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[JudgeN]

You are wrong. I know of multiple PS2 (and Xbox and PSP and PC) titles that either never got made or had the parameters of the project effected in part because of piracy concerns.

For a specific example I can talk about, piracy is the single biggest reason why our studio has moved away from supporting PSP both at retail and via PSN.

This is what I talking about, from a hardware and usability standpoint customer will not notice anything but from a gaming support standpoint the only console we have that wasn't the leader and is hackable is the PSP. We all see the kind of support and sales it gets but there are a couple of other factors that effect it.

 

[Mario]

mario can i ask you something? since you have close connections to the higher ups at sony, are they aware about this whole incident in the first place?

While I know people at Sony, I'm not really in touch with people on a regular basis (especially "higher ups") so don't know for sure. But Sony people read GAF, Kotaku etc too, so I assume an appropriate response is being worked on.

Edit: just IMed someone, and yes they know.

 

[The Faceless Master]

You are wrong. I know of multiple PS2 (and Xbox and PSP and PC) titles that either never got made or had the parameters of the project effected in part because of piracy concerns.

For a specific example I can talk about, piracy is the single biggest reason why our studio has moved away from supporting PSP both at retail and via PSN.

gee, woulda thought you would move away from making PSP games because they don't sell. the fad is over.

 

[OldJadedGamer]

You are wrong. I know of multiple PS2 (and Xbox and PSP and PC) titles that either never got made or had the parameters of the project effected in part because of piracy concerns.

For a specific example I can talk about, piracy is the single biggest reason why our studio has moved away from supporting PSP both at retail and via PSN.

All three systems you mentioned were hacked so not supporting one because of piracy is just going to send you to another system that has the same problem. You not supporting the PSP has more to do with the piracy than it does with Sony making security tweaks to the system.

I think you are arguing that piracy is bad and I'm not arguing that point at all. I'm not saying that piracy is good or bad. My point is that Sony putting in new security measures to stop it doesn't really effect the average end user and never has looking at the Wii, PS2 and 360.

 

[charlequin]

You are wrong. I know of multiple PS2 (and Xbox and PSP and PC) titles that either never got made or had the parameters of the project effected in part because of piracy concerns.

I am extremely doubtful that you could ever convince me that anyone ever made a remotely rational decision to not release a PS2 or Xbox game that otherwise would have been released, due to fear of piracy.

I'm perfectly willing to entertain the notion that the unique situation with the PSP (where enabling piracy was a side-effect of a hack that so drastically improved the default user experience with the system that it may have become much more widespread than is otherwise normal) made piracy have a much larger effect on sales than usual, and I just accept that people consider piracy a reason to steer clear of PC development despite disagreeing with that conclusion, but using it to steer away from PS2 or Xbox (or 360 now, or PS3 should this hack bear fruit) strikes me as a nigh-insane overreaction.

 

[Fafalada]

My point is that Sony putting in new security measures to stop it doesn't really effect the average end user and never has looking at the Wii, PS2 and 360.

Well that much should be obvious since retroactive introduction of security-measures is either impossible (PS2), difficult (Wii), or counterproductive since it affects existing userbase (360 and other modern machines).
Though to be fair, wasn't there something about large numbers of people banned from Live? I'd say that had an effect on the account owners

In long-term it's all relative though - the original reason why we have new business models emerging in game-market was combating piracy. IMO these are inevitably going to replace existing retail model as dominant, which in turn will affect 'average' end-users considerably.

 

[Cruzader]

You are wrong. I know of multiple PS2 (and Xbox and PSP and PC) titles that either never got made or had the parameters of the project effected in part because of piracy concerns.

For a specific example I can talk about, piracy is the single biggest reason why our studio has moved away from supporting PSP both at retail and via PSN.

I agree Mario and this is the shit that worries me as a gamer.

 

[Lotan]

Piracy is a crappy side effect, but damn it would be cool if Linux could bypass the hypervisor.

