Business ramifications of piracy *spawn

[Docwiz]

The less complicated and the less time consuming the method of piracy is the more Sony is in trouble. If you can just download a boot loader that cracks and loads the games and you make it as simple as possible to do this, then I do believe Sony is in serious trouble.

Download and go, most teens can do this and most PS3 owners who are online and know how to hook up an HDTV can figure this out and spread the word. Also, the size is not really an issue as most multi platform games will be 8 gigabytes and those that are big they can just borrow from their friends or rent at a place that rents games (like Blockbuster).

On the Xbox 360, you can download Alan Wake (6 Gigabytes) and play that directly from your hard drive using a code. I have downloaded it because I bought the console.

So, while every console has been cracked at one point in time, the ease of doing so, is the biggest issue.
My new Xbox 360 has presumably been updated for previous hacking attempts and not many people are hacking into the black 360's and pirating the software and most will be banned, so it's not a big issue. However, if all you need to do is download a game on the PS3 or a loader and it cracks the game and put's its own Sony validated encryption on there it is not going to be easy to stop.

So, yeah, once this stuff makes it out in open source, it is going to be very hard to stop and word will spread and FAQ's will go up and that means that software will sell less on the PS3 if the right conditions happen (which look like they are progressing towards that goal). However, this can also affect the 360 as well, because many people who own the 360 also own a PS3, and if they know they can download or crack call of duty and pirate it, why do that instead of buying a 360 version.

If I produced software, I would be watching this closely and if it progresses like what it looks like it's going, then I would have no problem moving my software exclusively to the 360 or wii or both.

This is a down economy folks, there is not much room for error and loss of money here. By next Christmas it maybe too risky to push third party software on the PS3.

 

[Rangers]

I don't think there's any reason for Sony to go into full on panic mode like some of the drama queens are advocating. In fact, PS3 hardware sales are likely to benefit some. But more importantly console piracy will always remain a niche simply for the sheer inconvenience of it. Sooner or later some sort of equilibrium will be established, with new releases as well as online play requiring the latest firmware, and the pirates always at least one or two steps behind. High school kids, unemployed people and techies may have the time and appetite to deal with it, but its relevance to the gaming populace shouldn't be overstated.

Well, that's kind of the way piracy is on the 360. Though, it's hard to say exactly what the real impact on 360 software sales is. It could be quite significant.

The key is, will piracy on PS3 end up much easier to accomplish than say, on 360 currently? Or not? Some people have even compared it to Dreamcast levels of easy, where you could literally just download games from the internet, burn them to a CD, and play them with no modifications to your console. I dont know the answer technically to how easy PS3 piracy is going to "end up". But if it somehow ends up like Dreamcast, that would be pretty bad.

An aside, I almost wonder if this hacker frenzy on PS3 will lead to more attempts to break open 360 as well.

 

[Mize]

I'm going to argue against the 'drama queens' on this one. The PS3 is largely a consumer (rather than dweeb) platform and consumers are lazy and technically inept in general.

Take the Nook Color for example. It can be rooted in a few minutes to a fully functional Android tablet with a free and simple hack. In spite of this you'll find people selling pre-rooted units for list+100 USD on eBay as well as sd cards with the root rom for $75.

They sell immediately because consumers are lazy, inept and afraid of trashing their toy.

I will guess that 90% of PS3 users won't crack their consoles.

 

[Fafalada]

They sell immediately because consumers are lazy, inept and afraid of trashing their toy.

IMO that's the real concern though - when PSP and NDS hacks matured, even regular retailers started offering "memory-bundles" that came preloaded with a ton of games for a nominal fee, or offer game-install services.
Lazy or inept, consumers see 30 games for 50$ and think 'great deal' and never think of official release again.

Ebay will probably be selling preloaded HDDs for PS3 in no time.

 

[Mize]

Seriously? Regular retailers took those kinds of risks? As for selling over the internet, that would be mailfraud crime - federal and a felony. Pretty crazy to do such a thing.

