?There is a piracy problem on PSP?

[mekanor]

unless they send out death rays via wifi to all the psps in the world i cant really see them able to do anything except go after the pirate sites hosting the games.

nah man, this problem could be solved like all other psp related problems, just shut down lik-sang, we all know importers are pirates too... oh wait, thats already been done. play-asia, here we come!

[EvilBoris]

PLay-asia covered there ass by not shipping anything Sony related to Europe.

[EvilBoris]

Doesn't appear that Piracy is a problem any more, Sony are actually recommending it now!

We are a PAL market and we are going to do it in PAL and we are going to do it properly, you can wait for it and you can have it in good quality, you know you can get the stuff from Bittorrent if you want to and download PSP games, it’s up to you.

[kernow]

If only there was any PSP games worth 'buying' though

[angelx]

Doesn't appear that Piracy is a problem any more, Sony are actually recommending it now!

But PAL doesnt matter on a handheld machine unless you need a foreign language? or does it matter with this new TV out function?

[Nu-Eclipse]

Doesn't appear that Piracy is a problem any more, Sony are actually recommending it now!

We are a PAL market and we are going to do it in PAL and we are going to do it properly, you can wait for it and you can have it in good quality, you know you can get the stuff from Bittorrent if you want to and download PSP games, it’s up to you.

Great.

Now that SCEE appear to have backtracked in such a way, maybe they can now re-finance the return of a certain popular online importer that they single-handedly destroyed nearly two years ago?

Or maybe they can now lift restrictions on other online importers selling current-generation US & JPN PS3 & PSP hard/software to European customers?

An absolute disgrace. Since October 24th 2006, I personally vowed never again to buy any brand-new, first-hand PAL SCEE hard/software. That will remain the case indefinitely, as far as I'm concerned.

SCEE = Arrogant, two-faced, hypocritical scum. And that's putting it very lightly...

[Dogg Thang]

AngelX, no it doesn't matter with the tv out because that only works on prog scan tvs anyway.

Was there more context to this quote or is he really telling me that I've been getting my PSP games in the wrong place by actually, you know, buying them?

[25.05.2005]

Totally ridiculous to blame pirates in my eyes.

GoW for example, one of the best selling games of 2007.

Sales

According to Microsoft Game Studios Vice President Shane Kim, Gears of War preorder sales were second only to Halo 2 in the studio's history.[83] Gears of War was also the first Xbox or Xbox 360 game to sell out and reach the top ten charts in Japan.[84]
Gears of War has achieved major success since its release. On November 7, 2006?the day that it was released?it became the most popular game on the Xbox Live service, overtaking Halo 2, which had held the spot since its launch in November 2004.[85] By January 19, 2007, just ten weeks after its debut, over three million units of the game had been sold.[6] As of May 30, 2008, the game has sold 4.7 million copies worldwide.[86]

This was also the most downloaded (ie Pirated) game in 2007. If the game is good enough it will always sell. Piracy has just become an excuse for poor sales because of some other underlying factor.

Perhaps the best example of this was the increasingly arrogant SI Games who 'stopped' making EHL Hockey Manager because Piracy was too great. T Football Manager is Pirated a hell of a lot more than the Hockey game and it still gets made...why is that then SI if everything is down to Piracy and all your little failures can be blamed on these drug dealing, gun toting, people trafficking scumbags? Could it not be that a Hockey management game has an incredibly small market adn you cocked up big time with it?

Sorry for the rant but I'm sick of Piracy being used an excuse by the industry and people lapping it up as fact. Being at University the last couple of years, I've had access to academic studies on the effects of Piracy, which I read out of interest (sad, I know )....one thing that nearly all academics agree on is that this blaming of pirates for a medias failure is wholly innacurate, and is largely dependent on the misplaced morality of the consumer.

[fuse]

Or maybe they can now lift restrictions on other online importers selling current-generation US & JPN PS3 & PSP hard/software to European customers?

This point I could not agree with more. It's as if they'd rather I downloaded my games than buy it from another country, and even if I step out of the mindset of a 'victim' in this case, this seems to be completely ridiculous logic.

[Profit]

Now that SCEE appear to have backtracked in such a way, maybe they can now re-finance the return of a certain popular online importer that they single-handedly destroyed nearly two years ago?

Lik-Sang went bust because they deserved to, not because they couldn't sell PSP goods. Every shops knows if they sell import goods, they are at risk of prosecution, so Lik-sang has no-one to blame if they invested so much in PSP goods.

From a different point of view though, Its still very understandable, why most companies have different region codes and trades.

[Profit]

Regarding blaming piracy, there more than enough justification to blame it for poor sales, no matter how small a dent it actually makes to your profits.