 

[OldJadedGamer]

Though to be fair, wasn't there something about large numbers of people banned from Live? I'd say that had an effect on the account owners

But they modded their 360 system and went online with it so who cares about them? They took that risk to begin with and knew it so there is no crying when the ban hammer comes down. I'm talking about the end user that follows the rules , your average Joe consumer. And yes, Sony did start putting in anti security into the PS2 after the fact. Look at Everquest and the anit-piracy thing they put on there (the name escapes me but it was in the start up screens). Users who used the game and system legitimately didn't even notice it was there.

 

[OldJadedGamer]

dp due to the 500's

 

[ChaoticBlue]

All three systems you mentioned were hacked so not supporting one because of piracy is just going to send you to another system that has the same problem. You not supporting the PSP has more to do with the piracy than it does with Sony making security tweaks to the system.

I think you are arguing that piracy is bad and I'm not arguing that point at all. I'm not saying that piracy is good or bad. My point is that Sony putting in new security measures to stop it doesn't really effect the average end user and never has looking at the Wii, PS2 and 360.

the psp is easier to hack and was the first system i hacked. i think it has a worse problem than the other systems out there. i would hack my 360 but i don't want to seeing all the stuff you have to go through for example. the psp on the other hand was not complicate to hack and you only needed a pc to put cfw on it.

 

[Truespeed]

I'm actually more interested in what the folks at IBM think about this and whether they're even remotely concerned with his results. Any IBM'ers in the thread want to sametime one of the IBM engineers that implemented the security model in the Cell BE?

 

[Green Biker Dude]

if you guys (as in, developers) don't want to be making games on systems where they can be pirated, maybe you should get a job in another career. one that isn't software related.

if your games are good, they sell. heck, in nintendo's case they sell even when they aren't

 

[Alain-Christian]

I, for one, would love to see region free DVD and Blu Ray playback. I wonder if I'm alone in that sentiment.

Well, for Blu-Ray the regions are pretty good. There's only three of them. America nd Japan are on the same region. Speaking for myself there's no need to have any blu-ray player to see the content I desire.

 

[Raistlin]

Well, for Blu-Ray the regions are pretty good. There's only three of them. America nd Japan are on the same region. Speaking for myself there's no need to have any blu-ray player to see the content I desire.

so the rest of use shouldn't have it?

 

[Mario]

if you guys (as in, developers) don't want to be making games on systems where they can be pirated, maybe you should get a job in another career. one that isn't software related.

Developers accept piracy as inevtiable, and few would leave the industry because of it. However, that doesn't mean one shouldn't speak up about it, find means to reduce its effects, or make business decisions to minimize damage from it.

if your games are good, they sell. heck, in nintendo's case they sell even when they aren't

If only it were the case that the quality of games alone was the measure of sales success. Unfortunately, it's not that simple.

 

[Green Biker Dude]

well, the tone i was getting from your posts was "if the ps3 gets cracked, developers are going to consider leaving it". i'm sure sony's not gonna sit on its collective ass and let the hackers do as they wish, nor am i saying they should do that.

and you're right about not every good game out there selling well, but you can't blame piracy exclusively/mostly for it either. there were already good games on ps3 that didn't sell as well as they deserved, and honestly, blaming piracy for bad sales is just laughable regardless of the system. if there are other games out there selling well and yours isn't one of them, you've got no one to blame but your team/publisher/whoever else was involved in the process.

i'm not saying that as hate for you, your team or any of your games btw. just the way i see it.

 

[Mario]

well, the tone i was getting from your posts was "if the ps3 gets cracked, developers are going to consider leaving it".

I didn't say that.

and you're right about not every good game out there selling well, but you can't blame piracy exclusively/mostly for it either.

I didn't say that either.

 

[Green Biker Dude]

i coulda swore someone did say it, but looking back i guess it wasn't you. maybe no one did it. well, i guess i look pretty silly now. huh. well, i blame nintendo.

 

[Truespeed]

So in regards to Hotz's latest discovery of the Hypervisor Function List. I wonder if he was aware that the function list has been known since 2008 Link

And some of them even have the function name and parameters fully documented.

