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[BobsRevenge]

Because no one else has the convenience of having their games ship on Blu Ray.

 

[Durante]

OP and others like him need to get it through their head that Hypervisor/et. al. "anti-piracy" protections are just screwing honest costumers more than the pirates.

How is PS3's effective protection screwing you? The system is region free and there is no online activation or use-limit or other DRM tech that people usually object to.

 

[Marty Chinn]

Piracy is never beaten, only slowed down.

I think for the first time ever this might not be the case. The PS3 has been out for almost three years and there's not even a slight hint of an exploit for people to work off of. I really think Sony actually has beaten it with the PS3 since it has been three years and not even a rumor about it being hackable.

 

[Somnid]

There's been many efforts in the last few years that have made strides against piracy and it is harder to pirate on newer systems than it has in the past. People tend to focus on pirate success than not because it's not "supposed" to happen. Likewise if Sony's security broke the hacking community would be bashing them for whatever mistake they made and fling all sorts of dirt, whereas systems that aren't hacked never received praise because they are "doing what they are supposed to" which in itself is a near impossible task.

 

[Lagspike_exe]

Because it doesn't matter how many people pirate the game. It matters how many people buy the game.

Having 100,000 pirates and 100,000 buyers is better than having 0 pirates and 50,000 buyers.

/thread

 

[test_account]

The reason Piracy is slow on the PS3, is because of Linux.

Usually the people that unlock consoles are the people that want to put Linux on them.
The Pirates usually take that info and begin pirating games.

Since Linux can be installed out of the box, there is no need for hacking.

Linux will be on future PS systems for this reason alone.

I have also been wondering if this could be one of the reasons, since the PS3 already supports Linux, then maybe fewer people will try to crack the PS3. But it shall be interesting to see if the PS3 gets cracked in the future now that the PS3 Slim is out, because the PS3 Slim doesnt support installation of Linux like the PS3 Phat does.

 

[PSGames]

It seems to me that there is a paradigm shift in gaming hardware at the moment that everyone is ignoring. Sony have managed to secure all three of their currently marketed devices against piracy. The PSP3000 has not been cracked properly, the Go is DD only and the PS3 remains secure as the day it was launched. In contrast, the 360 is a £10 SATA card away from cracking and the Wii / DS might as well arrive cracked from the box.

Why then are we not seeing a concerted development shift to the PS platforms? It would surely cause tremors if GTA5 was announced as a PS3 exclusive and 'Platform Security' was cited as the reason, so why isn't it happening?

It seems from a cursory glance that the less secure platforms sell better, software and hardware. Is this a sneaky secret that is taken into account? Is selling hardware units in emerging markets more important than fighting piracy?

Is the PS3 uncracked because nobody gives a shit about cracking it? Casual pirates would be defeated by the need for a Blu-ray burner but surely the hardcore would get on board a custom firmware, is the PS3 uncrackable?

Essentially, why is it that the platform that is now 100% piracy free isn't cleaning up on the dev side?

Because despite being cracked the 360/DS sell more games than their PS counterparts.

 

[intheinbetween]

how long did it take for the Gamecube?

 

[Mailenstein]

Sony beat piracy? That's news to me.

 

[test_account]

Because no one else has the convenience of having their games ship on Blu Ray.

How do you mean?

 

[Meier]

Why then are we not seeing a concerted development shift to the PS platforms? It would surely cause tremors if GTA5 was announced as a PS3 exclusive and 'Platform Security' was cited as the reason, so why isn't it happening?

Because the PS3 isn't selling as much software as the 360 even with it being cracked. Why would they consciously sell less than before on purpose?

 

[SmokyDave]

Sony beat piracy? That's news to me.

Well, now you got the news, anything to add?

Because the PS3 isn't selling as much software as the 360 even with it being cracked. Why would they consciously sell less than before on purpose?

To protect the (possible) illusion that piracy hurts a platform more than it helps? I dunno, hence me asking GAF.

