Pirates! Yarrrr! T’is why thar be no sissy PSP games!

[wraggster]

I’m not gonna sugar coat it for you PSP fans out there; Sony’s CEO Jack Tretton told Engadget that the reason there aren’t any new PSP games coming out is, you guessed it, pirates! Tretton said that "piracy in the hundreds of thousands of units are preventing software sales. It’s a problem that affects our software sales right now."

He also blamed the PSP’s media functions and PS2 games being ported for the unit, saying that people don’t want to buy the same game twice. Back to the piracy thing, though. John Brownlee of Boing Boing Gadgets says it best…

“So the loss of hundreds of thousands of totally imaginary, theoretical sales are preventing developers from generating hundreds of thousands of real ones? That’s not what’s going on. If that were true, the DS (which has a far more easy-to-access piracy scene than the still-difficult-to-hack PSP) would be a total ghost town.”

It’s likely that the real reason we’re not seeing the volume of PSP games in comparison to DS games is that the DS appears to be much easier for developers to work with and there are a lot more DS owners out there than PSP owners.

http://www.crunchgear.com/2008/07/17/pirates-yarrrr-tis-why-thar-be-no-sissy-psp-games/

[blazsly]

are u kidding me? The psp is FAR easier to hack then the ds. Ds actually requires u to buy something while the psp doesnt. U just need one psp with cf to make a pandora battery and bam u could downgrade anybodies psp around u.

[Dembonz]

are u kidding me? The psp is FAR easier to hack then the ds.

Yeah but the PSP hacking is far more technical. I see your point, but I don't know anyone who owns a PSP that would have any clue how to do it. I put CFW on one unit for a friend and he has no idea what to do with it. He'll probably update with official FW.

I guess I'm saying the DS only requires a flash cart like R4 and basically no work, just a purchase. To the average person, who maybe isn't really tech savvy at all, PSP CFW and using it to it's potential might be confusing and out of reach.

But yeah both are generally easy to hack. But I guess the diff is the DS demographic is basically children and casual gamers. Nintendo is the "Disney" of the videogame world after all :rolleyes:

[osgeld]

i sorta disagree on "people dont want to buy the same game twice"

if one looks at the sony forums people are using any chance they get to holler about getting more ps1 titles on the store

and thats sonys problem right there, they dont give you what you want anymore

[cozy]

The roms on the ds are only about 40 to 120 mb big,the carts that u buy are $19!!! and theres no risk of bricking your DS!!!and its still going...........I think the psp is dead now :(

[sappo]

Sony fails, Nintendo owns.

Easy as cake why games suck on PSP.

Still, it's a good handheld for emulation.

[Harshboy]

Sony sucks
Microsoft is meh
Nintendo is cool
Piracy is awesome

[alanparker05]

I've always said the biggest problem with the psp is sony's arrogance they had it so easy for so long with ps1 and ps2 when people just blindly followed them but now people have other choices with other consoles sony just does'nt know how to work to get people back

[osgeld]

I've always said the biggest problem with the psp is sony's arrogance they had it so easy for so long with ps1 and ps2 when people just blindly followed them but now people have other choices with other consoles sony just does'nt know how to work to get people back

aye thats what i was sorta getting at, back with the ps1 you didnt even have a chance to think

"hm maybe that analog stick nintendo has is a good idea" before it was out in the store

and never once with the ps1 did i ever say "theres nothing really worth playing on it"

sony gave it to us in a pretty package before we even knew we wanted it (such as 3d games)

now we have to beg, and this trend started after a while on the ps2 and never stopped "wheres my network adaptor" "wheres my hard drive" "wheres my wireless controler" ect

[osgeld]

Sony sucks
Microsoft is meh
Nintendo is cool
Piracy is awesome

come up with that on your own?

[shyboi122]

Wow, kind of guessed it already though

[Triv1um]

come up with that on your own?

Haha. *Makes whip noise* :thumbup:

-----

Still, you do have to buy something to make the DS open. Spending money doesn't appeal to pirates, hence why they don't buy games.

The PSP is a more prime target.

[mcdougall57]

Still, you do have to buy something to make the DS open. Spending money doesn't appeal to pirates, hence why they don't buy games.

Can't always softmod though and a flashcart costs roughly the same as a chip.

[Dbgtgoten]

I personally believe that the reason why games won't sell on the psp is that theres nothing really worth while on some of the games seeing as they last what 4-12 hours a couple good games got nice sales like MHF but some developers expect too much out of thier crappy games so yea and anyone who says spending money doesn't appeal to pirates think about PSP Memcards.

I believe they just aren't that many quality games on the psp thats why Patapon 2 and Locoroco 2 are announced because they sell alot cause of quality and uniqueness not the same old wash and rinse shit.

Enough said, piracy is not a problem even if everyone pirated in the world their would still be sales of the game because to get them you need someone to rip the image to pirate it eh?

[DimensionT]

Still, you do have to buy something to make the DS open. Spending money doesn't appeal to pirates, hence why they don't buy games.

The PSP is a more prime target.