 

[Valkyr Junkie]

So in regards to Hotz's latest discovery of the Hypervisor Function List. I wonder if he was aware that the function list has been known since 2008 Link

And some of them even have the function name and parameters fully documented.

For all we know, people have made it just as far as him long ago, but just haven't been as vocal in their findings.

 

[Brofist]

So in regards to Hotz's latest discovery of the Hypervisor Function List. I wonder if he was aware that the function list has been known since 2008 Link

And some of them even have the function name and parameters fully documented.

Apparently he does, he addresses that same question in the comments under his blog posting.

 

[A Twisty Fluken]

You are wrong. I know of multiple PS2 (and Xbox and PSP and PC) titles that either never got made or had the parameters of the project effected in part because of piracy concerns.

For a specific example I can talk about, piracy is the single biggest reason why our studio has moved away from supporting PSP both at retail and via PSN.

What data did your studio use to support the claims of a connection between PSP piracy and lost sales? I'm interested in whether there was a real statistical foundation behind that decision or whether it was based on gut feel/fear.

 

[Fafalada]

but you can't blame piracy exclusively/mostly for it either.

That depends - there are regions where PS2 had multimillion userbase and the best selling title struggled to break 50k. Unlike PSP bombs, that can't be explained away by "oh people just used it for other things".

 

[Mario]

What data did your studio use to support the claims of a connection between PSP piracy and lost sales? I'm interested in whether there was a real statistical foundation behind that decision or whether it was based on gut feel/fear.

Such decisions are based on a mix of actual data, anecdotal evidence and assumption.

For actual data, we have a full NPD subscription and royalty reports to track actual sales, seed/track fake/real torrents of our titles, collect server data for our online games to gauge "illegal" accesses etc. For anecdotal evidence, we watch cracker forums, screen forum posts and support requests for deliberate signs of pirated software, etc. Assumptions are just based off of our own experience, both as professionals and gamers.

All up, depending on the platform, you can get a decent feel for how quickly and heavily your games are being pirated. Working out the exact negative impact of piracy is extremely difficult, if not impossible though. My best guess is that actual lost sales are generally somewhere in the 5% to 15% of pirated copies (and even that lesser number would be quite significant in terms of lost revenues). Some platforms such as DS, PSP, and iPhone appear to have much heavier piracy than others though, which makes us wary of bigger investments in those platforms.

 

[Quasar]

I, for one, would love to see region free DVD and Blu Ray playback. I wonder if I'm alone in that sentiment.

No your not. In fact that and the hope of a PS3 XBMC was one of the reasons for my initial interest in the PS3. Of course now I'd much rather have a PS3 version of Boxee.

 

[FoxSpirit]

You are wrong. I know of multiple PS2 (and Xbox and PSP and PC) titles that either never got made or had the parameters of the project effected in part because of piracy concerns.
For a specific example I can talk about, piracy is the single biggest reason why our studio has moved away from supporting PSP both at retail and via PSN.

So you also left the DS? That system has it even worse.
And the situation on the 360 is only somewhat better, many people simply have 2.
The PC is completely out of the question.
So right now that really leaves you with the PS3.

Am I missing something with my line of argument?

 

[Gravijah]

So you also left the DS? That system has it even worse.
And the situation on the 360 is only somewhat better, many people simply have 2.
The PC is completely out of the question.
So right now that really leaves you with the PS3.

Am I missing something with my line of argument?

Yeah, your argument assumes the video game industry exists within a vacuum and all systems are created equal. Why you would or wouldn't develop on one platform is different than why you would/wouldn't develop on another.

 

[Segata Sanshiro]

So you also left the DS? That system has it even worse.
And the situation on the 360 is only somewhat better, many people simply have 2.
The PC is completely out of the question.
So right now that really leaves you with the PS3.

Am I missing something with my line of argument?

Mario's team has never made a DS game. They seem to be sticking to the PS3 for their original projects and Wii for their licensed stuff.

 

[SmokyDave]

If this is true it will help the PS3 more than it harms it.

You are wrong. I know of multiple PS2 (and Xbox and PSP and PC) titles that either never got made or had the parameters of the project effected in part because of piracy concerns.

