Most Pirated Games of 2009 - PC, 360 and Wii - News
by VGChartz Staff , posted on 30 December 2009 / 35,116 Views
Sales... Sales are without a doubt the lifeblood of the videogame industry. If a game "flops", it can cause entire studios to shut down. With certain Torrent sites now offering the big games within hours of launch... Games and studios are being hurt by piracy now, more than ever.
Torrent Freak recently figured out the biggest illegal downloads (2009) on the PC, Xbox 360 and Nintendo Wii. PS3 is obviously free of piracy, and has been since launch. The following is how they found out there numbers.
"The data for these lists is collected by TorrentFreak from several sources, including reports from all public BitTorrent trackers. All the data is carefully checked and possible inaccuracies are systematically corrected."
Now without a doubt, Modern Warfare 2 is the biggest entertainment launch in history. Selling a whopping 4.7 Million units in 24 hours in the US and UK alone earning revenue of $310 Million and the first 5 days on sale gaining a total of $550 Million. Modern Warfare 2 currently sits at over 13 Million units sold on consoles alone, so you would be very surprised to hear that the game has been illegally downloaded over 5 million times.
Yep, 5 Million. 4.1 Million of those come from the PC version of the game, and a big 970k come from the 360 version.
Other big titles on PC include The Sims 3, which was downloaded over 3 Million times. Prototype and Need for Speed: Shift were both downloaded over 2 Million times, and Street Fighter 4 was downloaded over 1.8 Million times. No matter how you look at it, those numbers are terrible for the industry as a whole.
As for the Xbox 360, it has seen a big increase in piracy lately, even prompting Microsoft to ban a whole bunch of consoles... So you wont be surprised by some of the following numbers. Modern Warfare 2 of course leads the bunch, with downloads of 970k. Street Fighter 4 and Prototype were both pirated over 800k times. DiRT 2 and UFC 2009 Undisputed were also pirated over 700k times. DiRT 2 actually has more illegal downloads then retail sales, very bad news for Codemasters.
Now Wii piracy, while not talked about as much as the piracy on PC or 360... Is pretty large. The following numbers were a pretty big surprise to me.
New Super Mario Bros. Wii has been illegally downloaded over 1.1 Million times. The biggest surprise though, for me though was between 2 games... One was Punch-Out!! Which has been downloaded 950k times, this is actually higher than the games total retail sales of 870k. The second game, is House of the Dead: Overkill, this game saw 860k downloads while the game at retail has seen only 480k sales. 2 big hits for Nintendo, and it shows an obvious problem of piracy on Wii.
The 2 other games to round out the "Top 5" on Wii were Wii Sports Resort and Mario Power Tennis, which were downloaded 920k times and 830k times.
I'm sure you will agree, these are some pretty shocking numbers... And these are only a fraction of the games being hurt by piracy, there are sure to be thousands more games, also posting big numbers.
Source - Torrent Freak
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My position on this is that is crazy for someone think its cool to pirate these great games. I know there will be the ones that will disagreed and that's fine. Reality is people are losing there jobs. Games that could have possibly made some sales at a cracking a million sales didn't due to things like this.
@Rafux:Pirating for the PS3 is doable. The reason you don't see it is because, like you said, the disc are too expensive.
The problem is that the biggest pirates wont buy the game anyway. So then you have to question is it worth the time making anti piracy, or will not doing anything shot you in the foot.
Could it means that the market has to adapt. Cutomers want to have instant access, and they think that removing the middle man (i.e. printing, shipping, buyers, sellers, stores) should translate in lower price than they are getting? I think it does, and that until the dinosaurs running this industry go instinct, piracy will just get worse.
What I like about this is, all the new tech being developed to counter piracy and on the other side to counter anti-piracy. Once in a while there's pretty good coding that comes out of that and they can be applicable to other area, such as trust and encryption
@guidic
whatever!
FYI the first console I supported was the XBOX 360 60GB PRO in August 2009 with a bundled Street Fighter IV and an extra wireless controller here in Canada.