 

[Silent_Buddha]

Ah, so the rolling bans started in November. But there wasn't an xboxalypse like there was in 2009, was there? I hadn't seen any of the 'sky is falling' drama.

I think that has more to do with that fact that after 2 years of consistent banning on the part of MS, less people are willing to risk being banned by connecting a hacked X360 to Xbox Live to play online. So they either stop pirating entirely or only play offline.

And from the limited places I check, at least in the US, it appears piracy on the X360 has declined in the past year.

I don't think there's any reason for Sony to go into full on panic mode like some of the drama queens are advocating. In fact, PS3 hardware sales are likely to benefit some. But more importantly console piracy will always remain a niche simply for the sheer inconvenience of it. Sooner or later some sort of equilibrium will be established, with new releases as well as online play requiring the latest firmware, and the pirates always at least one or two steps behind. High school kids, unemployed people and techies may have the time and appetite to deal with it, but its relevance to the gaming populace shouldn't be overstated.

Ummm, except this latest wrinkle actually makes it easier and less risky to pirate on the PS3 than it does on the PC.

Similar to PC, there is no hardware modifications required, thus anyone can do it. Apparently all that will be required is a USB dongle that you flash with a self signed firmware. After that games don't need to be cracked (as on PC) and don't need to be burned onto optical media (as on X360). Heck and probably don't even have to be written to the PS3 HDD (like original Xbox). You'll probably be able to run games off of USB drives similar to the PSP and memory sticks.

It basically makes it as easy to pirate on PS3 as it was on the PSP. No wait, even easier. You won't have to wait for new firmware hacks for new revisions of the hardware.

Depending on how things go, this might become the easiest to hack console since the Sega Dreamcast.

It'll be interesting to see how Sony attempts to get a handle on this. I'd imagine like PSP it will be a combination of constantly updated firmware combined with constant hardware revisions.

Regards,
SB

 

[-tkf-]

I think that has more to do with that fact that after 2 years of consistent banning on the part of MS, less people are willing to risk being banned by connecting a hacked X360 to Xbox Live to play online. So they either stop pirating entirely or only play offline.

And from the limited places I check, at least in the US, it appears piracy on the X360 has declined in the past year.



Ummm, except this latest wrinkle actually makes it easier and less risky to pirate on the PS3 than it does on the PC.

Similar to PC, there is no hardware modifications required, thus anyone can do it. Apparently all that will be required is a USB dongle that you flash with a self signed firmware. After that games don't need to be cracked (as on PC) and don't need to be burned onto optical media (as on X360).

It basically makes it as easy to pirate on PS3 as it was on the PSP. No wait, even easier. You won't have to wait for new firmware hacks for new revisions of the hardware.

Depending on how things go, this might become the easiest to hack console since the Sega Dreamcast.

It'll be interesting to see how Sony attempts to get a handle on this. I'd imagine like PSP it will be a combination of constantly updated firmware combined with constant hardware revisions.

Regards,
SB

As i see it, it wont be needed at all to flash anything... you pop in the DVD, BR or download the game to the PS3 and run it..

 

[Karooo]

I will guess that 90% of PS3 users won't crack their consoles.

There are no consequences of doing it, since it will signed and the PS3 will think its official. The problem Sony faces right now is that its extremely easy to do it.

I still cant believe this is happening, absolutely shocking. Although, it is good for hardware sales, only time will tell how much the software sales are affected.

 

[Deleted member 7537]

But still, this is just speculation, we dont now yet if Sony may have some solution at least to prevent new software from being hacked.

It's sold about as many units as XB360, in less time! How many other consoles in history have sold 40 million units?

In 4 years, don't think N64 manage to do that. PS3 is not, and not will be a failure, by the end of its lifespan it'll have probably sold more than 70 millions units, i think just wii,psx and ps2 have achieved that mark.

 

[Rangers]

The ~50million already out are compromised. I would assume that Sony can at least protect it's PS3 consoles going forward, via a hardware revision, which of course will take time to design, trickle down, etc. Though, I'm not sure of that. And we have to hope Sony's security isn't so shoddy again which isn't a given.