It's always easier to make presumptions of other people's money; but if any of us knew that our income was reduced due to counterfit goods, we'd also be the 1st to do what ever we can.

What's also rediculous is people thinking with buying import software that "it's the same company making the money". Unfortunately it doesn't work like that. People have a habit of seeing a company name, and be ignorant to the rest that goes along with it.

[endo]

Lik-Sang went bust because they deserved to, not because they couldn't sell PSP goods. Every shops knows if they sell import goods, they are at risk of prosecution, so Lik-sang has no-one to blame if they invested so much in PSP goods.

Lik Sang didn't go bust because it had invested so much in PSP stock and then couldn't sell it.

From a different point of view though, Its still very understandable, why most companies have different region codes and trades

I don't understand it.

What's also rediculous is people thinking with buying import software that "it's the same company making the money". Unfortunately it doesn't work like that. People have a habit of seeing a company name, and be ignorant to the rest that goes along with it.

When I imported various Cave shooters for my PS2, I'm pretty sure the money I spent was going to Cave, Taito and Arika for the ones they ported. Of course, if you could point me in the direction of the PAL versions of these games I'll happily buy them.

[Dazzyman]

Sony Europe are arrogant tossers.

PSP games sell bad because the majority of em are crap got nowt to do with piracy you can use that excuse on the DS but they still sell loads (just look at UK charts) and its same with 360 its piracy heaven if you want it but they all sell well (I personally buy all my games). You shouldnt block someone from buying a product from another country like they did it was just plain daft (and it was only aimed at Europe anyway due to Sony Europe again). As Endo says when I bought my DDPDajou etc.. money went to the publisher so whats it matter.

Its abit of a myth that Crysis sold badly it sold over 1million copies by Feb this year it just took time to get going. It was alleged up to then it hadnt sold hardly any and was the most pirated PC game around (same happened with UT with the bollox of 15million pirated because 15million keys where out their which was rubbish). The piracy aspect of Crysis did it a favour in reality. It started very slowly with not many buying it due to very high tech specs and only around 30k got sold by end of its second week. They downloaded it found it could be played and went out and bought it and people have been doing this steadily ever since. For a seriously high spec game mill + sales is very good.

[angelx]

Sony Europe are arrogant tossers.

PSP games sell bad because the majority of em are crap got nowt to do with piracy you can use that excuse on the DS but they still sell loads (just look at UK charts) and its same with 360 its piracy heaven if you want it but they all sell well (I personally buy all my games). You shouldnt block someone from buying a product from another country like they did it was just plain daft (and it was only aimed at Europe anyway due to Sony Europe again). As Endo says when I bought my DDPDajou etc.. money went to the publisher so whats it matter.

Its abit of a myth that Crysis sold badly it sold over 1million copies by Feb this year it just took time to get going. It was alleged up to then it hadnt sold hardly any and was the most pirated PC game around (same happened with UT with the bollox of 15million pirated because 15million keys where out their which was rubbish). The piracy aspect of Crysis did it a favour in reality. It started very slowly with not many buying it due to very high tech specs and only around 30k got sold by end of its second week. They downloaded it found it could be played and went out and bought it and people have been doing this steadily ever since. For a seriously high spec game mill + sales is very good.

Agree with Kop too here, some games make a small fortune still & beome best selling, if there was a decline in sales surely they wouldnt top a previous record? It is most likely the poorer quality games companies whine becuasen oone buys their tat.
Also with Dazzy on Crysis, I tried the demo but it didnt run too well and what I did play was pretty dull to be fair....

[Profit]

As Endo says when I bought my DDPDajou etc.. money went to the publisher so whats it matter.

It's not as straightforward as that. The publisher already made it's money when they sold it to the shop. The problem comes when e.g. a UK company wants to license the title. It's got a twofold problem of already having to compete with the import retailer and less intrest for the UK title equivalent by the market. This is one of the key questions when deciding to license a game for a foreign market.

The head of the UK or US console manufacturer, obviously has less interest to care for the Japanese publisher; so to help the UK/US publishers, region control is introduced. If I was a UK developer/publisher, do I like region lockouts? Yes, obviously. This thought that anyone has a 'right' to play a certain game is nonsense; do it if you want, but you can't expect official support.

Regarding CAVE and TAITO shooters specifically, the japanese companies are also trying to prevent backimports. This is quite a common practice often seen in the Japanese anime DVD industry. The jap company doesn't want their low-volume, inflated price product to be threatened by the budget western equivalent. So they deliberately delay or do not license their products outside of japan. If you have a sustainable market, why risk it?

(BUT TEH HANDHELDS ARE REGION FREE! - the thinking behind this originally was that you could take it to different countries and have no problems.)