Support your claim with fact that a pirated PS3 Blu Ray game can be played on a PS3 because if there is Torrent Freak would have reported it. If Ps3 is indeed pirated then my relatives in Asia would be asking for it instead of a 360 or Wii.
visit: http://rhyannefranz.wordpress.com/2009/01/14/why-ps3-is-hard-to-hack/
the first thing every body should do is stop calling it piracy it is theft, all the anti piracy stories should replace that word with theft because unfortunately piracy like so many other criminal activities has over the years been romanticized in film / literature etc . Many years ago i used to buy / swap many games at my friends used game and second hand toy store when he introduced me to pirated DC games from a friend of is at $5 to $10 AUS a piece, his reasoning was the ease of access and that his friend was doing us a favour , i said his friend was using us to make good money no no my friend said he has overheads to pay for , the guy was making a mint mainly because my friend had lots of customers come through his shop and in return got all his games for nothing, i noticed after a while the guy was no longer burning top titles or hard to get ones but anything that he could get and selling the lesser stuff at the same price and people bought them just because they where cheap it had been business since the beginning but my friend who had been honest is whole life wouldn't allow himself to see that theft is theft
"There are many games pirated on the PS3, they just don't appear on that list because there are less downloads of these games."
Really? Of course you can download PS3 games but you can't play them. In any case it would be too expensive to copy BD games. PS2 its still very popular here in latin america because of piracy X360 was selling well until bad word of mouth (thanks to RROD) spread (there are no Microsoft centers here).
@N
No. It's research done by Torrent Freak. Over 5 Million illegal downloads of a single game in a matter of months... Is bad.
If you stand by Piracy, thats your choice... Doesn't mean its "right" though. As for the article being "pathetic", explain how it is please?...
@Onion_ring1978.
Lol you should calm down. I wont go broke ever. But thats not the point.
The Point is THE WHOLE SOCIETY is based on working to get luxury and not stealing it. If you can steal everything why should you work for it ?
Stealing games is like stealing cars. Food is something essential and here stealing food if you are hungry is by definition no theft. It is another crime but it wont be punished. And if you dont have shelter and you live in empty houses noone will punish you its not even a crime.
I knew that I would provocate someone like you and that was my intention. A lot of people here are poor and buy their games too they buy just 1-5 games but they are proud of them. The people which work on the games the people which sell the games the manufacturers all of them deserve getting money for their work.
You arent poor if you think about stuff like videogames. After your theory you could steal my Car and you could say you damn MF just because you have money and I dont I am not allowed to have some luxury ?
YES YOU HAVE NO RIGHT TO HAVE LUXURY GOODS. In most of the countrys it is possible to earn money and buy stuff. Really poor people its understandable but its still stealing and wrong. If someone can afford a Videogameconsole he can afford the games.
I pruposely wrote this in a way that would provocate people like you. Because it would cause those people to show their true face.
Infact I dont care.
If you life in a poor country and you dont have job or money and never had a real chance to get a job you dont have a reason to follow the rules of the society. But If you are just upset because you steal games and you just dont want to spend the money because you want a new car or a new TV or whatever then fuck you, whiny bitch.
@onion_skin1978
No, YOUR logic sucks!
"if one can barely afford to buy food, then they should just not fuckin eat."
No, it means that if one can NOT afford to eat, then they should not steal. Morally we probably would forgive them for stealing food, but legally it is still a crime. But this is a false analogy. You need food to live. You do not need games to live, don't try to set them to the same standard.
"if they can just barely afford to pay rent then they should just freakin live in the streets!"
Now you're just playing the straw man. Since his logic was apparently saying this, what would the alternative be? Breaking into someones home to sleep? Getting a lease to an apartment and not paying? How is that any better than pirating? Besides, once again, having little money and doing whatever you were trying to imply is different than having little money and wanting entertainment!
"why? whats wrong for people to want some luxury in life? is it wrong to want some escape from how hard life is?"
Nothing is wrong at all. I get enjoyment out of video games, which I assume you do too. Nobody would never stop you from playing them.