 

[adg1034]

To satisfy my own curiosity, I just went and checked what the current number of peers were for the top 360/Wii titles on a prominent torrent site, to see just how bad console piracy is on non-Sony platforms. Interestingly enough, for the most recently released title on 360 (Brutal Legend), the combined number of peers (seeders plus leechers) was barely 1600, with practically all other titles coming in below 1000. For the Wii, the top title was Mario & Sonic at the Winter Games, sitting at around 4600 peers. These aren't the industry-threatening numbers the OP's argument would have suggested.

So while Sony has been doing a great job at blocking piracy on its consoles (most PSP models not included, as Dragona pointed out), the numbers for games on the other consoles are so low relative to their probable number of legitimate sales that console piracy, for the time being, really is a non-issue. You asked why "platform security" hasn't driven more developers to making PS3 exclusives? From the numbers, it's obvious: console piracy is currently so low that it doesn't even appear on their radar screen when it comes time to start a new project. For, say, Brutal Legend, why should Doublefine have sacrificed potentially hundreds of thousands of units of 360 version sales just to avoid the ~15,000 who would eventually pirate it? That just doesn't make sense.

 

[DevelopmentArrested]

Good thread when title is wrong.

 

[LosDaddie]

Because despite what SonyGAF claims (and maybe hopes), piracy isn't a serious problem for the X360 either. And because software still sells, by large amounts, on the X360.

Devs go where the money is.

 

[Speevy]

Ability to pirate has nothing to do with market performance.


The Gamecube's games can be pirated more quickly and easily than any system of the last two generations, and look how it turned out. Pirates steal what they're interested in. There's no rhyme or reason to it.

 

[BobsRevenge]

How do you mean?

People care less about pirating because its harder. There isn't as much effort put in. Pirating Blu Ray games has to be expensive.

 

[Rollo Lawson]

lets not forget that something being easy to hack is a selling point for some folks. you can assume that a h/w's user base is enhanced by freebie seekers

look at the psp's entire history for illustration

 

[SmokyDave]

Good thread when title is wrong.

Which currently available Sony video games playing hardware is 100% crackable?

Ability to pirate has nothing to do with market performance.


The Gamecube's games can be pirated more quickly and easily than any system of the last two generations, and look how it turned out. Pirates steal what they're interested in. There's no rhyme or reason to it.

Gamecube was the last of its generation to be cracked.

 

[Somnid]

People care less about pirating because its harder. There isn't as much effort put in. Pirating Blu Ray games has to be expensive.

The systems with the worst piracy problems like PSP, DS, Wii and Xbox do not actually use physical media to pirate. Just saying.

 

[Meier]

To protect the (possible) illusion that piracy hurts a platform more than it helps? I dunno, hence me asking GAF.

Joe Gamer has no clue he can play pirated games in the US. It's a small percentage of the game-buying population. Not too many people to protect that image for.

 

[DeaconKnowledge]

Because it doesn't matter how many people pirate the game. It matters how many people buy the game.

Having 100,000 pirates and 100,000 buyers is better than having 0 pirates and 50,000 buyers.

Yeah, this one.

The Gamecube's games can be pirated more quickly and easily than any system of the last two generations, and look how it turned out. Pirates steal what they're interested in. There's no rhyme or reason to it.

Uh, what? The PSX and Dreamcast were notoriously easy to pirate.

 

[Speevy]

Gamecube was the last of its generation to be cracked.

Chalk it up to lack of interest, because what I said is still true.

 

[Raistlin]

How is PS3's effective protection screwing you? The system is region free and there is no online activation or use-limit or other DRM tech that people usually object to.

Yeah really ... plus, it's the most open HW architecture in terms of using standardized peripherals (HDD, bluetooth headsets, etc).

 

[mastershred]

From what I'm getting out of this thread, if I was a hardware dev I'd market my system as 100% hackable to increase sales.

But seriously, I'm sure the PS3 is crackable in certain respects, but is it even worth the hassle. There wasn't much buzz even when a firmware release was cracked a while back. Reason being, Blu-Ray discs and burners are pricey, you'd have to constantly re-update firmware to keep up with your influx of pirated games, and of course you're risking your PSN account.

eventually it will get to the point where there's isolated chips in these systems handling cryptography, in which time cracking will be extremely unfeasible and inconsistent between users thanks to quantum mechanics. It's really not too far off.

