Piracy Destroying the PSP

[wraggster]

2007 was a pretty incredible year for PSP, wasn't it? It featured some fantastic games, such as Syphon Filter: Logan's Shadow, Final Fantasy Tactics: The War of the Lions, Jeanne d'Arc, and more. Unfortunately, too few actually went out to buy these games.

Next-Gen compiled a list of the bestselling games from 2007, and PSP exclusives managed to get zero games on their list of 100 games. (Data is compiled from the US and UK. Japan is not included.) That means no PSP games managed to break 460k sales (the total of the 100th ranked game) in all of 2007.

Is piracy making a significant dent on PSP software sales? We'd say "yes." No wonder Sony is asking about the homebrew situation; and no wonder the PSP library for the rest of the year is so slim -- publishers have been burned.

http://www.pspfanboy.com/2008/04/10/psp-software-holds-no-place-on-2007-bestseller-list/

[hodey]

Piracy also killed the Dreamcast, you didn't even need to softmod it. While I also use the custom firmwares, it definately makes using pirated software verry tempting.

[JKKDARK]

Yeah, there's a big difference between the PSP hardware sales and the software sales. I hope there will be less piracy this year :(

[Buddy4point0]

Dang, I didn't realize it was that intense.
That sucks, hopefully the PSP will continue to thrive no matter how much piracy there is for it.

[ExcruciationX]

I actually doubt it would get better...

[blazsly]

notice how they didnt mention about japan. Pretty dumb considering psp games sell unbelievably well there.

[blazsly]

notice how they didnt mention about japan. Pretty dumb considering psp games sell unbelievably well there. and what are they talking about how there no more good games coming. Talk about not getting there facts straight.

[mavsman4457]

I smell a whole new PSP coming out without these stupidly-easy-to-crack firmwares. Now that I think about it, DAX not only gave us everything we could want in this PSP but may have brought about a whole new PSP early. This could be good. Of course, I am COMPLETELY jumping the gun. And is there a reason that you double posted with your first post inside your second?

[JKKDARK]

notice how they didnt mention about japan. Pretty dumb considering psp games sell unbelievably well there.

Only certain games, like Monster Hunters.

[jamotto]

It would help if they would advertise the games.

[MZeroEW2]

Yeah it sure is a shame. and Monster Hunter is a awesome game

[SSaxdude]

Piracy also killed the Dreamcast

No, Sony killed the Dreamcast.

[stanfy86]

I first decided that I was going to take my PSP in different directions than Sony intended almost as soon as i got it.

I bought one originally because i wanted a portable media center, the MP3 playback was awesome for a portable console, and the few games available at launch were amazing, but the one selling feature i was most interested in was the ability to play back movies.

Now as everyone knows by know the UMD was a complete failure, and its obvious as to why. Why would anyone in their right mind pay 25$ for a movie that will only play on a PSP when the DVD version is the same price?? i mean if the phat PSP came with vid-out off the bat, that would have been a completly different matter, but alas that was not the case......so rather than pay full price on a UMD movie i had to create the MP_ROOT>100MNV01 Dir, and place MP4's there, now the reason this pissed me off is i had to find this information through a issue of hand heald gaming monthly.

The main reason i was using custom firmware up untill about 4 months ago was specifically to play old games that are hard to find, and to expand on the capabilities of the unit itself, i mean having 6-7 consoles rolled into a portable system if fricking awesome, and also i wanted to play PSX games on my PSP (i can remember when PS2 was big, i was so expecting/looking forward to a portable PSX), but in order to play PSX games on my PSP Sony wanted me to buy a PS3, and connect it to the sony store, pay for a game that i allready own, then transfer the PSX game to the PSP......ummmm i dont think so.

Now onto the article.....well all i can say is with the titles available for the PSP so far...only about a dozen games are good, and everything else is just a half-assed port of its console counterpart, or just bad. These days im finding games in general to be re-hash's of old concepts, or breif play time, and no replay-factor, i can remember a time when replay factor was one of the biggest things that sold games.

In conclusion i would probably have followed sony if they werent trying to make money off of me every time i wanted to add a new feature to the system. Rather than actually acknowledge what its cunsumer base wants, and provide ways for them to attain it, WITHOUT SPENDING ADDITIONAL MONEY, Sony would rather take these requests/sudjestions and figure out how they can make the most money from us...

I know a lot of people wont agree with me, but im not trying to make anyone adopt my sentiment, just giving my perspective on the issue.

[mike_jmg]

Just a thought that might save it

Why not distribute every game through the PSN store and put an end to the freaking UMD format for good.

