Is Piracy a Big Factor in Todays Consoles

[slayer2psp]

if you own a dvd you can convert it to run on the psp thats legal. what they charge for a umd movie should be a crime thats why thats dying not from people coping them. i for one only play iso on the psp load times are much better but i wouldnt even own any game systems if i couldnt play free games so im not hurting a damn thing i dont sell or share anything. sure i like games but to pay 65.00 dollars for a 360 game is crazy only elder is worth that the rest not even close

[Datahax]

Okay,
Every pirate cuts into what may have been a sale.

What if we were never going to buy the game anyway? Then the company isn't really affected either way except they no longer have the satisfaction that they denied me free entertainment.

For instance I would never have purchased some games I have "aquired" because they are overall bad or don't interest me that much but have some factor that I like, yet wouldn't pay for and would just go without under normal circumstances. Any game I do like I do pay for, or if one of above said games grows on me and it turns out I do like it later on, I tend to go out and buy it.

(Above mentioned are not PSP games, any newer console I almost always buy the games to help support it when starting out, and considering I use the PSP almost exclusively for homebrew at this point it's makes no difference)

[ryan_rocks29]

Also I think that piracy will be dead in the next-gen (for consoles) because take Sony, they have gone comptletly anti-piracy with the PSP and now with the PS3. Also, Nintendo have always been good at blocking out piracy, but maybe people will find ways to play ROMS on the Wii's virtual console or copy the games. I don't know too much about the X360 so I'm not sure with that and piracy.

[Datahax]

Also I think that piracy will be dead in the next-gen (for consoles) because take Sony, they have gone comptletly anti-piracy with the PSP and now with the PS3. Also, Nintendo have always been good at blocking out piracy, but maybe people will find ways to play ROMS on the Wii's virtual console or copy the games. I don't know too much about the X360 so I'm not sure with that and piracy.

I dunno, hackers can be pretty crafty, and they live for doing this kind of stuff. I think it'll be impossible to keep them out forever, even if all software exploits are taken care of hardware based modifications will be around for a while yet.

[gas19d]

piracy wont die... it may actually get stronger. The more complex you make a system the more reasons for someone to hack into it. But there is an enourmous population of people who have no idea whats going on. My friends modded xbox still amazes people when they come over. When i show people homebrew on my psp like snes emulators they think im some sort of genius for having it. As long as it takes considerable effort to pirate stuff its going to be ok. Not too many people will do it and those who day hey they kinda earned it.

[PlantationBoss]

There are two types of game piracy, the ad-hoc home pirate who downloads iso's, and the organised mass duplication pirates who can run off possibly millions of copies for cheap sales, mostly in Asian countries where this is endemic. Given that home pirates probably account for far less than 1% of the users of any given console title, as the overwhelming majority of people don't even know this is possible, far less understand how to carry it out. Then complaints from the game industry that iso downloaders are killing their industry are simply nonsense. Sales will slump purely because games are dull, derivative, unengaging, and just no fun to play, so the market reacts accordingly, and correctly. To blame this on piracy is really just the games industry exhibiting a sense of self-entitlement in which they feel the market owes them sales no matter how poor the product.

As for mass-duplication commercial piracy, the industry has a more real concern here, as the consumer can engage in piracy with absolutely no additional technical knowledge, and may not even know what they are buying is pirated. But this so far seems to be confined to countries where copyright enforcement is lax, and the average consumer doesn't have the income to pay western prices for games or software anyway. Obviously this would be alarming if this type of piracy spills over into western markets, but this doesn't ever likely to happen on a significant scale. I have never personally seen or heard of pirated copies of Halo 2 or GTA for sale in local markets, no doubt it must happen, but conventional law enforcement can contain this quite effectively.

[SnoopKatt]

it will probably be years before the copy protection used for Blu-Ray is decrypted or hacked

It's already been hacked actually, I'm pretty sure I read it somewhere, but I can't remember where...

[Sauron96]

The XBOX 360 is pirate-able...don't even need a chip.

So is the Gamecube...mod the box and DVDs fit nicely.

It's extremely EASY to download games for EVERY SYSTEM.....the knowledge is everywhere, ironically some people are too lazy to learn how.

The PS3 will be hacked....let's see a new technology with no security holes? Please!!!! It will be expensive for the lowly end-user pirate because of the expensive media and Blue-Ray burners but everything becomes cheaper in time.

I can see the Wii being a problem because of it's size, but who knows? Maybe they'll find a way for games to be played by large SD Memory cards like the PSP? Sony was stupid enough to put that GAME folder there, (that's a real thought I'd like to hear more about, I wonder how many people lost their job because of that lovely feature...quick qestion, that folder was supposed to be for demos & updates....how many demos have we gotten???)

These people (scene groups) like the challenge and they are very good at what they do. The end-user, usually, waits patiently at the other end.

I think estimating that 1% of the gaming public pirate games is WAY under shooting it; but I could be wrong of course. I'm amazed when I meet people who still buy movies & music on a consistent basis.

Piracy isn't hurting the business, overly expensive & inflated proudction costs transferred to the customer in $60+ games is what hurts the industry.

[SSaxdude]

I think copying games and then selling them is what is actually bad because you are making money off of what someone else did. 360 has already been hacked, I think PS3 will be hard since no one has a Blu ray burner in their computer, and I think Wii will be easy to hack since Nintendo isn't as concerned about piracy as MS and Sony.

[shadowprophet]

This thread is going to be impossible to moderate....
I mean the very subject alone is a taboo topic.

Shadowprophet exits the thread and pretends he never saw it......

Just remember the rules people. No links to warez. And no warez discussion, (remember) the topic was ,Is software piracy really that big of an issue. like everyone sais it is,- That doesnt mean this thread is a free card to vent iso and warez discussion. We're watching. So avoid breaking the rules