naturally shaped like a book when held sideways, and it certainly beats paying a lot of money for a dedicated device vs something I already have and use frequently. The top right corner page turning touch controls are also pretty nifty. It does currently lack a few features, like the ability to download/sync with books stored on my PC automatically, although it could easily be done given the DS' wifi functionality. And I'm not paying 250$ just to automate something that can be done fairly easily manually to begin with.

Lots of people don't have HDTVs still, so choosing a console also means buying a new TV if they want to play at anything higher than 480p whereas they can play up to 1600x1200 on even older monitors. It doesn't help that most console games aren't even rendered at full HD anyway, scaling helps but still. I'm gonna agree with you on raw cost tho, however, comparable pc hardware gets cheaper the longer the console has been out, decent hardware putting the 360 to shame is less than half the cost of a 360 now. ---

Directinput supports up to 64 controllers connected to the same PC. (you were going to play with a controller anyway since you favor consoles, right? ;)