PSN store hasn't been hacked (as far as I know), it has a lot of security measures, games would be available on the release date for everyone, sounds like copying the ipod song downloads, so what?, It would be nice and it'll put an end to piracy (I think)

[myuusmeow]

If the PSN is so secure, why do I have a download of Beats I got for free? Why am I downloading Syphon Filter: Combat Ops for free right now?

[mike_jmg]

damn

ok psp is doomed, at least for software

[Veskgar]

Am I the only one tired of seeing these types of threads? This is a PSP homebrew forum but yet everyone is always knocking the PSP and its games. Yes, homebrew and custom firmware is great. But without the PSP hardware and firmware designed by SONY we wouldn't have any of it.

Automatically assuming piracy is to blame just because PSP games have not reached some sales figure "milestone" is a pretty vague assessment.

SO many love to hate the PSP and I never saw why. Well, I'll say "I told you so" in 2 years when the PSP is still going strong.

Start showing the PSP some more love people!

[zanco]

Only thing I can say: stop torrenting games... :(
Besides you enjoy a game much more when you buy than when you torrent it.

[kharaboudjan]

actually i couldnt care less if the psp will be ripped. my only reason to get the psp was for the emulators. and there is only like 3 (N64, SNES and Amiga) that isnt fullspeed yet.

[Larry]

Rent games, seriously you guys cant afford 20$ a month to rent a game for as long as you want?
It sure beats pirating games. Play a game until you beat it and take it back.
It's better than buying games, and better for sony than pirating them.

[Veskgar]

Besides you enjoy a game much more when you buy than when you torrent it.
That is definitely true.


Rent games
Purchasing is a better long-term investment. A lot of games if kept pristine could be worth a lot 20 years from now.

Man oh man. How I wish I saved every box, sleeve, wrapper, manual, and all extras that would come in the NES games, Super NES games, etc. That collection would be worth a fortune.

[Larry]

I'll agree with you there, but for the people with limited gaming funds, buying every game they want to play could be out of the question.
Renting is good for the try before you buy kind of aspect.

If you rented a game you really like, buy it, i did, like Monster hunter freedom 1 and 2. :D rented them, loved them, bought them.

[jamotto]

but for the people with limited gaming funds, buying every game they want to play could be out of the question.
Renting is good for the try before you buy kind of aspect.

Although, I like the idea of places like gamefly, but for it to be useful for me they need to drop the monthly fee below $10 a month as otherwise it be more expensive to rent the games vs buying the games outright. It would work even better if they had no monthly fee and instead just charged per game rented.

[Larry]

Ya i don't use gamefly, i use a local video store, that 20$ covers video games for every console and any movie.
And i have the option to buy a game/movie at a used discount price, though i generally prefer not to.
I couldnt be bothered to have to mail stuff back and forth.

Also i can rent 1 game and 1 movie at a time, (though i cant do 2 movies or 2 games) and since it's a 2 minute walk from where i work, i do all that stuff during my break.
It works out well for me, 75% of the games i rent i take back the next day simply because i don't like them. Much better than a pay to rent per game. pay 5$ for a 5 day rental and then dislike the game.

[Psyberjock]

Only certain games, like Monster Hunters.

So only GOOD games sell well... Yeah, I agree with you.


If the PSN is so secure, why do I have a download of Beats I got for free? Why am I downloading Syphon Filter: Combat Ops for free right now?

Because you're a criminal, and a stupid one for posting it on the internet in a public forum.



Automatically assuming piracy is to blame just because PSP games have not reached some sales figure "milestone" is a pretty vague assessment.


I agree with you on this point and I blame the game companies for producing crap. Good games like Monster Hunter sell really well. 1.5 million games sold in just over a week is pretty damn good. If a PSP game is as good or better than the same or similar game on another system, it will sell well. The same goes for every console, portable or not. For some reason these companies have it in their minds that we will buy inferior products simply because they're portable. People who buy good games keep buying them. People who buy crap and get burned start to download.


Rent games, seriously you guys cant afford 20$ a month to rent a game for as long as you want?
It sure beats pirating games. Play a game until you beat it and take it back.
It's better than buying games, and better for sony than pirating them.

Thanks to the Sony and Nintendo monopolies, you can't rent games in Japan. Only movies and CDs. But thanks to the Music monopoly in the US, you can't rend CDs there. Does anyone else see what I see? Companies don't care about their customers, they only care about their dollars. Why can't it be both?

[RedMoogleXIII]

I don't know if Piracy is hurting the PSP or not, but the few PSP related ads that I have need on TV either for the games/system or both are disasters. Plus theres the fact that quite a few games are sucky scaled down ports of a PS2 title.. Also the major lack of selection of games at retailers also hurts.