For a specific example I can talk about, piracy is the single biggest reason why our studio has moved away from supporting PSP both at retail and via PSN.

Hence the swathes of Devs moving away from the 360/DS/Wii toward the PS3?

I touched on this in the MS banning thread but devs don't seem to move away from cracked hardware unless it's called 'PSP'.

 

[Mario]

So you also left the DS? That system has it even worse.
And the situation on the 360 is only somewhat better, many people simply have 2.
The PC is completely out of the question.
So right now that really leaves you with the PS3.

Am I missing something with my line of argument?

I never said we or any developer abandoned any platform completely on the basis of piracy alone, or that a cracked platform wasn't still able to produce positive results. What I am saying is that it affects profitability, budget, greenlight, and platform mix/support considerations AMONGST OTHER FACTORS.

For us, pulling away from PSP was motivated primarily by piracy though and the impact that has had on the market, especially at the level we are developing at. At the same time, we are investing in iPhone even though that platform is just as heavily pirated because there is more upside potential than PSP.

We never went to DS in the first place because we assumed that the work for hire market would end up just as low margin as GBA (which it has), our tech wouldn't scale down to it, and we didn't have the right skillsets inhouse to get the best out of the platform anyway.

We are currently developing for PS3, 360, Wii, PC, and iPhone.

Hence the swathes of Devs moving away from the 360/DS/Wii toward the PS3?

Read my posts again, and see above.

Though you might be interested to know that publishers are pulling away from Wii and DS in a big way (though piracy is only one of a collection of reasons).

 

[Fafalada]

I touched on this in the MS banning thread but devs don't seem to move away from cracked hardware unless it's called 'PSP'.

Or PC. Or Wii and DS as Mario mentions.

 

[Segata Sanshiro]

Though you might be interested to know that publishers are pulling away from Wii and DS in a big way (though piracy is only one of a collection of reasons).

Not surprising with regards to the Wii, but the DS is a bit surprising. Western publishers, I'm guessing. I'd like to applaud them for their considerable efforts on the DS, except it seems like Activision is the only one that bothered to try.

 

[SmokyDave]

Read my posts again, and see above.

Though you might be interested to know that publishers are pulling away from Wii and DS in a big way (though piracy is only one of a collection of reasons).

Thanks man, they're always illuminating. I just struggle with understanding the effects of piracy because the reality doesn't seem to match the theory. I even made a topic about the subject and still came away thoroughly confused. Oh well, as a PSP owner even if piracy stopped tomorrow I suspect it still wouldn't shift enough software for most Devs to care about it.

Or PC. Or Wii and DS as Mario mentions.

Yeah, I guess. This hasn't trickled down to a noticeable effect at consumer level yet is all.

 

[Mario]

Western publishers, I'm guessing.

Most of the time my experience is with Western publishers. I should have clarified that.

 

[Gravijah]

Or PC. Or Wii and DS as Mario mentions.

I'm gonna pretend this post is a stealth announcement of Wii2 and DS2 coming soon.

 

[LLaMa-Tech]

Pretty cool news.

 

[Ultima]

Not that anyone cares, but things I want to see ultimately coming out of this:

- Region-free everything: Doesn't matter too much to me, but why not? Definitely for PS1/PS2 games at least.

- PS2 BC returns: I have a 40GB fat model, so no PS3 BC for me. Wasn't there speculation a while back that PS2 BC wasn't removed, only disabled? Anyway, I would like to be able to not only retire my PS2, but my PS2 joystick; I want to be able to play all my PS2 fighting games on my SFIV TE stick. I've barely touched my PS2 Samurai Shodown Anthology because I can't be bothered to hook up the PS2 and use my old clunker of a stick (it's a fine homemade stick, but after 9 years of wear and tear, it's time to park it up). I would also like to hit up my PS2 RPGs on the PS3 and see if they can be made to look better.

