Is Piracy a Big Factor in Todays Consoles

[wraggster]

When you look at the worldwide success of the Nintendo DS Lite and the incredible sales of games throughout the world even when theres Flash Carts for the console is testament that maybe piracy isnt affecting consoles like it used to.

The PSP has its iso loaders but even since they were released only those who know homebrew and a few others know of the loaders, most normal users wouldnt have a clue and the same can be said for the Xbox and PS2, so is piracy a big factor on consoles these days ?

Does it really hurt sales or do those who try actually go out and buy, what are your views on this subject ?

Lets have a decent discussion about the questions raised above.

[wraggster]

no posting to iso links etc or be warned and banned

[goity]

Well, personally I think that it isn't worth the bother even to pirate xbox games , but I don't think piracy is done by a serious, or even significant amount of people for console makers to be too worried about.

[ArchAngel]

Think of it this way... People who use homebrew like us PSP owners probably said "Holy Crap! You can play SNES on PSP!!" And went out and bought one. SO I think that Piracy isnt much different. People who see that they can use piracy to do things with consoles actually have yet 500 more reasons to spend their hard earned cash on a console. You cant have piracy without the base.

[DaGamer]

I would say it's hurting psp industry A BUNCH, lots of movie companies are making less umd releases because of piracy, and the only reason game prices raise is because of pirates, well mabie a little greed mixed inside, but the more prices raise the more pirates are going to pirate, and finally gaming industry will collapse, but after a period of (possibly long) slumber, someone will surely try and start the gaming industry back up again, but during the period, there will be NO game even made for people to pirate, so pirates are forcing their doom but carrying us with them.

[Voltron]

ha ha. Funny topic to see after being banned for similar discussion. Its been discussed and debated time and time again with good arguments from both sides of the spectrum.

A lot of you know where I stand but I'll state it again.

In my opinion, especially in "todays" consoles as the title of this thread says, no, piracy is not really a big factor that is threatening to bring down any of the major gaming consoles.

1.) The PS2 is still going strong and Sony execs stated they think the PS2 will see a 10 year lifespan. And the PS2 seems to easily be able to play "back up" PS2 games.

2.) The GameCube & XBOX are not really doing so hot lately but that is because they are dying off being at the end of their lifecycle. Not cause of piracy. you can't even pirate GameCube games can you?

3.) I have to imagine the XBOX 360 is pretty secure, and it will probably be years before the copy protection used for Blu-Ray is decrypted or hacked so the PS3 is not in any danger. Also, who the hell wants to download a 25GB PS3 game? Not me. Its enough of a hassle messing with PSP ISO's and they are almost always less than 1GB.

4.) If you have the right stuff, it is much easier to play NDS & GBA ROMS on a Nintendo DS than it is to play PSP ISO's on a PSP. But yet the Nintendo DS is dominating the PSP in almost every region.

5.) There probably are not as many die-hard PSP homebrew experts to cause a big profit loss for Sony due to ISO Loaders. Give DevHook or DAX Loader or any other loader to any homebrew "n00b" and tell them to use it. Most would probably smash their PSP out of frustration. Also for that reason, a lot of PSP homebrew users are intimidated by comlex nature of some of the ISO Loaders. I was one of those people once.

With all that said, quite simply I love using PSP ISO's. But I do own most games in UMD as well. I just have a 1.50 PSP and can't play the games otherwise. The faster CPU speed, extended battery life, and elimination of painful load times that the PSP is known for among other benefits makes ISO Loading spectacular on the PSP.

I KNOW most PSP homebrew users with a 1.50 PSP feel the same. I'm just not afriad to voice my support of it.

Also, I'm not so naive to not acknowledge the dangers and harm of piracy. But the only areas where I have seen major losses due to piracy is from Computer Software & Music. Video games are not really threatened too much by it. And with the next-gen consoles on their way, I don't think it will be worthwhile to try and play pirated PS3 games. Maybe in 3-4-6 years when Blu-Ray discs are as cheap as blank DVD's now and Blu-Ray Burners come in every PC. But not in the near future.

Now pardon me, I must go back to playing Tekken: Dark Resurrection on my trusty 1.50

[arashi]

The only way to know this answer for sure is to survey every user of a given console, and ask them how many games they wanted to buy and did vs how many they wanted to buy and pirated.
Statistics showing how many iso's were downloaded mean nothing, because the intent to purchase is unknown. A drop in overall game sales means nothing, because there are a ton of economic factors other than piracy that affect a consumer's decision to buy something. It's really easy for manufacturers to blame lack of interest in a game on piracy, and continue efforts in DRM and such.

The big issue for manufacturers is the warm and fuzzy they get when a system is unhackable, and they can actually rely on game sales numbers, vs a hackable system that makes those sales numbers meaningless. Of course, used game sales also forfeits the results, which is why there are undercurrents of talk about locking out used games.

So basically, you'll never know what's going on in a consumer's head until you control their mind entirely. Enter cyberpunk references...

[platypusrme427]

PS2 Piracy sounds fun, I think I'll try it. Thanks for the great idea DCEMU!




















Just Kidding DCEMU!

[dOOmy]

The lack of knowlege of the general public on how to get and play pirate games astounds me. Dont these people know anything? Even my friend who is a BIG gamer buys his games cause he "works all day long and doesnt have the time to do the pirate thing". When I talk to the people in the videogame stores not one has tried it ( they can borrow games from the stores fro free so they say why bother?). I once used to work in a place for crazy people and I got the opinion that everyone was crazy. Now I see that that was just a tiny percentage of humanity that was like that. Being theives we think that everyone else is a theif. but we are just a tiny percentage too. So in ending I think that piracy hurts the videogame makers not at all cause even though people think its cool almost noone is doing it outside of the people reading this right now

[DaGamer]

I guess voltron's got his points that i agree on, but daxziso's not that hard to use it... nither is devhook... good point on the bluray, but psp game scene don't look that promising tho. backups are just way too easy to get and runs better than the original copy anyways