So the question is, will hardware devs secretly leave some holes in there to sell a few more systems? After all, it doesn't seem to be stopping software devs from working with it. So what do they have to even worry about?

 

[xbhaskarx]

Why then are we not seeing a concerted development shift to the PS platforms?

Essentially, why is it that the platform that is now 100% piracy free isn't cleaning up on the dev side?

:lol
Why would a developer care that the PS3 and PSP are piracy free if their games will still sell better on the 360, Wii, and DS?

 

[SpacLock]

The system that really did beat piracy is the 360.

Sure, you can crack it for pretty cheap apparently, but who would want to do that? You lose Live, you lose the Xbox. From what I hear, You can't be on Live for more than an hour before you're fucked. That's why the 360 software still sells like mad. You would never think for a second that the system was able to be cracked when you looked at software sales.

As for the PS3. Everything can be cracked. Everything.

 

[TunaLover]

how long did it take for the Gamecube?

Very late in its lifespan, almost every hardware discover was used as base for Wii hacking, there are alot homewbrew app that works in base of GCN architecture, the port to Wii was almost trivial.

 

[Steve Youngblood]

People care less about pirating because its harder. There isn't as much effort put in. Pirating Blu Ray games has to be expensive.

No. If someone could make the system read burned Blu-Rays, someone could just as (if not more) easily make it read a burned .iso off of the hard drive. Nevertheless, the .isos would consume more hard drive space, so I guess that's something of a deterrent.

 

[Sho_Nuff82]

To protect the (possible) illusion that piracy hurts a platform more than it helps? I dunno, hence me asking GAF.

Piracy is a problem.

On the PC and PSP.

It's not an illusion when there are more people playing your game online from leaks than from paying $50 for it.

But you can keep pretending that the situation with the 360 is exactly the same and missing the point.

 

[kamspy]

What was the file size of Resistance 1 again? MGS4?

Who wants to chug up ~20GB of storage (HDD or BD-R) for one game?

 

[neorej]

Because it doesn't matter how many people pirate the game. It matters how many people buy the game.

Having 100,000 pirates and 100,000 buyers is better than having 0 pirates and 50,000 buyers.

LIES! Piracy costs money, pirating is stealing, every pirated copy is a lost sale and all that!

 

[SmokyDave]

Chalk it up to lack of interest, because what I said is still true.

And this could also be true of the PS3 I suppose. I wasn't saying you were wrong, just pointing out nobody gave a shit about cracking the Cube.

The system that really did beat piracy is the 360.

Sure, you can crack it for pretty cheap apparently, but who would want to do that? You lose Live, you lose the Xbox. From what I hear, You can't be on Live for more than an hour before you're fucked. That's why the 360 software still sells like mad. You would never think for a second that the system was able to be cracked when you looked at software sales.

As for the PS3. Everything can be cracked. Everything.

Not even close. I know tons of co-workers with cracked 360's (ironic as I work at a software company) and they simply buy a new arcade every 18 months when the ban-hammer hits. MS must love them.

 

[gofreak]

I think for the first time ever this might not be the case. The PS3 has been out for almost three years and there's not even a slight hint of an exploit for people to work off of.

Dunno how true it was, but IIRC there was something about a potential TIFF viewer exploit on it. It was very quickly patched out though and nothing seemed to come of it (?)

 

[silverbullet1080]

Can you imagine the mammoth amount of time it would take to pirate blu-ray games?

 

[Speevy]

My question regarding the 360 is why would you want to modify it?

You spend half the generation getting it repaired, and when they finally send out good models, you void the warranty, and get yourself banned from Xbox Live?

What a stupid move.

 

[lastendconductor]

You're looking at it the wrong way. Sony has avoided piracy because developers have avoided Sony. The moment we see a "concerted development shift" is the moment the pirates get serious and the system gets cracked.