I haven not seen a copy of Disgaea Portable or Silent Hill Orgins at all yet and thats 2 of the few PSP games I want that I currently dont have.

I did manage to get Jeanne D'Arc and Castlevania: Dracula X Chronicles when they came out and also getting Valkyrie Profile for the PSP was welcome as I could never find the PS1 version back when that was released in 2000.

I hope that retailers will have those games appear and also want to get the 2 Star Ocean games for PSP...

[Art]

Yeah sure, the product isn't selling so it must be the customer's fault!

[ChaosCrypt]

I'll agree with you there, but for the people with limited gaming funds, buying every game they want to play could be out of the question.

It is not their right to play every game they want tho.....

Thats the problem, people must have what they want right now.

Now back on the real topic.

Could it be that so many people bought games at first and got REALLY burned by how bad some of them were?

£35 ($70 US) is a LOT of money to throw away if a game is rubbish.

Downloadable Demo's are not really the answer unless they give enough of a taste of the whole game - ie the demo may seem nice and fresh, but when you buy the full version you realise that the rest of the game is EXACTLY the same as the demo was hour after hour.

Downloading ISO's allows "try before you buy", which is how I look at it (and HAVE looked at it since I first got my Atari ST 20 years or so ago.

I have a large collection of games on UMD, some bought AFTER I had completed the downloaded version.

I think the price of games is ALSO too high - I remember the Codemasters range on the Spectrum/C64/CPC464 @ £1.99 - these were affordable, with the "bigger" games at £10-£15 being attainable but not so regularly. This means that most of the UMD's I have were bought after the initial price drop.

£20 would be a no-thought purchase for me, £25 needs some thought, £35 is too much.

I also like being able to carry 12 of them on my PSP and not have the bulk of a load of UMD's to worry about.

[bah]

mike_jmg: http://www.dcemu.co.uk/vbulletin/showthread.php?t=103031

[Avenyet]

that is kind of sad considering a PSP game is normally only about £20.

I suppose people think its free i can go have 10 pints with that money :D

though I to admit I did download patapon to see what it was about (about 10 mins later DELETED)

looking at my shelf I must of account for half the psp sales last year then lol (its a bit full)

[The_Ultimate_Eggman]

$ony shafted their own machine not piracy...The lack of support and marketing from them doe's it no favours also the distinct lack of "AAA" games doe's little to help it..

[Larry]

People who think ISO's are better for "try before you buy". well..
Here a question that doesn't requires a public answer, but just ask yourself that question. Do you really buy games you like, after you've played them in iso format?

The answer would be on average, no.
Who in their right mind would buy a game that you already have? UMD's are slower, bulkier(especially since iso's take no physical size) and you cant have 10 on your PSP at any given time.

No one uses iso's as a try before you buy. Anyone who says otherwise is full of sh*t.
The games i own, i only got because they were onsale. and i only buy games i really like. If i kinda like it, i don't buy it, i have to really like it.

The PSP's game list is pathetic. No one's going to spend alot of money on a mediocre game, and no company is going to spend alot of money to make a better game if it's just going to get pirated.

PSP games should have a maximum price tag of 30$ USD, and thats only for the really-really good ones like crisis core and god of war. All other games should be 20$ or less, with an average of 10-15$. New, not used. Used would be under 10$USD.

I've seen the questions asked a dozen times.
If we make better games, will you be willing to pay more, or at least buy them?
Every one answered yes.
If we make games cheaper, would you be willing to buy instead of pirate, everyone said yes.
But the reality is, you could charge 5$ a game, and you still wouldn't sell huge numbers. Why spend 5$ for a game you can download in 10 minutes?

Be realistic. If you have a problem with the quality of games, it's your fault.
Those that don't buy their games, have no say in what gets made.

So you pirates that think these games suck, well guess what you didn't buy it, you don't have the right to an opinion.

I'm not the perfect person. The rental place i use doesn't have every game i want to play. Some arent even released in this country. So i have to take other actions to play them.
But i'm still putting money back into the business. Half the people i know with a psp, doesn't own a single game, even when running iso's required a umd, they used demo disk.

It's sony's fault, its the game developers fault, but most importantly it's our fault the psp sucks compared to other consoles like the NDS.

Edit:
The quality of games and the type of games are decided by what ones sell. Not what ones are most played, but most sold.
If we keep getting games we don't like, well guess what, the people that are buying them, are the ones deciding what kind of games are made.
monster hunter is a perfect example of this.
Read this, it'll explain what i just said. http://forums.galciv2.com/303512

[devdj]

i first heard of piracy with the psp a couple of years ago in an xtravison store from one of the staff members he was going on about how you could play roms and stuff on the psp right in front of customers and the manager of the store the next day i went in and bought a psp and about 20 other people bought psp's is well so the fact is piracy has allways been here at least in asia since it was allways there since the dawn of time there have been countless knockoff items for hundreds of years and piracy will never go away.