There must be emergency top level meetings at Sony over this stuff...

 

[liolio]

An aside, I almost wonder if this hacker frenzy on PS3 will lead to more attempts to break open 360 as well.

I would love to see this, I don't pirate games (even-though stupid pricing policies have managed to push me again in the realm of the after market). If I were able to launch a live and hypothetical version of xubuntu from a USB dongle without altering its gaming/psn capabilities.
In that case I could very well throw my old pc away

 

[Mize]

hardware or firmware fix?
I guess I need to read up on the technical side of this jailbreak...linkies anyone?
[edit: nvm, reading thread now]

 

[Xenus]

They already have a method of fighting day 1 pirating which is by far the worst threat anyways. With any AAA title release a new firmware with new keys. It will take a little while for them to get the new keys thus preventing mass day 1 pirating which will help them save quite a bit of sales.

 

[Squilliam]

Surely the knowledge of this hack and how to do it will take time to spread amongst the PS3 user community. I would hardly think that even if it was easy that something like that would even be known about by even 10% of PS3 users within 6 months of release. Beyond that theres still the hassle and risk of learning what is happening and what to do about it and for every 10 people who know about it, how many would actually even want to implement it?

At the moment because the greatest incentive is there, this will probably only really be relevant in 2nd/3rd world countries where the PS3 is sold at a high price relative to incomes and so are games. It is only then and there that a large number of people would actually have the incentive to pull this off, like we saw with the piracy rates of PS2 games in various countries. I would hardly say even if they did nothing that this would seriously effect their overall business, I doubt that they would lose even 5% of the software sales in the first year to this.

 

[Rangers]

Surely the knowledge of this hack and how to do it will take time to spread amongst the PS3 user community. I would hardly think that even if it was easy that something like that would even be known about by even 10% of PS3 users within 6 months of release. Beyond that theres still the hassle and risk of learning what is happening and what to do about it and for every 10 people who know about it, how many would actually even want to implement it?

At the moment because the greatest incentive is there, this will probably only really be relevant in 2nd/3rd world countries where the PS3 is sold at a high price relative to incomes and so are games. It is only then and there that a large number of people would actually have the incentive to pull this off, like we saw with the piracy rates of PS2 games in various countries. I would hardly say even if they did nothing that this would seriously effect their overall business, I doubt that they would lose even 5% of the software sales in the first year to this.

Interesting perspectives, but again, if it gets as easy as DC piracy, literally download games and run on any system without modification, it will be a flood. Probably much worse than DC really as back then in some respects the internet and piracy were newborns. I guess the analogy would be to PC piracy then. And have you looked at PC game sales compared to console lately? Wasn't it Black Ops in November NPD, 8m on PS3/360, 400k across all other platforms (PC, Wii) combined?

 

[Elan Tedronai]

The ~50million already out are compromised. I would assume that Sony can at least protect it's PS3 consoles going forward, via a hardware revision, which of course will take time to design, trickle down, etc. Though, I'm not sure of that. And we have to hope Sony's security isn't so shoddy again which isn't a given.

There must be emergency top level meetings at Sony over this stuff...

i find it funny that people are downplaying this. this is the dreamcast situation all over again.people at sony are going to lose their jobs over this. One the idiots who completely suck at crypto stuff and two staff at first party studios.

while i sympathise with first party devs, management have to go. sony's willingness to open up their console has cost them big time. big time.

they should have known that crackers and pirates will always try to break your console. instead of making it easier for them they should have made it harder. Linux Damaged sony big time. geohot hacked the ps3 through that. gave other hackers an idea on how the hypervisor works. Then USB caused the next fatal damage. Ps jail break and other clones have allowed hackers the tools to get into the vicinity of the vault. It was just a matter of time before the vault was opened although using a constant for a random number certainly didnt help.