- Emulators: If someone can get my CPSII and NeoGeo fighting games running on PS3 without issues so I can use my TE stick, great. Also other non-fighting game stuff so I can use my Dual Shock 3. Never mind that the TE stick and my wireless SFIV fight pad work on PC - I dislike using the PC for gaming, and only use it for testing stuff, and seldom to actually play anything. I'd rather have all my game stuff in one place (more on this later).

- PLay all games off HD: I recently got a PSP3000, and after hacking it so that I can play games off the memory card and not UMD, I can't go back to load times and . I know this is where the dreaded piracy issue will kick in, and I can understand why some don't want to see this avenue explored. I don't want piracy to flourish on the PS3 like it has on other systems, but all I can say is that I, at least, have been an extremely lax pirate. Ofthe four games on my PSP memory card, two I bought (Dissidia and Crisis Core) and the other two (SFA3: DOuble Upper and Metal Slug XX) I never would have bought and have barely touched. I also intend to buy Birth by Sleep and FFXIII Agito when they are available in english. I hacked my Wii only so I could play Final Fantasy IV: The after early (I really hated having to wait for the chapters, though hilariously and ironically, I ended up playing the game in the same fashion as it was released) and haven't bothered to take advantage of it otherwise. I'm one of only two people on the planet I know who never bothered to mod his PS2, and I'm pretty sure that, if given the opportunity to run games off the HD, I would only DL games that I already owned. But not everyone is me.

Summary plz: My main wish is a way play all my PS1/PS2/PS3 games (plus bonus CPSII and NeoGeo stuff) in one box with my TE joystick.

 

[SmokyDave]

Goodbye Ultima.

 

[Deyvis]

If this helps to run MKV files I'll be really grateful.

 

[A Twisty Fluken]

All up, depending on the platform, you can get a decent feel for how quickly and heavily your games are being pirated. Working out the exact negative impact of piracy is extremely difficult, if not impossible though. My best guess is that actual lost sales are generally somewhere in the 5% to 15% of pirated copies (and even that lesser number would be quite significant in terms of lost revenues).

Is that all it is, though, a pure guess? Obviously getting it exactly right is impossible, but it seems like if you're going to make a major business decision on the basis of piracy it would be smart to have something behind that basis. Otherwise you're just stabbing around in the dark without any way to measure the positive or negative impact of said decision.

EDIT:

I'm sorry did you skip the first 1/2 of the post? Below isn't really what I would call "Stabbing around in the dark"

I recognize that they have a very clear idea of how much a game has sold (obviously) and how much it is pirated. However, what I don't see is any real data indicating a connection between the two, beyond assumptions. Without a correlation, it seems like making a major business decision based on how much a game is pirated would be fairly characterized that way.

 

[JudgeN]

Is that all it is, though, a pure guess? Obviously getting it exactly right is impossible, but it seems like if you're going to make a major business decision on the basis of piracy it would be smart to have something behind that basis. Otherwise you're just stabbing around in the dark without any way to measure the positive or negative impact of said decision.

I'm sorry did you skip the first 1/2 of the post? Below isn't really what I would call "Stabbing around in the dark"

Such decisions are based on a mix of actual data, anecdotal evidence and assumption.

For actual data, we have a full NPD subscription and royalty reports to track actual sales, seed/track fake/real torrents of our titles, collect server data for our online games to gauge "illegal" accesses etc. For anecdotal evidence, we watch cracker forums, screen forum posts and support requests for deliberate signs of pirated software, etc. Assumptions are just based off of our own experience, both as professionals and gamers.

All up, depending on the platform, you can get a decent feel for how quickly and heavily your games are being pirated. Working out the exact negative impact of piracy is extremely difficult, if not impossible though. My best guess is that actual lost sales are generally somewhere in the 5% to 15% of pirated copies (and even that lesser number would be quite significant in terms of lost revenues). Some platforms such as DS, PSP, and iPhone appear to have much heavier piracy than others though, which makes us wary of bigger investments in those platforms.