"is it wrong to at least feel some relief from their daily hardships?"
Not at all, unless that involves stealing. Playing games is not a right, there is no law that says that you must be allowed to play games. They're entertainment. Unlike the above, you do NOT need games to live. If you steal games then you are doing an equivalent action to stealing a big screen tv, both are items that you do not need to live. (The major difference is that stealing a tv guarantees that you will cause them to lose the manufacturing cost, while pirating games doesn't ensure that same result.) However you can't just steal something because you wouldn't have bought it anyway. Like Netyaroze said, you can't steal a car because you "wouldn't have bought it anyway."
"i pray to god that you go broke and become a very poor bastard so that you'd know how it feels fucker! this goes for all you snobish asshole! i hope you all crash and burn this 2010 and all sufer what 90% of the people on earth suffer!
fuckers!"
How cute. You assume that everyone who doesn't agree with you must be rich and snobbish. You reveal your true self. (By the way, do 90% of the world crash and burn? Is 90% dirt poor? I doubt it. Stop trying to make yourself look high and mighty) You don't hate non pirates, you are just mad because they have money. I'm a teenager, and have very little money. But I don't pirate, because I know I can buy a game latter on. It's irrelevant how much I want a game, I won't steal because it's against the law, and I don't mind supplying the games industry with money.
I'm surprised that Wii Sports Resort was pirated so much. Did all those people buy Wii Motion Plus separately?
"Explain why it shouldn't be news? The site is about sales, this affects sales... A lot."
Yea, I know you don't know what you are talking about, we already learned that from your pathetic "article". This is not news, this is ignorant speculations. What onion_skin said hits it home pretty well.
@chiggerzero
"Playing a PS3 also gives me a sense of satisfaction, honor, & a bit of bragging rights knowing that I am playing a genuine game like Uncharted 2 that
no one has cheated me by playing it for free or at cheap ass cost."
That was a little too much. There are many games pirated on the PS3, they just don't appear on that list because there are less downloads of these games.
"then PS3 succeeded in keeping the integrity of the video games industry"
Is it a love letter to Sony? Keeping the integrity, seriously...
Nintendo invested as much as Sony did to battle the piracy, but the Wii console has a very large userbase. However, the Nintendo Wii is doing much better than the PS2 and PS1 about piracy.
"This gives me amore of dignity & fun as a true video gamer at heart."
Because your games are not pirated? Meh. I'm playing New Super Mario Bros and I don't feel bad because it is pirated. You're just trying to get an excuse for the pathetic performance of Sony the last 3 years.
"So stop this "console wars" nonsense."
Oh yeah? Stop trolling on the Wii and X360 to start.
What I agree with you though is that too many games are pirated and that is really sad to see that. Punch-Out and House of the Dead, two great games that sell meh would be million sellers if they hadn't been pirated.
This why I had this feeling why Sony was loosing so much money given their experience with consumer electronics and video games.
There must be one great reason.
To those who bash the PS3 for loosing gazillions of dollars, being last on the console wars & GLORIFY themselves in the Wii, DS, & 360 sales figure,
Sony invested a huge tidal wave of dollars against piracy which is killing the video game industry.
At least the PS3 showed that anti-piracy can be done decently...even if half baked.
It's something Nintendon't.
Yeah PS1 & PS2 were kings of consoles and were most pirated systems because Sony didn't had the money and technology back then.
But isn't it good to invest their earnings to develop anti-piracy technology.
That's where the money went. Money and technology put to good use.
PS3 may have to suffer from the start but for the long term, even if it is a loosing battle against piracy, it showed the VG industry that its worth the half ass effort, its succeeding to keep pirates at bay, and it can be done.
If Wii succeeded in broadening the video gaming massive market,
if 360 succeeded in proving that gaijin can do the unthinkable,
then PS3 succeeded in keeping the integrity of the video games industry, keeping it on top of its game & providing hope against piracy.
If you look at the balance all three are doing their share of keeping the industry alive and afloat.