 

[Elan Tedronai]

The less complicated and the less time consuming the method of piracy is the more Sony is in trouble. If you can just download a boot loader that cracks and loads the games and you make it as simple as possible to do this, then I do believe Sony is in serious trouble.

Download and go, most teens can do this and most PS3 owners who are online and know how to hook up an HDTV can figure this out and spread the word. Also, the size is not really an issue as most multi platform games will be 8 gigabytes and those that are big they can just borrow from their friends or rent at a place that rents games (like Blockbuster).

On the Xbox 360, you can download Alan Wake (6 Gigabytes) and play that directly from your hard drive using a code. I have downloaded it because I bought the console.

So, while every console has been cracked at one point in time, the ease of doing so, is the biggest issue.
My new Xbox 360 has presumably been updated for previous hacking attempts and not many people are hacking into the black 360's and pirating the software and most will be banned, so it's not a big issue. However, if all you need to do is download a game on the PS3 or a loader and it cracks the game and put's its own Sony validated encryption on there it is not going to be easy to stop.

So, yeah, once this stuff makes it out in open source, it is going to be very hard to stop and word will spread and FAQ's will go up and that means that software will sell less on the PS3 if the right conditions happen (which look like they are progressing towards that goal). However, this can also affect the 360 as well, because many people who own the 360 also own a PS3, and if they know they can download or crack call of duty and pirate it, why do that instead of buying a 360 version.

If I produced software, I would be watching this closely and if it progresses like what it looks like it's going, then I would have no problem moving my software exclusively to the 360 or wii or both.

This is a down economy folks, there is not much room for error and loss of money here. By next Christmas it maybe too risky to push third party software on the PS3.

Precisely. The funny thing in this sad situation is that now we shall see just how loyal ps3 fanboys are going to be in the face of free games

 

[patsu]

IMO that's the real concern though - when PSP and NDS hacks matured, even regular retailers started offering "memory-bundles" that came preloaded with a ton of games for a nominal fee, or offer game-install services.

Lazy or inept, consumers see 30 games for 50$ and think 'great deal' and never think of official release again.

Yes, this is the biggest risk to Sony. They should target these retailers if possible.

The other way for Sony to approach this is to use their new CRM to identify and reward legitimate users to promote regular sales. Allow people to sign up PSN accounts with purchased info to benefit from Sony and partners' deals. Then come up with aggressive marketing programs.

In parallel, they will have to implement better mechanisms.

 

[Silent_Buddha]

They already have a method of fighting day 1 pirating which is by far the worst threat anyways. With any AAA title release a new firmware with new keys. It will take a little while for them to get the new keys thus preventing mass day 1 pirating which will help them save quite a bit of sales.

I don't think that will help as they can currently get the keys for the firmware and decrypt it as well as getting the keys for the applications.

And since the scene groups can get game copies from the duplication houses, distribution houses, game stores prior to release, press (from review copies), etc. they'll have plenty of time to get what they need.

No, Sony is going to have to come up something a bit more substantial than that I think.

Regards,
SB

 

[Squilliam]

Interesting perspectives, but again, if it gets as easy as DC piracy, literally download games and run on any system without modification, it will be a flood. Probably much worse than DC really as back then in some respects the internet and piracy were newborns. I guess the analogy would be to PC piracy then. And have you looked at PC game sales compared to console lately? Wasn't it Black Ops in November NPD, 8m on PS3/360, 400k across all other platforms (PC, Wii) combined?

The thing is though, the Dreamcast was a single player only system which never spead out from the core userbase. The PS3 on the other hand is a much more mass market system having sold about 3* as much and it has a relatively important online mode as well as firmware updates. If you can hack it and be done with it without fear of having to touch it again or refix it then it is more of a problem than if you can come out every year with updates to vex the pirates. Which is it, is an important question to ponder because it has huge ramifications. Heck the pirates may be able to fix the fixes when the games get released.

The funny thing is if they go after the pirates and the news media gets ahold of it, then they are telling the world that the system is pirated, go for it.