Sony Are Not The Enemy

[Narcotize]

I think many of us realize that a huge portion of the cost that we pay for a game is markup. So say what you will about ISO loaders, but I think they are as much the symptoms of a problem as the problem itself. We buy into the values of our society, the problem is it doesn't give enough of us an appropriate way to achieve those goals, because they mark up the price so much.

Sony isn't the bad guy, but they share some of the responsibility.

I believe people using ISO loaders is more of a "I want everythiing ... NOW" mentality. I remember having an Amiga and I would get a box of copied games rather than spend out on one game that I really wanted.

Eventually my supply to free floppies came to an end so when I DID spend the almighty £5 on Street Fighter 2, I caned it loads.

Games were a pittance back then. Coded by small teams with no marketing or any of the shebang that came with it. Yet still for a fiver, I still went for the free option because I could.

If I could be bothered to rig my PS2, I would probably rip the hell out of that. Because I haven't, I'm spending money on games. Thinking about it and getting good value for my cash out of them.

Lowering prices wouldn't do a thing really.

[sabernet]

and two, PS3 isnt failing

http://www.ps3center.net/story-394.html
http://digg.com/gaming_news/EA_regre...ving_on_to_Wii
http://www.1up.com/do/newsStory?cId=3155564

Sure, if you say so.

most of the reasons you provided have nothing to do with gaming, especially the whole "Sony sues children".

Sony threatened and even punished Crescente from Kotaku for exersising his rights as a reporter of news.
Sony shut down Lik-Sang using legal loopholes and brute-force lawyering.
Sony lies about their specs for every system since the PS2.
Sony put rootkits on music CDs to infect them with virus-like DRM software; infecting over 500,000 computer systems.
[...]aside from releasing mandatory firmware patches who's only purpose is to seal a small homebrew leak.

Again, whatever.

Besides, if Exxon-Mobil or Montsanto made a game console, would it be any better to say "Exxon is not the enemy because their wifi controllers rule!"?

[SpooForBrains]

I have to disagree with you there, just because the PSP isnt as selling wise as DS, doesnt mean its a failure, the software sales are low because of the piracy which is occuring, hardware wise, its going good,

Well done for swallowing Sony's rhetoric so well. I was going through this in my head last night.

1. To my knowledge there are no UMD burners in existence except those controlled by Sony. You cannot buy counterfit UMDs. Period. Nor can you burn them at home.

2. PSP games are upwards of 1GB in size most of the time. Most home broadband connections are download capped these days, and torrent ports are routinely blocked.

3. Memory sticks are still very expensive. Unless you buy a job lot from overseas, the cheapest you can get a 4GB here in the UK is £45.

That means a PSP pirate must have a fast internet connection, be savvy enough to use bittorrent, and have cash to burn on memory sticks, since you can only fit a few games on your stick at a time. Either that or they spend most of their time copying games over from their PCs.

Just how many people do you think satisfy all these criteria? It's gonna be pretty bloody low.

Unlike the other consoles on which piracy is/was pretty prevalent (eg. the Playstation, PS2 or Dreamcast) there is no way that you can have one or two tech-savvy people per area downloading games and burning them, then selling them off cheap to their mates. Nor do you have big illegal factories running churning out piles and piles of counterfit game discs.

For the average consumer it is cheaper, easier and faster to just go out and buy the damned UMD.

Given all of that, do you honestly believe that the PSP is suffering due to piracy? I sure as hell am not buying that one.

[Joe88]

2. PSP games are upwards of 1GB in size most of the time. Most home broadband connections are download capped these days, and torrent ports are routinely blocked.

3. Memory sticks are still very expensive. Unless you buy a job lot from overseas, the cheapest you can get a 4GB here in the UK is £45.

That means a PSP pirate must have a fast internet connection, be savvy enough to use bittorrent, and have cash to burn on memory sticks, since you can only fit a few games on your stick at a time. Either that or they spend most of their time copying games over from their PCs.

Just how many people do you think satisfy all these criteria? It's gonna be pretty bloody low.


For the average consumer it is cheaper, easier and faster to just go out and buy the damned UMD.

Given all of that, do you honestly believe that the PSP is suffering due to piracy? I sure as hell am not buying that one.

2) there not alot that go past 1GB
I myself use a 1GB stick and am fine with it
capped broadband ???
lol
im using 750kbps DSL and find no porblem at all for only $20 a month, forwarding ports takes about 1min to do, its not that hard to set up a static IP
very esay to do and get going, you dont even need to forward it, it will still download, but a little slower
also µTorrent > all

3) a 2GB stick can be purchased for about $30
most PSP games on average are 500MB
there not expensive at all

[SpooForBrains]

2) there not alot that go past 1GB
I myself use a 1GB stick and am fine with it
capped broadband ???
lol
im using 750kbps DSL and find no porblem at all for only $20 a month, forwarding ports takes about 1min to do, its not that hard to set up a static IP
very esay to do and get going, you dont even need to forward it, it will still download, but a little slower
also µTorrent > all

3) a 2GB stick can be purchased for about $30
most PSP games on average are 500MB
there not expensive at all

Quite possibly, but (and correct me if I'm wrong here) the DS also has the ability to play "backed-up" games, using a flashcart / storage device, isn't that true? So if both systems are equally capable of running pirate games, why should it be a factor in poor sales of PSP titles but not for the DS?

[BurningRage]

lucky guys, i got my 4gb for 180 euros...well, 2 weeks later the price was cut by halt
well, about the huge size of psp isos, isn't there a way to compress them? sometime ago i read it's possible, but i forgot where it was, as it isn't important to me.

that would mean an "improvement" in the piracy scene if you could download the games faster - which could make the psp even more piracy-friendly :/

[StormB]

I like this article. I still fail to understand the misguided hate towards Sony. Especially since their systems always have good games.

There really aren't many good games for the PSP. I think it's mainly limited by the analogue nub, which is very uncomfortable to use, and quite difficult to be precise with.

[bufinjer]

Im not saying everyone uses it for illegal stuff, that would be naive.

What im saying is that, the small majority that do use it for illegal stuff are whats causing Sony to take this stance on it.

Well if it truly was a small majority of people doing illegal stuff, then Sony wouldn't be changing the firmware every time someone hacks it. It has to be large enough for them to worry about it.

[Shadowblind]

Not True, at least 15-20 percent are moving.

What now?DDR is on the 360 and Gamecube, Dynasty warriors is coming out for the DS and GBA, and DBZ Budokai Tenkaitchi 2 is out for the Wii. Seems %100 to me.

[onetwentyeight]

i believe the ps2 had at least one firmware update specifically for dvd playback that came with the official remote or perhaps on demo discs as well.