So stop this "console wars" nonsense.
The real enemies of the consoles are the pirates & thieves.
Playing a PS3 also gives me a sense of satisfaction, honor, & a bit of bragging rights knowing that I am playing a genuine game like Uncharted 2 that
no one has cheated me by playing it for free or at cheap ass cost.
I used to live in the Philippines so I can tell it to you guys.
This gives me amore of dignity & fun as a true video gamer at heart.
At least for now....
@N
Explain why it shouldn't be news? The site is about sales, this affects sales... A lot.
Haha, what a terrible article. Should this really be posted as news?
PS3 cant be pirated and nobody has ever played a copied PS3 game on this planet. Yes they had ISOs but only because they pirats thought they could break the FW anytime soon. But they didnt so the Ps3 Isos are gone.
It has nothing to do with Bluray or the costs. Like Love2splooge mentioned they would make it anyway because they want to show they are the best. But fortunatly the PS3 FW is still UNHACKABLE.
Bluray helped but this isnt the reason Sony put a lot of effort in it to make the PS3 Piracy proof.
And MS and Nintendo will achieve this too next gen. No console will be pirated and the PC user will kill gaming on PC even more.
Next gen will show that nowhere will be exist copies not in thailand and not in brasil nowhere. If the people cant buy the software they shouldnt use it. I am very curios how the world will look like if the games wont be copied anymore. Except PC but most games wont be released on the PC anymore.
Its sad but people need their lesson. If someone cant buy a Mercedes he cant argue Oh its so damn expensive there is no chance that I can buy it. Thats why I stole it. Is a weak argumentation. If you dont have the money to play videogames then dont play videogames anymore or play games which are affordable for you like budget games or games from other developers which are cheap.
There will be two markets in the future the premium market for the people which want to spend money on excellent games from Konami Capcom Nintendo Sony Microsoft Square Enix and people which wont buy them and buy instead some other games.
There will be a time were all consoles will be unhackable. Sony proved it is achievable and Microsoft and Nintendo will do the same. In the end Console gaming will be for gamers which support the industry and Pc gaming will be for the rest as long as it exists.
Be sure this will happen soon enough. the people tried to hack the PS3 but they just couldnt do it. And I bet I wont see Console games for download in the Internet or on vacations.
It wont be possible anymore. And Console gaming will be the only choice for developers because PC gaming will be pirated even more if its not possible on Consoles.
Bluray will make it harder because of the sheer amount of data and the FW of the 3 will be as good as the PS3 FW.
The people which dont spend money for games are just leeches and dont get that the money they would invest would result in even better games. Because then a 20 Million Dollar game would be standard.
The PS3 is just the first console the others will follow quickly.
I love my PS3.No piracy in sight after 3 years xD
To be fair I have a high level of respect for the people who make the games we so enjoy,so went PC gamers (which is where most of it stems from) starting downloading over 4 million copies of a game illegally you really gotta think,why the hell are these games still made for the PC?
@ChichiriMuyo
"The system that can be hacked sells the most games"???
Thats some serious screwed up logic. If that's the case MS should do a lot less to stop piracy as according to you it well help sales. Why banned Live subscribers with pirated games? Encourage them.
I agree software on the x360 sells well even with it's piracy problems but regardless it is revenue not going to MS pockets and if they are happy with that then most of you know better than I do.
it's funny to see so many people pirate Wii Sports Resort considering Nintendo still got their money from WM+.
@Yoshmaster: What a joke of people you are,your cinism is pathetic,at least you can avoid your mockery against the ones that pays for what you're enjoying without any right to do it.
Yeah,I'm like many responsable and righteous gamers around here that fully support the industry,paying the price for what we want and we like,because if everyone were like you the whole industry will crash,or do someone works for free?The people that work hard and sacrifices time in their lifes-as you don't do it-to put a game,DESERVES something in exchange.
Is a pay,I bet you that you don't like if your parents go to work and then they don't get anything in exchange.
