David Reeves comments on PAL downloads and piracy*

[DeadlyNinja]

This came straight from the mouth of David Reeves:

We are a PAL market and we are going to do it in PAL and we are going to do [localisation] 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.

Sounds like an invitation if you ask me. I wonder how long before he gets fired.

Source of craziness here: http://buttonmasher.co.nz/2008/07/29/david-reeves-on-pal-and-bittorrent/

 

[Carl B]

You're out of your mind if you think David Reeves is at any risk of getting fired.

He's stating things a little more cavalierly than one would expect, but Sony's been acknowledging the piracy scene with regard to the PSP for years now. This isn't even specific to PSP at all in a sense, at it seems directed towards movie downloads in general. Whether that makes it more or less surprising, I'm not sure, but it probably does reflect on his being sick of the questions.

 

[Shifty Geezer]

Wouldn't it be better to simultaneously release the services worldwide then, and avoid the questions by not discriminating against your most lucrative and loyal market? If they didn't keep lumbering the PAL regions with the scraggy offcuts of Sony's efforts, they'd have the quiet life he apparently wants.

 

[Carl B]

There's no way the studios would allow the fractured PAL countries to enjoy a unified service on par with the US'. It's simply not up to Sony here; if the partners refuse to break their regional strategy... well, then they refuse to break it. By the way his use of "proper localisation" IMO is a euphemism for "protect margins," but it is what it is.

 

[Shifty Geezer]

It's not just the movie service. There's a lot of frustration over such moronic things as the US PSN store being a better quality, more usable product than the EU store. His position on movie downloads may well be fair, but it just gets filed under 'another stupid smite against the PAL territories'. If they got the rest of their act together, the occassional, unavoidable distribution issue wouldn't be such a big deal, and the PAL public might be a little more accommodating/forgiving.

 

[Arwin]

Wouldn't it be better to simultaneously release the services worldwide then, and avoid the questions by not discriminating against your most lucrative and loyal market? If they didn't keep lumbering the PAL regions with the scraggy offcuts of Sony's efforts, they'd have the quiet life he apparently wants.

I'm not even sure that's fair. Europe simply has different demands, and they are working towards them. Don't forget that Europe is getting Play TV, which is a way of distributing content that's well suited to Europe, as it makes use of existing localised content.

At the same time, a lot of Europeans expect the proper dubbing features, subtitles and so on, and all countries have a fair bit of important local content. This creates a completely different situation, but it is not impossible. Considering how well Sony is doing in terms of offering proper localisation of their games so far (with often as many as 12 or more languages spoken and subtitled in their games) I don't put it past them to pull this off. It will be interesting to see if they can do it. In a sense it can be a solution to a complicated proplem already present in disc-distribution also for movies, and it should be interesting for content providers to not have to bother with all the logistics of properly allocating the right discs for the different language versions of your movies and such.

 

[Shifty Geezer]

See my post above yours

 

[StefanS]

It's not just the movie service. There's a lot of frustration over such moronic things as the US PSN store being a better quality, more usable product than the EU store. His position on movie downloads may well be fair, but it just gets filed under 'another stupid smite against the PAL territories'. If they got the rest of their act together, the occassional, unavoidable distribution issue wouldn't be such a big deal, and the PAL public might be a little more accommodating/forgiving.

May I add to the list of Sony Europe's shortcomings, that their BC list hasn't been updated in months. etc. Their service WRT the European market has been abysmal at best. But maybe I am just exaggerating I mean a product like a friggin' rumble controller surely take months to be "localized".

 

[obonicus]

It's not just the movie service. There's a lot of frustration over such moronic things as the US PSN store being a better quality, more usable product than the EU store. His position on movie downloads may well be fair, but it just gets filed under 'another stupid smite against the PAL territories'. If they got the rest of their act together, the occassional, unavoidable distribution issue wouldn't be such a big deal, and the PAL public might be a little more accommodating/forgiving.

What's funny, though, is that though I don't speak Japanese, I've found the JP PS Store to be better than the US one. Not just content, but even the layout is slightly better. (The EU one is incredibly bad, though.)

 

[Cornsnake]

May I add to the list of Sony Europe's shortcomings, that their BC list hasn't been updated in months. etc. Their service WRT the European market has been abysmal at best. But maybe I am just exaggerating I mean a product like a friggin' rumble controller surely take months to be "localized".

Thats because Sony wanted to sell their remaining 6x6 controllers in Europe. But because a lot of people knew that the new rumble was coming, they were waiting for it to be released instead of buying the old 6x6. It Sony's own fault that it took so long. And of course we do get to play a little extra for the new controller. Just like we did for the new eyetoy.

Unless we get a successful games console from a european maker, Europe will never be treated right.

 

[-tkf-]

thread title is wrong, all wrong

 

[Teasy]

Sony's always loved piracy, people being able to just download PS1 games when N64 piracy was almost impossible made the PS1 the sales success it was.

 

[archie4oz]

Ha! What a joke! You're just not a very sophisticated pirate... You're right though that piracy was more rampant on the Playstation than the N64, and it did help propogate the Playstation throughout southeast Asia, South American and the Middle East. By no means though was there no N64 piracy, nor would it be correct to state that Sony "loves" piracy.

 

[AlphaWolf]

nor would it be correct to state that Sony "loves" piracy.

Considering Sony is perhaps the worlds foremost DRM pusher, I'd have to agree with that statement.

He's obviously just trying to downplay the quality of the torrents.

 

[Carl B]

Considering Sony is perhaps the worlds foremost DRM pusher, I'd have to agree with that statement.

I want to note here for clarity that different divisions have different bents when it comes to DRM, and as it applies to Sony-BMG (what I have to imagine is the reference point here), that it's a separate company entirely.

 

[AlphaWolf]

Even with leaving Sony-BMG out of the picture entirely.

 

[habbe]

hmm is that so ?, I thought that was FUD.

Didn't wan't to start a new format war, I just didn't know Sony was the biggest pusher of DRM.

I know of course that they are pro DRM with all the piracy they are a subject for. But onr of the biggest ?.

 

[Carl B]

Ok, this isn't turning into a BD/HD DVD discussion. So... let's let the issue lie and move back towards the core of the topic.

 

[digitalwanderer]

Yeah, let's get back to piracy....

 

[manux]

Ayrrrr.... What game - the only kind of piracy I don't like is conspiracy. Or something along those lines, my memory is hazy.


a hint to make guessing easier if my quote was too much off the mark

Spoiler

it's a pirate in jail saying that and player needs to free that pirate by melting the bars in the prison window