[oooooomonkeys]

yup i think piracy has killed the psp.
but at least we can look back in future and say wow the psp was good while it lasted. its just another step towards sony being out of the console war.
all hail nintendo:thumbup:

[staticshade]

The number of hardware sales to sofware sales is awful it begs the question what exactly where psp owners playing last year, and it would seem people are buying the console because they won't need to buy any games for it piracy seriously harms the games industry

Nds has piracy issues but still sold shed loads of games because most of them where bought by casual gamers who have no interest in flash carts and the like

my solution would be more demos and less piracy by people i mean who pays for a game rips it and gives it out on the internet for free have they got some personal vendetta against sony

this year is already looking bad downloads of gow chains of olympus already has more downloads than sales God help us

[omracer]

If the PSN is so secure, why do I have a download of Beats I got for free? Why am I downloading Syphon Filter: Combat Ops for free right now?

thats either because u use torrents OR you have lots of PSN Vouchers.

One of the PSN Vouchers is a free download of syphon Filter.

If i had a credit card i would buy off the PSN Store.......Sadly im too young :mad:

[Art]

No one uses iso's as a try before you buy. Anyone who says otherwise is full of sh*t.
Speak for yourself. We're not all thieves.
The only ISO I have no matching UMD for is Mercury Meltdown,
and that wouldn't be the case if it were in my country for sale.

I only have two UMD games, but I had the ISOs running on my PSP
before I had the UMDs.

[John Vattic]

If i cry and whine that i'm not making enough money, nobody cares. If sony pisses and moans the world stops spinning.

I agree with art, they're blaming their customers for not bending over for the sony penis.

The truth is the psp games sell well, as A L L gamestop employees indicate. more especially during last christmas. so to bitch after they made good money is called greedy. i see no difference between pirates and corporations. same scumbags, different clothing.

also, with silent hill origins (good job climax!), sony has proven they can have good games for psp. i believe developers are very lazy indeed. i know what happens if i don't do good work, i get fired.

[omracer]

If i cry and whine that i'm not making enough money, nobody cares. If sony pisses and moans the world stops spinning.



Very good point. That statement proves 2 things

How small normal average people really are. Not physically of course
That to Sony & other multi million (even billion) companines think of us a gold or money they could just fish from by luring their stuff as bait.Personally i've only downloaded 1 psp off torrents (which was Worms open warfare 2 if anyone want to know) but after my psp bricked & got a replacement from Sony (I had no choice & the replacement had 2.71 on it)
I brought it in the end.

[Jube]

The PSP is pretty hot right now in Japan. The Sony handheld is now spending its second week as the alpha platform in Japan's hardware sales charts. Not only that, but it's also its second week to sell nearly as much as the rest of the platforms did combined.

Its success has been attributed to the release of Capcom's Monster Hunter Portable 2nd G, which topped Japan's software charts the previous week. It's no coincidence then that the game is still on top of the software charts.

All the platforms have performed just as well as they did the previous week. Here are the hardware sales numbers in Japan for the week of April 6:

* PSP: 120,964
* DS Lite: 55,190
* Wii: 44,618
* PS3: 11,303
* PS2: 10,423
* Xbox 360: 1,452

http://pspupdates.qj.net/Japan-PSP-sells-nearly-as-much-as-all-other-platforms-combined-again/pg/49/aid/117936



2007 was a pretty incredible year for PSP, wasn't it? It featured some fantastic games, such as Syphon Filter: Logan's Shadow, Final Fantasy Tactics: The War of the Lions, Jeanne d'Arc, and more. Unfortunately, too few actually went out to buy these games.

Next-Gen compiled a list of the bestselling games from 2007, and PSP exclusives managed to get zero games on their list of 100 games. (Data is compiled from the US and UK. Japan is not included.) That means no PSP games managed to break 460k sales (the total of the 100th ranked game) in all of 2007.

Is piracy making a significant dent on PSP software sales? We'd say "yes." No wonder Sony is asking about the homebrew situation; and no wonder the PSP library for the rest of the year is so slim -- publishers have been burned.

http://www.pspfanboy.com/2008/04/10/psp-software-holds-no-place-on-2007-bestseller-list/

[sammiesosa#1]

A pirate life 4 me.