Piracy is stealing,enough with all the pathetic excuse to justify it,everyone that play a piracy game have to put on the programmers shoes,then don't feel dissapointed knowing your effort don't bive you what you deserve.
Something Sony got right, Blu-ray!
If piracy didn't exist, I think it'd be fair to say that game prices wouldn't be so high -- as in $40 instead of $60, for a new HD game.
You could claim that if the price was lowered, the piracy problem would be less... but I don't really think that's true. Pirates want games for free. They'll pirate a game they could buy for $12, as this list points out.
good games will allways make profit. piracy only help with keeping crap out of the stores. well, still there is alot crap in stores so more piracy people
I'm glad that MW2 is doing so poorly on PC. We Pc gamers no longer want IW to make another game on PC if they keep making console ports.
PC gaming is stronger than ever, which is the reason why every year there's a PC game that sells over 10 millions.
Gaming is big business. It doesn't matter that they made a profit, what matters is that they could have made more. If a game isn't released on the PC there a bound to be people who are going to by it on a console. Sure not even close to the number of people downloaded it, but still more people than did now.
[quote]Man just checked again: Prototype only sold 1.8 million combined on PS3 and X360, and it got downloaded 2.3 million times. With afterwards copying the number probably is closer to 3 million.
Seriously if is look at these numbers, it's bye bye PC Gaming......[/quote]
how much did it cost for the developers to make prototype?
It might be b/n 10-20mil for all the platforms. Wit this figure, they should make profit.
Yer, 3mil downloads is crasy. How may of these would buy the game anyway. The x360 version sold and pirated more than what was sold on the ps3.
downloaded not played...there's security on download games
@DrTravia: Personally, I buy a game because the description looked cool, the commercial looked cool, or the publicly released demo was cool. If these aren't happening, there is only one other thing that will get me to buy a game: I have played the previous version of the game or have played that exact version at a friends house...note that these aren't pirated either. Buying games for me has 0% to do with pirated copies of that game.
Man just checked again: Prototype only sold 1.8 million combined on PS3 and X360, and it got downloaded 2.3 million times. With afterwards copying the number probably is closer to 3 million.
Seriously if is look at these numbers, it's bye bye PC Gaming......
Seriously, I got HOTD overkill for $12. If you cant afford a game for $12, you simply shouldnt be playing. Kinda makes me wish I could create a torrent of game hacks myself, and embed a hardware-crippling virus to destroy their platform.
Man and these are just the torrent downloads, and one of those downloads could have been copied multiple times after that and given to friends and family. So one download of Need for Speed Shift for example might have been copied 2/3/5 times after that. So the real numbers are actually way bigger.
This is a real problem, and i have already said years ago that developers are probably better off leaving PC versions out of the picture completely. Look at those NFS numbers for example, together with copying after downloading it's has probably been pirated more on pc than it sold on X360 and PS3 combined!
My gross respect goes to sony.
Piracy is in no way hurting the industry in the sense that most of these games have sold more than a million plus the developers making profits.
Besides, developers who equates their low sales to piracy is their own fault for not taken the optional root.
Wow @ the piracy doesn't hurt 360 sales comments.
The WW attach rate for 2 of those 5 games is higher on the PS3 than the 360 (in fact its even better for the PS3 in the Americas region -- 4 of 5, and the only standout, MW2, is mighty close), and one of the "close" WW attach rate games faced stiff, direct competition on the PS3, but not on the 360 (Prototype, vs inFamous).
Boy I can't wait to see ROM downloads for DS and PSP :D! Those probably exceed 20mil LOL
PS3 may have less pirated games than the other consoles, but regardless
the sales of the games on the console still suck LOL
I'm amused by the people who are happy about the lack of PS3 numbers... you do realize it still has significantly worse attach rates than the 360, right? The system that can be hacked is the system that sells more games. Let that sink in, real deep.
@Smashchu2
a very very small percentage would buy the game if they cant pirate it. but the very vast majority would just move on and pirate some other game/s instead. trust me, "i know"...
it's sad all those pc games were pirates so much more than they were bought. Most of the console games weren't HOTD is a pretty big exception.