 

[Kccitystar]

Why would anybody wish to install PS3 games to the hard drive completely, isn't like one disc 25GB or something like that? How would that work? :lol

 

[Chû Totoro]

I don't really see what's the point of having homebrew on PS3.
I almost have everything I want from a multimedia device standpoint and the homebrew games sure can't be as good as PSN ones. And even little devs deserve money so I choose PSN.
And backup on my HDD... Whaaaat... 500 TB hard drive incoming :lol
No sorry, it's a good hacking job and this guy seems really talented but he should work for Sony making the next Playstation instead.

 

[graywolf323]

Well it'd be nice to be able to play my original, pristine, already region free Bluray Discs.

This, along with region free PS2 and PSOne gaming, is mainly what I'm after. I'm even hopeing that they might manage to get it going so that you can install PS2 or PSOne games (from your disc) onto an HDD... I'd be able to retire my PS2 HDLoader then!

you took the words right out of my mouth

region free PS2 and something like the HDLoader would make me very happy

especially since I'm transferring to a 4-year college this fall and being able to just have a bunch of games on my hard drive would make it a LOT easier

 

[Paracelsus]

Why would anybody wish to install PS3 games to the hard drive completely, isn't like one disc 25GB or something like that? How would that work? :lol

You can get a big 2.5 HDD for cheap nowadays, you know. It's safer to install games for the sake of the BRD drive and also older models won't risk overheating.

For me it's that and the hope of seeing fantranslations and undubs. I'm willing to import Japanese games as long as a translation comes along.

 

[AndyD]

Why would anybody wish to install PS3 games to the hard drive completely, isn't like one disc 25GB or something like that? How would that work? :lol

A disc is 25gb, but its not always full. Some are below 10, some are below 20.

The point is that you can pick up a 500gb for less than 100 bucks and put it in, and load up at least 10-15 games even if they are all 25gb. I could fit my whole collection on there. So if I want to play LBP and get a UC2 invite, I just hop on over, no disc fumbling.

How nice would it be to not have to ever switch any discs. It was the one reason I got an HD Loader for my PS2, so I can load my two dozen or so games on the drive and put the discs on a shelf.

I re-bought Burnout and Warhawk for that reason on PSN. No more discs. Play whenever, much like PSN small games. Sony would be smart to start offering more full retails games over PSN.

Is that all it is, though, a pure guess? Obviously getting it exactly right is impossible, but it seems like if you're going to make a major business decision on the basis of piracy it would be smart to have something behind that basis. Otherwise you're just stabbing around in the dark without any way to measure the positive or negative impact of said decision.

You can look at ratios of piracy and sales from one title to the next. Also, even if the 5% estimate is a shot in the dark, if it puts your profitability in danger, then you don't greenlight the project to begin with.

Its a large investment and you don't want to green light a project and spend a ton because you don't have the hard proof you seem to insistent on instead saying "we have no hard evidence piracy hurts, so lets plow ahead".

 

[OldJadedGamer]

A disc is 25gb, but its not always full. Some are below 10, some are below 20.

The point is that you can pick up a 500gb for less than 100 bucks and put it in, and load up at least 10-15 games even if they are all 25gb. I could fit my whole collection on there. So if I want to play LBP and get a UC2 invite, I just hop on over, no disc fumbling.

How nice would it be to not have to ever switch any discs. It was the one reason I got an HD Loader for my PS2, so I can load my two dozen or so games on the drive and put the discs on a shelf.

I re-bought Burnout and Warhawk for that reason on PSN. No more discs. Play whenever, much like PSN small games. Sony would be smart to start offering more full retails games over PSN.

Not only that, looking at the PS3 repair thread you'll see that the vast majority of the problems with the system is the laser going out so installing full games would greatly increase the life of the unit.

 

[thefil]

A little off topic, but, Mario, are you able to comment on how, say, PSN game sharing affected sales of Shatter? I think game sharing might be a good measure to see where the potential for sales loss with easy to use piracy (not that I am suggesing game sharing is piracy).

 

[Grampa Simpson]

Though you might be interested to know that publishers are pulling away from Wii and DS in a big way (though piracy is only one of a collection of reasons).

Can you say more on this subject? The specific arguments for moving away from the Wii and DS?