 

[Durante]

Gamecube was the last of its generation to be cracked.

Actually, it seems to me that at least since the dawn of disc-based consoles the market leader always had the largest piracy issues. Correlation or causation? In spite of or because of? You decide!

 

[Steve Youngblood]

What was the file size of Resistance 1 again? MGS4?

Who wants to chug up ~20GB of storage (HDD or BD-R) for one game?

Well, the bandwidth to download that would be a deterrent, but why would I care about 20GB of hard drive space when I can install a non-proprietary drive. The hard drive on my PC is like 640 GB and it cost about $50 (I didn't even shop around for a deal on it).

 

[Oli]

Piracy is never beaten, only slowed down.

Pretty much.

The only ways that would eliminate it would likely inconvenience the legitimate customers, and then everyone freaks out.

 

[Pandaman]

The system that really did beat piracy is the 360.

Sure, you can crack it for pretty cheap apparently, but who would want to do that? You lose Live, you lose the Xbox. From what I hear, You can't be on Live for more than an hour before you're fucked. That's why the 360 software still sells like mad. You would never think for a second that the system was able to be cracked when you looked at software sales.

As for the PS3. Everything can be cracked. Everything.

uhh...

you lose live? since when? a friend of mine has had a cracked xbox that he takes online since forever and a day.

 

[BobsRevenge]

The systems with the worst piracy problems like PSP, DS, Wii and Xbox do not actually use physical media to pirate. Just saying.

Good point. And this might be a dumb question, but has Blu Ray been cracked? I mean, if you can't get access to the disk's data to rip it, then how are you supposed to put it on a hard drive.

Also, let's not forget how much data these things hold.

 

[SmokyDave]

Pretty much.

The only ways that would eliminate it would likely inconvenience the legitimate customers, and then everyone freaks out.

Well, they've slowed it to a point where we have seen no progress in 3 years. How much slower do you want? Melting glacier?

 

[Durante]

Good point. And this might be a dumb question, but has Blu Ray been cracked? I mean, if you can't get access to the disk's data to rip it, then how are you supposed to put it on a hard drive.

The physical format has been readable (and rippable) for a long time.

 

[DevelopmentArrested]

Which currently available Sony video games playing hardware is 100% crackable?

Wow, you're naive. You act as if the PSP Go won't be fully cracked by Christmas. :lol Beaten it.

 

[Speevy]

Uh, what? The PSX and Dreamcast were notoriously easy to pirate.

Uh, yes. The Gamecube was easier for people to pirate.

 

[WinFonda]

Publishers aren't abandoning piracy enabled consoles for the same reason they're not abandoning piracy free consoles like the PS3. Because despite any shortcomings they have all sold millions of boxes on which millions of people buy games.

The rest of the thread is primed for gratuitously bitter warring over a silly and faulty premise.

 

[alr1ght]

Maybe, just maybe, the protection schemes they (and MS) used were just that good. No one has hacked the 360, they only hacked the dvd-rom's firmware. You still can't run unsigned code on it.

 

[gcubed]

Dunno how true it was, but IIRC there was something about a potential TIFF viewer exploit on it. It was very quickly patched out though and nothing seemed to come of it (?)

i remember there was some unsigned code that was run, but again, i think it wasnt able to even access the RSX, so basically useless, and as you said, was patched away. They did a good job on the PS3. Man, the Wii is basically a few button presses from having 100's of gigs of games at your fingertips.

But basically as everyone has said, there is a cost/benefit to it, a company will make more money releasing on all platforms even with piracy, vs only 1 without. Until piracy is rampant enough to swing that, no one will care.

Wow, you're naive. You act as if the PSP Go won't be fully cracked by Christmas. :lol Beaten it.

considering the 3000 isnt "fully cracked" yet, i'd ask who the naive one really is

 

[SmokyDave]

Wow, you're naive. You act as if the PSP Go won't be fully cracked by Christmas. :lol Beaten it.

No, I'm not clairvoyant, that must make me naive. So, remind me again, which is currently 100% crackable?