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Sony admits piracy a problem for the PSP
- Thread starter Queasy
- Start date
mmntech
Lifer
Piracy is a cop out since it's no better on the DS. Sony has just failed to entice developers to work with the platform.
The real reason for going 100% digital download is so that companies like Sony have 100% of control over their IPs. No middle man hence more money to be made. Plus it cuts off the lucrative resale market all together. It has little to do with reducing piracy.
The real reason for going 100% digital download is so that companies like Sony have 100% of control over their IPs. No middle man hence more money to be made. Plus it cuts off the lucrative resale market all together. It has little to do with reducing piracy.
RyanPaulShaffer
Diamond Member
Aye, matey. 😉
Edit: That was just a clever way of me saying "This." 🙂
Saga
Banned
What part of those properly phrased English sentences was confusing to you?
There was something on VG which showed console sales of Wii, 360, and PS3. And it further broke it down with 360's sold with and without harddrives. And then it added in 360 standalone harddrive sales to display the simple fact that there are more 360's sold with a harddrive than there are PS3's sold - period.
And then the guy being interviewed stated the following:
"The fact that every PlayStation 3 has a hard drive, and the DLC -- our competition doesn't have that type of environment where every unit has a hard drive. Those types of differentiating factors are a big deal when we're talking about some of the co-marketing."
Failfact is failfact, no matter how you sugar coat it. I'm tired people fucking making shit up to use as their marketing points. This guy needs to know his own facts or simply not say ignorant things.
uhh, you just said the exact same thing for both devices. PSP requires the "hardware" of a memory stick while the DS requires the hardware of.....a memory stick.
PSP requires specific software hacks/exploits
DS requires nothing software wise, drag files to micro-sd, turn on DS.
DS needs a memory stick and a reader. PSP has the reader built in. That is what he was saying.
I don't think that matters incredibly much, though. I think the biggest difference between piracy on the DS and PSP is that PSP owners are generally older and more tech-savy, whereas the majority of DS owners are children.
Chinatown Wars sold 88K copies. Professor Layton sold 2 million. Sure, you could argue not as many people are looking for a GTA-like experience on a portable device, but I can't help but think piracy played a large role. Mothers shopping Wal-Mart will pick up Layton for their kids as they don't have a clue about piracy. Teenagers and adults who want Chinatown Wars are aware of all of their options - both legal and not.
Problem with the PSP is that more of their games are like Chinatown Wars and less like Professor Layton, so piracy stings a bit.
And the reader is just a card you put in the device.....no matter how you slice it, its still a ton easier to pirate on the DS and takes about 0 technical knowledge other than where to buy the card and where to download the files.
For piracy in general, they can't claim that 10,000 people pirated the game, so they lost on 10,000 sales. Most of those people just wouldn't have bought the game in the first place.
It's definitely more user-friendly to pirate DS games, but I don't know about easier. No need to order something from China to get hacked PSP games. I guess it's all relative.
Anyway, piracy is a pretty big deal - particularly when it's so easy to do. And it's insanely easy on both portable devices.
I know you like Madden - if playing pirated games on your 360 was as easy as the DS, and there were no risks involved, would you still buy Madden every year? I know I wouldn't. Piracy definitely cuts into sales far more than you're giving it credit for. It basically crushed PC gaming and turned that into a digital-distribution market. It's going to do it for portable games as well - see the iPhone for what the future looks like.
purbeast0
No Lifer
They were never $50. At least not in the US. They were/are $40.
It is a big deal, because MS was short sighted, and didnt include a HD in every 360. It sucks for the people who bought one and didnt know, or thought that they wouldnt need one. You cant even get the newest dashboard without one. Or DLC. And then MS adds insult to injury, by price gouging the crap out of HD's. Its silly charging $100 for a 60gig HD.
Not that this is proof one way or the other, but a quick check on mininova, and there are almost 2000 (1800 or so) more torrents for the PSP, than the DS, 9500 to 7500. Not to mention that the PSP is geared towards older gamers, and the DS is geared towards younger games. Younger games are not going to know about this, their moms are just going to buy them games. Case in point, both my kids (5&10) have a DS. I have a PSP.
On a recent deployment, we had about 10 PSP's. One guy would buy a game whenever we got to go to a PX, and then copy it over to the rest of the guys who wanted it. Its not hard at all, takes 5 mins.
I think its also easier to hack a PSP. Its not that hard to do yourself, and if you cant do it. A quick search on craigslist, and you can find someone local to do it for you for $20.
Liberator21
Golden Member
Wow... Effin crazy stuff from a Sony higher-up! It's like I'm on shrooms or something
New sig anyone?
Krakn3Dfx
Platinum Member
Grand Theft Auto: Chinatown Wars says hi.
The PSP caters to a higher age range than the DS by a good 10-20 years usually. You see games like Pokemon, aims squarely at pre-teens, who normally wouldn't know anything about piracy, selling millions, while you see a game like Chinatown Wars, aimed at a group of older, more tech savvy group who only need to go as far as the Hot Deals section of this site to find out you can buy a $10 card that lets you download every DS game ever made, load them up and play them for free, sell like 80k at launch.
Now take the PSP, which is bought mostly by teens and older, which can be pretty easily hacked, and has people on Craigslist offering to hack yours for $20 a pop, yeah, I think piracy is a big deal. 50+ million units sold, and while a game like GTA: LCS sells pretty well early on before everyone knows how easy it is to hack their PSP, now retail sales are horrible, even on big titles like God of War.