[jason_r90]

This article doesn't take into consideration the amount of used games purchased.
My son and I both have cracked PSPs.
We have only bought 1 new game Socom Fire Team Bravo 2. All the rest of our collection we bought used from Gamestop.
Plus we have a few .isos (1 of Socom2)
Friends of ours without cracked PSPs have never bought a new game only used ones.
The sale of used games is quite a large part of the total game sales per title and should be included in surveys like this. I'll bet it is on par or greater a cause why people aren't buying new games at launch.

[Rocksil]

tbh all this priacy topics will be brought back up numerous times and to say the truth its not going to ruin the psp. The thing with the dreamcast is that ps1 demolished it. Even piracy was part of it, but it wasnt the killer. Every console has the piracy issue. Look at the NDS, once you obtain a flash cart you can basically tell they are made for piracy. But do you see Nintendo trying to blame anyone NO!!!!. Because they are still making cash. Sony are just GREEDY sons of b@"?#!÷¢.

[jamotto]

also, with silent hill origins (good job climax!), sony has proven they can have good games for psp. i believe developers are very lazy indeed. i know what happens if i don't do good work, i get fired.

Yet, if you take vgcharts with a grain of salt, you would find that even with good work they still get fired as Silent Hill sold horridly.

[osgeld]

This article doesn't take into consideration the amount of used

thank you!

i own 5 psp games right this moment 1 of them was brand new (d&d tatics) and only cause is was 50% off during the compusa store closings

really why am i going to pay 40+ bucks for a game that has a 80% chance of total crap (yes 80% crap factor is fair for the psp)

ill wait a week pay 14.99$ and when i get board ill take that bugger back and get 6 or 7 bucks out of it twards a different used game

piracy isnt killing the psp, crappy games and EB are :)

[jamotto]

I don't think they can track used sales. mmm, maybe it is not piracy that leads to poor sales but gamers who are too picky about their games.

[Ultima Chocochu]

Eeh, not cool really
Yeah they didn't use ALL the facts, but piracy for the US is possibly hitting it that bad, the PSP has some great games but like some people think...
Why buy it, if I can have it free?

[Aryn]

I do not believe that piracy is the main cause of lack of sales regarding the PSP, there are other factors involved here.

1. The games on the DS often seem to be more fun. I played games on both systems and while I could not really get into most PSP games I usually find games that I can easily get into and enjoy on the DS. In fact, I know of several people who willingly traded in their PSP for a DS because they enjoyed the DS games more.

2. The games for the PSP are too expensive for the most part, anytrhing over $40 is considered to be too pricey for most people who earn a lower income.

3. There is software for converting the old PS1 games you have laying around to a format that you can run on your PSP. Why purchase a new game when you can just play an older game that you still love for free? And many PS1 games actually look pretty damned good on the PSP.

4. The PSP is not just a game system, so more people often convert and play movies on their PSP systems, listen to music, etc. instead of purchasing more games.

5. SONY has committed a number of public relations blunders in the past ranging from making importing PSPs to certain areas illegal and making an example of a certain online store to suffering a severe shortage of PS3 systems on the PS3's launch. Most of this is in the past and should stay there, but people remember these things more easily than the good things a large company does and this in turn affects sales.


Oh, and the DS is as vulnerable to piracy as the PSP. A cheap cartridge that you can use to play pirated DS games costs not much more than a modded PSP battery and is easier to set up (that is, unless you are one of the lucky few people who happen to know somebody who has a hacked PSP and is willing to mod your battery and memory card for free).

[F9zDark]

No, Sony killed the Dreamcast.

Piracy certainly lent a hand. Sega's choice of CD format made it insanely easy for hackers to play burned discs without ever touching the hardware.

Sadly the PSP is in the same boat. We have a software mod that allows people to play ISO games. What makes software mods so promising for homebrew is that its very easy for EVERYONE to use. Sadly, this makes it widely available to anyone no matter what their skill level is, and therefore very promising to pirates as well.


Yet, if you take vgcharts with a grain of salt, you would find that even with good work they still get fired as Silent Hill sold horridly.

Sad because Silent Hill Origins is a good game. I believe this falls on MARKETING. These companies leave it to Sony to advertise their games for the PSP. And thats not right (for Sony and for the company making the game).

Sony hardly advertising anything, and when they do, they end up drawing negative attention to themselves.

[triverse]

I have bought several PSP games before, and after, modding my system and would much rather own the game. I modded my system because, well, my copy of the Capcom arcade games missed a couple of really good games that I wanted to play.

[Omatic]

...and no company is going to spend alot of money to make a better game if it's just going to get pirated.
[/url]

I agreed with everything in that mini-essay except for this part. Pretty much every system except for the PS3 is seeing it's share of piracy. Even the DS, with its titanic sales numbers, has arguably the easiest piracy method of the current consoles - it's literally drag and drop.