You don't have to buy a memory card for the PSP?

PSP games can be 1+GB big. You'd need a 2GB card to play the biggest games in full, which would set you back the cost of what it takes to pirate DS games... But you'd be able to fit WAY more then 1 or 2 full DS games on the same space.

Pirated DS games are far easier to come by and download online as well... Plus there's the whole emulator shibang.

[dangee]

Pirates are a small minority of gamers.

Good quality games will always sell in quantity to mainstream users
who couldn't care less to mess with CFW.

Piracy didn't seem to affect MHP-2G too much.

[darkdex52]

Enough said, piracy is not a problem even if everyone pirated in the world their would still be sales of the game because to get them you need someone to rip the image to pirate it eh?

You, sir, don't know anything about scene. No, or barely any game is RIPPED from a bought CD/DVD/UMD/whatever. Sceners have completely diffrent sources, and that is the reason most of the games/movies/soft/whatever is zeroday stuff or even negative0day/
hour/week/whatever.

[Illegal Machine]

Hmmmm it is easier to hack a PSP than a DS because all you have to do is read forums for the PSP.. the DS needs a purchase, and it might not be the best purchase... is anyone going to go out and buy an R4 and a CycloDS and every other card out there just to test them out? I sure don't want to.. the PSP just needs time to hack..


but this is where Sony went wrong...


Remember the 8 Mb Memory cards that sony sold for like 20 bucks apiece for PS1 and PS2? Well apparently Sony (stupid asses that they are) decided to make them HIGH CAPACITY.. So everyone can put DRM Movies and music on there aong with HiRes .JPEG images (LOL)


Well who's surprised that users started dumping the UMD contents to the cards?



I'm not... and I wouldnt own a PSP if I had to lug around UMD's for every game I wanted to play..


I WOULD NEVER EVER CARRY AROUND AN ARSENAL OF UMDS


NEVER... Sony is lucky.. were it not for CFW and piracy, I wouldn't have bought 2 4 gig cards, and an 8 gig card, and a 16 gig card, and 3 PSP slims, and 2 Phats.


SO sony can suck my ass... I buy more of their product because of hacking and piracy than I would have EVER EVER EVER SPENT IN A HUNDERED YEARS OTHERWISE



**** YOU JACK

[masterchief929]

i think piracy was not that big of a deal a few years back, but now the number of people who pirate games is growing.

i don't think that it will put a huge dent in the number of games that are made and that sell. just look at the numbers. but i do think that there would be higher quality games on both hand-helds if there was no piracy.

but im fine with the quality of games that are out right now. ;)

[goity]

The DS is much easier to pirate on, but the majority who own it are idiots who just want to play animal crossing and cooking mama all day. It's very few people who would even bother compared to on psp, where the main userbase is a little more technical. However, hardcore games do have some trouble selling on DS, which could be attributed to this.

Still, Jack Tretton did not just randomly blame piracy for all PSP's problems. This article is stupidly sexed up, and you can't really argue that piracy on PSP is reasonably widespread, though probably not as much as Sony try to make out.

[Shadowblind]

There aren't very many good PSP games out there. The ones that are good sold well though, as God of War sold 1 mil and FFCC sold 1.5 mil.

Proof that piracy won't stop good games from selling.

[Dbgtgoten]

You, sir, don't know anything about scene. No, or barely any game is RIPPED from a bought CD/DVD/UMD/whatever. Sceners have completely diffrent sources, and that is the reason most of the games/movies/soft/whatever is zeroday stuff or even negative0day/
hour/week/whatever.


You think everyone works at a goddamn shipping company and/or game store to rip off isos when they have it in storage.

You forget that if they are gonna open it just to rip it they could lose thier job and/or they could buy it and get it earlier from the company and use the umd ripper drive/ CFW feature, THEY STILL BOUGHT IT.

SO you don't know nothing about the world OK.

Theres no way possible not to do it legally without some kind of risk unless they buy it.

Unless you believe the UMD iso is just going to magically appear in thier hands or on thier computer good luck lol.

Because you gotta remenber people always make multiple copys of the shit for different regions and everything.

So go wander pointlessly in your fantasy of the "scene" instead of the World.

[mike_jmg]

There aren't very many good PSP games out there. The ones that are good sold well though, as God of War sold 1 mil and FFCC sold 1.5 mil.

Proof that piracy won't stop good games from selling.

I think I see the patern here

I think there is equal amount of piracy on both handhelds
With this said, you can blame the lack of games on the difference between DS and PSP's demography

Most DS users aren't that tech sawy so they don't know piracy even exists or is too much hassle for them than actually purchasing the games.

Most DS users aren't the hardcore gaming type (well, just casual gamers), they just want something to pick up, play, put down, whenever they please or have time. Then there are a few hardcore gamers.

This may explain the low sales on hardcore titles, and the success of the platform and any crappy game developers can come up with.

On PSP, the thing is all the other way around
PSP user base is more the hardcore gaming type, we would be happy if sony would simply port every ps1 and ps2 game into the psp (At least I would).