Piracy obviously isn't the only reason, but it's naive to say it's a cop out, it's definitely part of the problem.
Aikouka
Lifer
A couple points of contention to the whole piracy on the DS vs PSP "debate":
1) Depending on the PSP model, the PSP requires much, much less than the DS does to hack it. If I remember correctly, currently newer PSP models are unhackable (they may've been broken already, I don't keep up that well), but the oldest model can be hacked easily (given the proper firmware) and revisions following that can be hacked by other means (including by someone with a hacked PSP).
2) A memory card is almost a necessary item to play PSP game as you cannot save without one.
3) To hack the PSP, you would need no more than a 64MB memory card; however, to play games, via this, you would obviously need more.
4) To "hack" a Nintendo DS, you have to purchase a special card that will either go in your GBA or NDS slot that typically costs around $40 or more.
5) Not all of said hacks are used for warez as there is a decent homebrew community for both consoles and hacks are required on both systems to use said homebrew. This is of course not ignoring that hacks are also used (and required) for playing warez games.
1) Depending on the PSP model, the PSP requires much, much less than the DS does to hack it. If I remember correctly, currently newer PSP models are unhackable (they may've been broken already, I don't keep up that well), but the oldest model can be hacked easily (given the proper firmware) and revisions following that can be hacked by other means (including by someone with a hacked PSP).
2) A memory card is almost a necessary item to play PSP game as you cannot save without one.
3) To hack the PSP, you would need no more than a 64MB memory card; however, to play games, via this, you would obviously need more.
4) To "hack" a Nintendo DS, you have to purchase a special card that will either go in your GBA or NDS slot that typically costs around $40 or more.
5) Not all of said hacks are used for warez as there is a decent homebrew community for both consoles and hacks are required on both systems to use said homebrew. This is of course not ignoring that hacks are also used (and required) for playing warez games.
No, this is a pointless argument, but there is no way to argue that the PSP is easier to hack. Do you have to touch a computer to hack the PSP? Yes? Then its harder than the DS already. The only way hacking a DS would be difficult is if you didn't have opposable thumbs or something and couldn't push the card in.
xCxStylex
Senior member
I have a hacked PSP slim and an (original) r4 card for my DS that I pre-ordered.
PSP is harder to hack, but as Ackmed said, DS is geared more toward younger gamers whose parents buy them shovelware off the shelves. As 8 year olds are less connected with the world, they don't know about hacking/pirating or lack the knowledge to do so.
1 - PSP requires much, much less than the DS to hack?
Wrong.
-All you need with a DS is a flash cart (your hardware), a flash card (microsd), downloaded or ripped roms, and a way to read the microsd card, such as a PC card reader. Any idiot that can drag and drop files is good to go.
-With a PSP, you need to download custom firmware, copy it onto to a memory stick, make or buy a custom jigkick (pandora) battery, and then flash the firmware. Making the battery is NOT easy, but buying one (under $10 from dealextreme) is. While it's not much harder, one DOES need to be able to find the custom firmware as well as instructions to do it. It's not hard by any means to anyone that can google, but it's still a TON more than the DS, especially with the chance to brick your PSP.
4 - Wrong.
The cards cost less than $10 these days. I bought my R4 for $40 2 years ago. The R4 Ultra (the newest, supported, and updated) cart costs less than $10 from dealextreme as well.
PSP is harder to hack, but as Ackmed said, DS is geared more toward younger gamers whose parents buy them shovelware off the shelves. As 8 year olds are less connected with the world, they don't know about hacking/pirating or lack the knowledge to do so.
1 - PSP requires much, much less than the DS to hack?
Wrong.
-All you need with a DS is a flash cart (your hardware), a flash card (microsd), downloaded or ripped roms, and a way to read the microsd card, such as a PC card reader. Any idiot that can drag and drop files is good to go.
-With a PSP, you need to download custom firmware, copy it onto to a memory stick, make or buy a custom jigkick (pandora) battery, and then flash the firmware. Making the battery is NOT easy, but buying one (under $10 from dealextreme) is. While it's not much harder, one DOES need to be able to find the custom firmware as well as instructions to do it. It's not hard by any means to anyone that can google, but it's still a TON more than the DS, especially with the chance to brick your PSP.
4 - Wrong.
The cards cost less than $10 these days. I bought my R4 for $40 2 years ago. The R4 Ultra (the newest, supported, and updated) cart costs less than $10 from dealextreme as well.
Aikouka
Lifer
I had to do very little to hack my PSP and spend $0. Hacking my DS costs me $50+. Which one do you think I own that is not hacked (and I'll clue you in, I own both portable systems).
You put a file on the PSP and run it... how is that hard? Of course if you ignore things and don't look for a 1.5 fat PSP, it'll be a little bit harder, because Sony has been trying to cut down on Piracy via Software where Nintendo just sues people.
All it takes is a tiny bit of insight and a single piece of downloaded software. All I had to do was get the right firmware, load it onto my memory stick, run it from the Games section and follow the on-screen text (which was as simple as push 'x' to agree). As you said yourself, which amusingly enough contradicts your earlier statements about the PSP not being easy to hack:
When I was looking for good cards to buy, every recommended card cost over $50 and this was maybe 6 months ago. I was not interested in paying $50 to hack a system when my PSP cost me nothing to hack (and don't go on some tirade about the price of the memory stick ~_~).
The point is, while the PSP may require a little more "tinkering" to work, it is not difficult to do if you look into it first. It is also essentially free to do.
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