While I don't contest that piracy is an issue with the PSP, I don't think it's the primary issue. If companies refused to make games just because they'll be pirated (which is almost an inevitability in this day and age), then we'd be pretty much limited to MMO games (and even those have private servers).

I don't think the PSP appeals to as broad of a spectrum of people as the DS does. The variety and number of games is fewer for the PSP, and the games that target the "non-gamer" demographic is low compared to the DS.

Also, I tend to see children / young adults with a DS more often than a PSP. These are the people who will generally buy games / have games bought for them. There needs to be more games accessible to that demographic.

[Seven7]

I dunno, im calling BS on this one at the source. The article admits that the information is very very limited and selective, hence, not a valid study. It sounds like an anti-piracy propraganda peice at best, a shock/scare tactic at worst.

I'm not buying it, I will however buy any psp game worth it's weight in plastic, regardless of the fact that my psp is homebrew enabled.

I've only got one game without a matching umd, and only because said umd isn't licensed to be sold in my country. If it where suddenly to be so, i'd go out and buy it without a second thought.

Waiting on the GPS and Camera, and from what people are saying, I shouldn't have to wait long now...

[wwboy]

if they advertise to much to much people are going to download it

[stanfy86]

I don't think they can track used sales. mmm, maybe it is not piracy that leads to poor sales but gamers who are too picky about their games.
:rofl::rofl::rofl:

:rofl::rofl::rofl:
so you are saying that we should buy crappy games, just so Sony can turn a profit........do you work for sony or something, because thats the backward-logic i would expect from them

[JKKDARK]

:rofl::rofl::rofl:

:rofl::rofl::rofl:
so you are saying that we should buy crappy games, just so Sony can turn a profit........do you work for sony or something, because thats the backward-logic i would expect from them

? mm no. He's saying maybe people buy many used games.

But anyway, if many people were buying used games, there would be many people who bought these games sealed.

[jamotto]

so you are saying that we should buy crappy games, just so Sony can turn a profit.

Not in the least, if you don't like a game then by all means trade the thing back in.
I, however, believe that many people out there are far too willing to jump on the "all 500+ psp games suck" bandwagon just because. From my own experience I've tried about 50 psp games so far, out of that number only two I wouldn't touch with a ten and half foot pole the rest have been pretty good.

[dangee]

GTA LCS (unpatched) , and Ridge Racer were the only UMD
games I bought that felt like good value.

Fact is, most new games are the same high price regardless of quality,
and a bargain price kinda says "this game aint that good."

One of the attractions of making UMD backups is that it allows
multi-player without multi-purchase.

[bah]

SNES games once cost $60+ Australian and a lot of them sucked, many of them would have cost a lot less to produce than a 3D PSP game.
The companies that only produced crap games went broke while the ones that made good games prospered.
With piracy so pervasive as it is on the PSP, people just download all games. The 'good' games get downloaded more than the 'bad' ones, so who are these ppl downloading only the games not worth their retail cost?

The fact you feel a game costs to much or is not worth playing is completely irrelevant to whether you pirate it or not.
If you want to try it out you hire it or play a friends copy.
If you feel it is too expensive but a great game then you save up, wait for the price to drop or don't buy it.
If you don't think the game is really worth playing then surely you would pirate a game you do like, not that one.

You pirate it only if you feel the game is worth playing but you choose to not compensate the creators because you are cheap.



I know there are surely a few honest ppl out there, but I would suggest that saying '99.9% of people downloading ISOs never buy the game' would be a generous estimate.
The majority say things like 'backups', 'too expensive' and 'not worth playing' as poor attempts at excuses.


I think what bothers me the most is people seem to compare paying for commercial games to the fact homebrew is free, and that's insulting to both groups of software.
Insulting to homebrew coders as what they do cannot really be directly compared to commercial games because no-one is paying them (and hence putting a roof over their head and food on the table) to write it. We should appreciate a homebrew app for doing a task more than a commercial one because it was both free, and written in someone's own time. You certainly can't criticize it for not doing everything you want, just how you like it, as you may a commercial product without being a complete ass.
And also insulting to commercial games, which often have crazy development budgets with a large staff eating up a huge number of paid man hours. If you want the PSP to keep having commercial releases requiring that sort of investment then someone has to buy them.

There may (I dearly hope there is) always be a very select few amazingly generous/talented people like Zx, Exophase, StrmnNrmn, Juraj-Styk and all the other respected names in the PSP scene who are kind enough to produce such great work and give it away for others to enjoy. Businesses fold as soon as they're not profitable though(unless there are investors who see potential future earnings to prop it up).

[jeegee]

If the PSN is so secure, why do I have a download of Beats I got for free? Why am I downloading Syphon Filter: Combat Ops for free right now?

cos you are a thief???

