Originally Posted by MaxSMoke
I'll tell you this, Spam is KILLING this website. What is with these annoying floating adds? How much more pimping do you need to do on this site? It seems like ever other story is an ad for Lik Sang. :p
As for Piracy, companies love to harp on it, but it rarely has any real impact on sales. The first Playstation had lots of piracy and so did the Dreamcast. Some people like to blame the Dreamcast's demise on Piracy and ignore that the Playstation made even more warez. The fact of the matter is, piracy is incredibly minor issue. It's a nice big red flag that companies like to drag out and wave whenever their products are failing because of other more pressing issues, like poor quality, over saturated markets, bad pricing, and bad marketing. It helps to cover up for these issues that they are incapable or unwilling to address.
The reality is that it's hard to pirate stuff, and it's always been a chore that most people wouldn't bother with. Piracy has only really existed among a small collection of hackers and computer enthusiasts. Most people hardly know which store has the software they want, much less a friend that can give it to them for nothing. On the upside, because these enthusiasts are the people most likely to pirate software, they are also the people others often turn to for software and hardware buying advice. This, in turn, helps to drive sales. Just think about this for a second, name ONE computer user that you really respect for their knowledge that doesn't have a collection of some kind of warez tucked away somewhere? If you don't use alot of software, you can't be knowledgable about it. And due to cost issues involved, only a millionaire could afford to buy every peice of software they ever tried. If you don't use software, you can't know much about it. This form of "exploration" just comes with the territory. It's great and all to throw out these slogans like "Piracy costs the industry 100 Billion dollars a Year", but that's based on the idea that if there was no piracy that ALL software copied would have been sold. Do you think a 15 year old is going to drop $2000 on a copy of Maya? Most likely not.
And then there's the work involved in using warez. Think about this, would your mother or grandpa spend 20 to 100 hours to downloading a movie they could just buy in the store for $15? Would they spend 5 hours researching how to install a warez copy of Coded Arms, even at the risk of distroying their PSP, when the game costs $30 at Walmart? Heck, most PSP owners have NO CLUE on how to install Homebrew game, even though there's 50+ FAQ's that can walk even a child through the whole process. My poor sister can't even figure out how to get MP3's on the 1GB memory stick I bought for her PSP. Can you believe that? And she's not alone. Most people don't know anything at all about how to use Warez, even if you put a CD in their hand and gave them a manual! It's hard work, it really is. There's only %10 of us that are technologly savy enough to handle doing such a thing, and only %5 of those are actively trading or downloading any of this stuff. That means %99.5 of all users don't know how to handle using warez.
Do you think Apple's iTunes music store makes millions of dollars because John and Jane Doe *Like* paying for music? It's because the vast majority of people don't know HOW to get real MP3's or what to do with them to get them on their iPod. They don't even realize they can rip their own CD's, using the iTunes software that's *already* on their computer! Think about it, how many people do you know that still call their computer case a "CPU"?
Here's a shot of truth for you:
Sony is cracking down on Homebrew because it makes them look stupid as a company to have hackers using their hardware. This has nothing to do with piracy. They heard the word "Hacked" and they panicked. You see, in the real world of grown ups, there's a certain level of honor and respect one company must have for any hardware, before they will invest the time and money to make software for it. Sony doesn't want people to think their hardware is poorly made. And to have it "Hacked", in any way, shape, or form, is making their look like fools. Even something as benign as Homebrew.
Sony doesn't want *ANY* hacking, *NO* Homebrew, and *ZERO* development that isn't made under their direct supervision. People pay millions of dollars for these software kits, licenses, and to have their games pressed into UMD's. That's a huge investment! And to see Joe-Smow in HomeBrew land playing a game that Sony didn't authorize, that was made for free, is an insult. Not to mention that fact that the PSP has to be hacked to make this work, meaning that the PSP is poorly made. This is how business people think.
Of course, they don't see the benefits of Homebrew to the end consumer. They don't care. It's all about the word "Hacked" being applied to the PSP. "Hacked" is a bad word to these people. It's right up there with "Worms", "Viruses", "Union Wages". It means the PSP is poorly made. Who wants to sink millions into a video game console that can be "Hacked"?
Personally, I love Homebrew, I think it's the shiz-nick. But Sony doesn't, and they see *ALL* types of hacks as an invasion of their hardware, and a humiliation to the Sony name.
