Sony strikes HUGE blow against online piracy.

There just aren't enough good PSP games out there for me to even care about this new policy.
 
K, so now pirates can't play online on the PSP. But you couldn't play online with pirated games last gen, and it isn't safe to do this gen. Not a huge blow.
 
I've owned a PSP since launch, and have pirated more games than I can count. But never has a game held my attention for more than a few days, and never have I played a game online. I only ever use my PSP for homebrew now, and that's only about once a month.

And this is all just Sony hating on the used game market. Remember Sony's 'slogan' for the PS1? "If you want to sell blades, you have to give away the razors." They make their money in software sales, and they want that to continue. $20 for almost every used game sold is a gold mine.
 
[quote name='Access_Denied'] $20 for almost every used game sold is a gold mine.[/QUOTE]


Yep, and it would let companies keep new games at $50-60 longer. Not much point in buying a used copy a month or two after release for $30-45 if you have to pay $20 to activiate it on your machine. Might as well get a new copy.

So it will drive down used sales AND put off price drops and sales for longer after launch.
 
This might not make sense but I am going to put it out there.

DS piracy is considerably more simple than PSP piracy but yet the DS is not drowning. I think the age group matters here: PSP markets to 15 - 25 while DS markets to 4 - 70. Generally, pirates are around the 15 - 25 mark which means less of the market share is pirating. Overall, I would say DS has more pirates because there are more sold but their market is so much larger that there are enough games selling.

Also, I don't think the DSi is completely cracked yet and the PSP-3000 is a lot more difficult to work with than the older PSPs. Both companies took good steps here but this new move by Sony seems to only hurt the used game market. Sony has been doing so many strange things lately. PSP Go and now this?

I love the psp but I haven't touched mine since star ocean 1 and 2 were re-released.
 
This is NOT against piracy. This is against used game sales. Pirates will always find a way. This just leaves those who buy this game used out an extra $20.
 
[quote name='Malik112099'] This is also gonna piss off a LOT of people who don't know this info when buying used.[/QUOTE]

Damn right. $20 seems very steep to me. $10 would be more reasonable. I just pray home consoles don't adopt this crap to decrease used game sales.
 
[quote name='QiG']As usual the legitimate consumers get screwed. Sounds like Ubisoft is going to release their games with DRM that requires an online connection at all times regardless of whether it's a story mode or MP too. I believe this will kill the used market and it will do more to drive people toward piracy than ramp up new sales than anything. I realize the new game price point has increased because of the production involved, but between the economy and abundant supply of quality titles there's no way that this will equal that much more sales of $60 games.[/QUOTE]

I don't personally really care about copy protection in most pc games, but UBI is totally going over the deep end with the new DRM. If my wireless connection drops (which it does do from time to time), I get booted out of the game without even a chance to save? They are out of their mind...
 
[quote name='BARRICADE_28']Damn right. $20 seems very steep to me. $10 would be more reasonable. I just pray home consoles don't adopt this crap to decrease used game sales.[/QUOTE]

You may be willing to pay $10 extra for used games, but I never will give in to that idea. These companies made the initial sale(s) to the initial owner(s) and they made their money. Now it's time for someone else(even if it is Gamestop)to make their share.

The day this idea and/or digital distribution being the only method to buy games come to fruitition on home consoles is the day I stop gaming or don an eye patch and start saying "ARRRRRRR" alot.:lol:
 
[quote name='Alex2290']fuck the greedy companies that restrict used games sales more and more.

Also, piracy groups will find a way around this.[/QUOTE]

Although I would contend that companies are made up of human beings with families to feed, I will happily agree with your second point.

Here's how it is going to go down. People that were going to pick up a used copy of Fireteam Bravo 3 are instead going to download a cracked/patched version that won't require the unique code.

I'll be sitting out any game that uses this scheme. It's one thing to toss in a "free" suit of armor for buying new but outright gimping part of the game? fuck off.
 
Heh, one possibility I thought of is what happens if Gamestop makes a deal with these developers? Instead of trying to rip people off by buying a game for $25, they only offer $5. Gamestop then buys a new activation code for $20 and still sells the used game for $55. Sweet deal for both Gamestop and the publisher! Sucks for the consumer though. And why wouldn't the publishers do something like this? They're getting their share off of used games sales, just like they want.
 
The blame on the plain falls mainly on Spain.

So, okay, seriously, there are a lot of people out there stealing games. Like, lots. "Over 9.78 million" in just December of 2009, more specifically, according to a recent study conducted by the International Intellectual Property Alliance and the Entertainment Software Association. Scouring "the most popular peer-to-peer platforms" for a group of 200 titles, the study found that the worst offenders (by country) were Spain (12.5 percent), France (7.5 percent), Brazil (6 percent) and China (5.7 percent) -- the ESA also points out that these stats "demonstrate a strong correlation between countries that lack sufficient protections for technological protection measures and countries where online piracy levels for entertainment software are high."

Worse yet, the figures are repeatedly noted as being an under-representation of actual piracy numbers. "While they account for illegal downloads that occur over select P2P platforms, they do not account for the downloads that occur from 'cyberlockers' and 'one-click' hosting sites, which continue to account for high volumes of infringing downloads," the ESA echoes. The IIPA has since submitted the findings to the United States Trade Representative who could potentially impose sanctions on certain countries based on the recommendations.

http://www.joystiq.com/2010/02/19/esa-estimates-over-9-78-million-pirated-game-downloads-in-dece/
 
Ugh I hate registering a game online to truly make it mine if I bought it. I understand the point of it but all it does is punish people who buy it legit, then again thats all any form of copy protection does in games is annoy people who paid for it.
 
[quote name='gargus']Ugh I hate registering a game online to truly make it mine if I bought it. I understand the point of it but all it does is punish people who buy it legit, then again thats all any form of copy protection does in games is annoy people who paid for it.[/QUOTE]

Agreed, all this stuff doesn't work as the people distributing games, albums etc. illegally get around it, as do the people downloading the illegally distributed content.

DRM etc. just pisses off those who bought it legitimately.

There's a huge problem where people who would never steal say a physical copy of a game don't find anything wrong with downloading a copy of a game they didn't pay a dime for.

The real solution is going to be updating the criminal laws to make downloading a game, album, e-book etc. a petty theft on par with stealing a physical copy of the game and punish the offender accordingly. Enforcement is tough, but so is shoplifting and other forms of petty theft. For everyone that gets caught and arrested their are many more who get away with it.

Punish those doing the illegal behavior, don't use misguided policies that don't thwart them and make things a hassle for the legit users.
 
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