[dangee]

Bah: yes, I agree that overpricing is no excuse for theft (except
maybe for essential life supporting commodities).

But it does help explain why UMD game sales are struggling.

Actually, I feel that the quality and range of other entertainment that's
totally legal and available for a PSP owner is hurting the licensed games
producers far more than piracy.

Recently, I chose to buy a Go!Cam rather than a 2nd hand copy of
Rachet & Clank..

[andwhyisit]

With piracy so pervasive as it is on the PSP, people just download all games. The 'good' games get downloaded more than the 'bad' ones, so who are these ppl downloading only the games not worth their retail cost?

The fact you feel a game costs to much or is not worth playing is completely irrelevant to whether you pirate it or not.
If you want to try it out you hire it or play a friends copy.
If you feel it is too expensive but a great game then you save up, wait for the price to drop or don't buy it.
If you don't think the game is really worth playing then surely you would pirate a game you do like, not that one.

You pirate it only if you feel the game is worth playing but you choose to not compensate the creators because you are cheap.



I know there are surely a few honest ppl out there, but I would suggest that saying '99.9% of people downloading ISOs never buy the game' would be a generous estimate.
The majority say things like 'backups', 'too expensive' and 'not worth playing' as poor attempts at excuses.
So true.

Also the used games thing would be an issue too since very few of my games were bought new.

[Art]

Used games are the same issue for every console.
They don't distinguish the PSP from any other machine.
If you're looking at sales on a graph you can assume owners of all other consoles
buy/sell/ swap games as well.
Art.

[dangee]

two key questions, both based on the (unlikely) scenario
where PSP game piracy is made impossible/impractical:

1: would all the jolly rogers & freebooters out there start paying
for what they're used to getting for nowt ?

2: would console sales be likely to go UP, or DOWN ?

[JKKDARK]

2: would console sales be likely to go UP, or DOWN ?
Yes, but we would need more quality games, new games from known franchises like Resident Evil, Final Fantasy, Dragon Quest, etc. Or at least more casual games like the Nintendo DS.
The hardware price is also good, so good sales will appear.

[WhizzBang]

The failure of the PSP is down to more than just piracy. All machines have a piracy problem and the NDS must have it worse than the PSP. The overwhelming majority of gamers are not pirates and they are more interested in the novel things the NDS can do.

The PSP is technically brilliant, but it is not much use as a handheld as it is so huge and is better suited for home use. It has incredibly long loading times, a fragile design and a games catalogue consisting almost entirely of titles already available in one form or another on its bigger brother PS2.

The NDS has stuff that appeals to a much wider audience, like Brain Trainer which includes Sudoku.

[andwhyisit]

The NDS has stuff that appeals to a much wider audience, like Brain Trainer which includes Sudoku.
That was the most retarded example known to man. I can play sudoku on my psp with homebrew, or in a puzzle book with a pen. What's next? Tic-tac-toe portable. :rofl:

[JKKDARK]

That was the most retarded example known to man. I can play sudoku on my psp with homebrew, or in a puzzle book with a pen. What's next? Tic-tac-toe portable. :rofl:

Most of the DS owners don't care about homebrew. They care about the official releases, and there are more casual games on the DS than on the PSP.

[jamotto]

The PSP is technically brilliant, but it is not much use as a handheld as it is so huge...


Then the DS lite must not be very useful as a handheld as well, as the PSP Slim & Lite compares favorably to it.

DS lite
Weight: 218 g
Dimensions: 133 mm × 73.9 mm × 21.5 mm

PSP Slim & Lite
Weight: 189 g
Dimensions: 170 mm x 74 mm x 19 mm



a fragile design

I don't know about you, but when I play on a handheld, it's not a full contact sport. As with any electronic device the better you take care of it the longer it's going to last.



and a games catalogue consisting almost entirely of titles already available in one form or another on its bigger brother PS2.
Yes some of them are, however, the PSP also has a decent share of new games and new seqels to existing series, like LocoRoco, Patapon,Coded Arms, Crush, Dead Head Fred, Driver 76, Metal Gear Solid: Portable Ops, Pilot Academy, Syphon Filter, Wipeout Pure, Ace Combat X, Burnout Legends, etc, etc.



The NDS has stuff that appeals to a much wider audience, like Brain Trainer which includes Sudoku.

The PSP has equivalent games for most of those.

[bah]

two key questions, both based on the (unlikely) scenario
where PSP game piracy is made impossible/impractical:

1: would all the jolly rogers & freebooters out there start paying
for what they're used to getting for nowt ?

2: would console sales be likely to go UP, or DOWN ?


