Did Piracy Make The Playstation?

[nips]

Nintendo! At the top of thier game with the SNES. Then the N64 is released and then things appear to go down hill... Why? What could it be? What was the competition - Playstation.

Now, why should this new console be such a competator. It's released by a company with very little console experience - SONY. It's nothing special. We've seen this generation that the XBox has done pretty well due to shear power. Why was this not the case before? The N64 had more 'power' than the Playstation! It all seems a little weird.

The Playstation did take games in a new direction. Games like FFVII blew people away with the great FMVs. But really is that enough? So the PSOne could do somethings the N64 couldn't do, but what about quality titles? The N64 launched with Mario - IN THREE DIMENSIONS. Hailed as one of the best games ever. I personally perceived the PSOne launch as nothing to shout about. The N64 had great Multiplayer games, and 4 controller ports, did the Playstation? No.

This may appear like a rant over why the N64 is better than the PSOne, which is silly. We've had those conversations before, and they go nowhere.

So I'm going to ask this:

Is Piracy the thing that really put SONY in the forefront of the videogame market. Is the Disc storage medium and the relative ease of copying the reason for the Playstation's success. Is that possibly why the PS2 was 'cracked' qucikly so that pirate games could be distributed with relative speed from launch?

Is the lack of copying on the GC (ignoring the XBox as it is possible to save games to the HDD) possibly the reason for its relative lack of success...

Just thought I'd put that forward.

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EDIT: Changed the heading, and made the odd alteration.

[Roost]

A hell of a lot of playstations were sold because of the ease of piracy. I know when i was at school about 15 out of the 20 people i knew who had a PS all said they bought it because they knoew someone who made copies.

[Burai]

It's a factor, but not THE factor.

The fact that Nintendo launched nearly two years too late was a factor, as was the fact that N64 was more expensive than PlayStation.

Then we had the type of games, the marketing.

Interestingly, the N64 really did well in the States. Obviously not as well as PlayStation, but Nintendo sold ****loads of units - it even outsold the easy-to-pirate Dreamcast during Xmas 1999.

Piracy was a factor, yes, but not the be-all and end-all.

[Mr Ono]

Similar situation with the PS2 and the XBox at the moment methinks.


Oh, and the GBA.

[nips]

Copying games on the GBA are helping its success?

Do you mean with a flash-linker. Or emus on the PC?

Becuase I can see the latter only as a hinderance!

[wod]

yes it did make the playstation, everyone i knew had a playstation and copy games. i didn't buy mine becuase u could copy games, i got it cause it had some good games.

[nips]

I mean, I got the console for FFVII. But when EVERYONE was getting their console chipped, I hopped on the wagon. I only did it to play NTSC games but I know lots did it to play copied games for 10% of the retail price.

I mean, at present, with the XBox it's not really too much of an issue in my opinion. I was in CEX on the weeked, and I bought Munch's Oddessy in NTSC format. The bloke asked if I knew it was NTSC, and then asked if I had a chipped XBox or an American. When I said chipped he said I was hardcore. And while the bloke serving me in CEX isn't the final voice on the matter; it is a clear example that the XBox Modding scene isn't - at present - as big as the old PSOne modding scene.

Does this mean that the modding scene is different for the two platforms and that the more 'Hardcore' scene is a problem for the market, but the huge 'casual' chipping of consoles can be a huge help?

[Papercut]

Interestingly, the N64 really did well in the States. Obviously not as well as PlayStation, but Nintendo sold ****loads of units - it even outsold the easy-to-pirate Dreamcast during Xmas 1999.

The Dreamcast wasn't easy to pirate at that time.

[Smeghead]

Copying games on the GBA are helping its success?

Do you mean with a flash-linker. Or emus on the PC?

Becuase I can see the latter only as a hinderance!

software sales on GBA are shoddy at the moment, hardware sales are pretty good tho, go figure.

[C']

I don't think so.

Successful, aggressive marketing creating a recognition among the club culture of the time made Playstation successful. Sony tapped into a client base that had previously been ignored by Sega and Nintendo and reaped the rewards.

Surely the Saturn would have been just as easy to pirate at the time yet it didn't see anywhere near the same level of success. The widespread piracy came about as a result of the of the huge number of people owning the machine. Whilst I acknowledge pirated games came about early in the Playstations live yet it was also evident at an early stage which console was going to come out on top.

Piracy simply follows the success always has. Why bother pirating software for a machine so few people own?

[?pint]

Errrm... what exactly could the PlayStation 'do' that the N64 couldn't? Nothing. They just had a bigger storage medium, and if Nintendo built a big enough cartridge they could equal that. No, the N64 was a superior piece of hardware, with lots of good games. However, the PlayStation had plenty more good games too.

Anyway. I prefer the N64, but I think the PS was probably a better console. And you can copy Xbox games if your Xbox is networked to your PC and you have a DVD writer.

[probeater]

I've come across so many pirate gba games, Its amazing just how high the quality is, its quite difficult to tell a pirate and an authentic cart apart.

[Mr Ono]

I've come across so many pirate gba games, Its amazing just how high the quality is, its quite difficult to tell a pirate and an authentic cart apart.

I was talking more along the lines of flashlinkers and certain mIRC channels.

[Firsty]

The PS could render more polys per second than an N64, which had a lower fill rate. Concequence of using a dedicated vector unit. The PS did "cheat" 3d tho. There are a few other bits and bobs, but I won't go into that.

The saturn was more difficult to pirate than the PS. You needed to mod the cd unit because saturn games were printed onto security coded cds. The data track started a little further out from the centre. The saturn however had very easy region coding. The actual piracy protection on the saturn is quite ingenious.

I knew people who did just buy their PS for copies. They'd buy one proper game as a boot disc and then just play copies. They couldn't understand why I'd get angry at them.

[nips]

Piracy simply follows the success always has. Why bother pirating software for a machine so few people own?

Makes sense. Do you think that Playstation would have reached it's cult status if it wasn't for piracy though.

I personally think that far fewer would have bought a PSOne if it wasn't for piracy.