Yet developers come up with every piece of trash they can think of and expect great sales like the ones they get with the DS(I mean: Sega, Hulk movie game, expecting big sales, give me a break)

So here you go, there are the big sales on the big hardcore titles, low sales on any other games

Summed up

Lazy and greedy Developers + Non demanding average user base = DS big "success"

Lazy and greedy Developers + A lot more demanding average user base = PSP's death

my thoughts

[thefanaticgamer]

You think everyone works at a goddamn shipping company and/or game store to rip off isos when they have it in storage.

You forget that if they are gonna open it just to rip it they could lose thier job and/or they could buy it and get it earlier from the company and use the umd ripper drive/ CFW feature, THEY STILL BOUGHT IT.

SO you don't know nothing about the world OK.

Theres no way possible not to do it legally without some kind of risk unless they buy it.

Unless you believe the UMD iso is just going to magically appear in thier hands or on thier computer good luck lol.

Because you gotta remenber people always make multiple copys of the shit for different regions and everything.

So go wander pointlessly in your fantasy of the "scene" instead of the World.

If that were true than how would you explain games ending up on the internet before they were even released in stores... Work Time Fun was floating around online In a full English version for a couple of month before it even came to stores

You'd be surprised how easy it is for one unit of inventory to mysteriously not make it to the shelf.. that kind of things happens all the time not just for piracy but it does happen

And in terms of the easiness of hacking, I realize that the DS just needs a card but most young DS users can not buy things on line and that makes up a large user base, I know I wouldn't let my kid borrow a credit card to buy anything to do with hacking, however the PSP just requires time and dedication and with enough effort any non tech savvy person could figure out if they tried hard enough(which could be a week for some people)

And aslo everyone who says that piracy isnt that big a deal is way off... 7/9 Of the people I know with PSP have hacked them, and of them I know for fact that 5 of them boot leg ISOs, 2 of the seven only own the 1 or 2 games

Personally I think mike hit it right on... Sony has been on an Easy streak and now developers are hoping to hit it big with little effort on the PSP and the different user base mixed with know-how to not pay lead to a little proift. Even myself as a consumer can understand that making lots of games for a system that sells rather than some for all systems is a better idea...

The solutions is simple.... all we need to do is stop global warming! then we'll get better games

[Dbgtgoten]

If that were true than how would you explain games ending up on the internet before they were even released in stores...

Most stores hold the games in their storage until release date some 2 weeks before. You gotta remember that before the games hit the stores, they go through game testing agencies as well for refining before final release. How else would they release game guides? The official guides need approval before being released. Also, it doesn't mean people working in the company making the game itself wouldn't go distributing it online for various reasons?

And about people hacking or not, you can't say '' I know my friends hack em all '' because they're your friends since you got the same area of interest so of course the hacking knowledge got passed on >.> go to external PSP holders and there will be still a lot of em that don't even know hacking exists at all ( one of my friends contacted me after some 1 year and she had a PSP unhacked and bought tons of games and didn't even know you could hack it and now she knows because I told her ), same with my cousin

Also, as systems come out, the hacking knowledge gets reset since it's not the same gaming system so it changes again, hacking is just more present because it's more accessible than ever online; anyone can pretty much do anything anywhere on the internet as long as you know how to find what you're looking for

[crazyhare]

I've always said the biggest problem with the psp is sony's arrogance they had it so easy for so long with ps1 and ps2 when people just blindly followed them but now people have other choices with other consoles sony just does'nt know how to work to get people back

I couldn't have put it better myself - it's a situation comparable to the early days of personal computers, when the once ubiquitous Wordstar wordprocessor ruled the scene. During the era of DOS and CP/M, Wordstar was Legion - but as soon as Windows became widely adopted, MicroPro were unable to repeat the success they had in those early days.

The reason: Lack of knowlege of the market, and the arrogant assumption that people won't stop buying your product if you don't keep with the times.

[jaws365]

With PSP you might need to buy another battery and a big memorystick in order to use homebrew and pirated games. You also have to keep your custom firmware updated so that future games will work. That is alot of stress compared to just buying a memorystick for DS. Besides, if your DS breaks you just have to buy another one and use the same memorycard, no hacking required.

[tubaros]

Stress? How is checking an RSS Feed stressful? Ive been CF since it all kicked off and Ive never found it stressful. DS is easier though, youre right. Although supercard requires patching, and that just brings me out in hives ;)

[Seker]

they see it always only one sided....

There are a lot of people who cannot afford that much money for one psp-ps2 clone game....

[Qmark]

The real problem, as I see it, is that PSP is looking for a niche that doesn't exist.
When the unit has essentially the same capability as PS2, is it any surprise that developers forgo developing for PSP in favor of PS2 or maybe PS3? Why go into a multi-million-dollar development cycle for a portable?

With DS, developers can make the games they were making for GBA five years ago - quick cheap development, that would be laughed into obscurity on a "real" system.
Etrian Odyssey would not have sold on a console, and would have been too expensive to develop for PSP. Same for all of the Castleroids since Symphony.