1) Certainly not on a 1:1 conversion ratio (one less pirated copy = one more sale), that seems to be what you're getting at. It's hard to imagine any real outcome other than at least slightly increased sales though.

2) Sony lost money (at least at first) on each PSP sold to promote mass adoption and create a market where they could recoup the money from game licensing. I think your point is that more sales of the console is a great thing independent of game sales.

The business model that created the PSP is not that simple.
You can certainly dislike the whole "give away the razor to sell 'overpriced' blades" tactic (I know I do), but that's how it was when I chose to buy the system so Its not something I can complain about.

Please correct me if I am mistaken as to your purpose in posing those questions.

[dangee]

Please correct me if I am mistaken..
Your reply's totally apt.

I was suggesting that piracy could be helping the PSP (!!), by increasing
console sales, without significantly decreasing game sales.

Every PSP sold gives Sony potential income from accessories,spare parts,
sony.com web traffic, as well as UMD sales. And how many PSP owners,pirate
or not,would choose an XBOX360 rather than a PS3?

Also,smart games producers could find ways capitalise on increased distribution.

[law56ker]

Most gamers never have the honesty or guts to admit their actions hurt the game industry. They try to find any excuse or explanation to justify their activities. I know the ability to download free games has stopped me from buying software I would have otherwise.

[Eviltaco64]

When there's homebrew, there's piracy, and the PSP is no exception.
I guess since the games are about half the size of modern games in terms of storage and can be stored on a MS/SD card, the PSP (and DS) have their games pirated the most.

[carpy]

This whole thread, and the article that started it is knee-jerk reactionary garbage.

Piracy of PSP games does exist, of course. But it's not anywhere near "destroying" the system. There really is no parallel between "Not making the best seller lists" and piracy killing the PSP.

Ludicrous. Absolutely Ludicrous. PSP games sell more than enough to keep the system financially viable in the market. Homebrewers and pirates make up maybe 5% of the PSP install base.

[carpy]

Most of the DS owners don't care about homebrew. They care about the official releases, and there are more casual games on the DS than on the PSP.

Most DS owners don't KNOW about homebrew because they are 7 years old and under. They care about making gay little Pokemon characters run around like silly until they get all tuckered out.

[JKKDARK]

Most DS owners don't KNOW about homebrew because they are 7 years old and under. They care about making gay little Pokemon characters run around like silly until they get all tuckered out.

There are 7 years old with DS handhelds, but you can't deny there are older gamers with DS handhelds. And Pokemon games are not gay, the problem is you don't like the game.

[Art]

I'd say the PSP is slowing down in general, for pirates and legitimate gamers.
I would also say the PSP forums are much quieter now than six months ago.

[Seven7]

This whole thread, and the article that started it is knee-jerk reactionary garbage.

Piracy of PSP games does exist, of course. But it's not anywhere near "destroying" the system. There really is no parallel between "Not making the best seller lists" and piracy killing the PSP.

Ludicrous. Absolutely Ludicrous. PSP games sell more than enough to keep the system financially viable in the market. Homebrewers and pirates make up maybe 5% of the PSP install base.

I dunno about that 5% number, it's a little hard to tell these days, but otherwise I agree with the rest of this statement. As I stated earlier, the article is very nit-pickity about it's sources, thus, it can't be counted as valid since it's not accounting for everything. What about used game sells? What about unautherized retailers, what about imports, WHAT ABOUT JAPAN'S CHARTS!? Japan's charts alone, expecially recently with Monster Hunter 2nd G whould KILL this article where it stands. It's a shock tactic, propraganda, and a poorly peiced together peice of at that. Honestly, hardware sales and software sales are "still" climing, even above the DS lite, if only week by week. (total sales are another thing, of course)

I dunno if piracy trully hurts the industry as badly as mass media wants us to beleave, I mean, where do they get the sales loss numbers from? There's no reliable source for that, it's all just guesstamites. And most of them are shock tactics aswell! Ok, yes, it's still wrong, but is it really doing "THAT" much damage!? I'm willing to say no, if only for the time being. It's just Sony, and everyone else for that matter, being greedy about a good thing.

Piracy isn't destroying the psp, admitidly it had the potentiall to at one point in it's life, but it seems the system is rising above the threat all on it's own.

Having said that, Sony needs to step up it's game. We're getting the GPS this year maybe (USA), are we getting the friggin Camera? How about that much promised Keyboard?

Speaking of the Camera, has anyone in the states ordered from Devino USA? Is it relitively safe, yay or nay?

[bah]

......They care about making gay little Pokemon characters run around like silly until they get all tuckered out.


LOL.
I don't use that often, but that really did make me laugh out loud.


Art: Agreed, it seems that way to me also.