NJ5 has a good point and these are quite shocking.
I do wonder though.....how many of these people would have bought the game if they couldn't have pirated it?
I own a collection of about 200 xbox360/PC/PSX/GBA/PS2 games that I have collected over the years (mostly from gamestop lol) and not once have I personally bought a game without going online, torrenting the game and giving it a test drive. If gaming companies want to keep their profits I would highly suggest making quality games because roughly half of the consumers nowadays ARE going to be torrenting first or at the very least reading the reviews of people who have bought/torrented the game already. I don't know anyone anymore who relies solely on media outlets for their gaming information.
The only game that I didnt torrent first is actually my favorite, it's called radiata stories, the sheer amount of effort that was put into this game is astounding, if similar efforts were put into other games that are coming out now then I would be buying quite a few more games.
While you can pretty much use any measure you want to obviously show piracy is affecting game sales, such as torrents, if you REALLY want to see huge numbers, you should put up the data for DS and PSP. Then you'll see the biggest numbers for piracy.
This also brings into question if one or more sources might try next gen to make digital media more of a priority, or even their primary method of release. All systems this gen have experimented with it, from DSi/WiiWare to XBLA and 'Home' applications and even full-fledged games. But will one of the major console/handheld producers try to push the idea to the 'next step'....
Hopefully not. There's plenty of negatives to that idea, from destroying many tride and true methods of doing business to alienating a whole installed base of consumer. But if successful, it probably would lower the cost of gaming and lower piracy overall. You sure don't see companies like Valve or Apple having as huge a problem with piracy on their all digital distribution networks...
These are just the torrent numbers, I bet the real numbers are at least 1.5 times this.
@abcdario : Where I have tried to "defend piracy" ?? I know full well it is illegal. I'm not trying to find excuses. And now I wouldn't steal the BMW because the risk it too high.
And I didn't talked about PC in my posts, I talked about consoles. I do buy some WiiWare games (Mega Man 9 and FF4 - After Years were too good to be true and didn't cost much and so I paid for them gladly!) so Steam isn't relevant to me.
Anyway, your reaction amuse me. It's people like you who will pay all their life so keep afloat the industry while pirates enjoys it.
@YoshMaster: Your disrespect for the people´s work can only by surpassed by your own stupidy. Honestly you should just shut your mouth and stop with your defense about the piracy.
Piracy = Stealing !
If you see a old man driving a BMW, Would you steal his car just cause it is easy for you to do it ?
People thinks that since it is digital content, almost anonimous, it is legal, but the online world is not a law-free place !
Ah, by the way, you can get very cheap games on Steam, so dont talk about the expensiveness of the games . . .
Jewelry is expensive too, would you steal it ?
This reinforces my respect for PS3.
In my country there is no other way to play games without buying pirates games. Only popular title like FF, MGS and RE you can find ori games. Yep i have lot of pirate games like SOTC, Tekken adn 250 others. But now i no longer buy pirate as i realized how much devs suffer. Thanx Sony for making PS3 unbrekabble. I'm surprised they can stop piracy from hacking PS3 this long. I only expect something like 1.5 years after launch. Congrats Sony.
By the way SecondWar you said "This is why is dont understand why Microsoft only ban the modded xbox 360s from live and didnt also stop them from playing games or reading hard-drives, it would present pirates with much more of a risk."
But it is NOT illegal to modify your consoles so they cannot do something like that! It is only illegal to copy games (copyright material). They can ban you from Live because it is a service with an agreement that you will not use modified consoles. But for the actual Xbox, physically, it's yours, and you can do whatever you want with it. It just stops you warranty from working that's all.
So if they did made the consoles unplayable, it would be illegal for them to do so. But they have every right to ban users from Live.
Just wanted to add, somehow, I don't pirate music (since ~2004) anymore. iTunes/iPod solved the problem that made me want to pirate in the first place : get the songs you want, for 1$ each. So maybe if the games didn't cost 50-60$ I wouldn't pirate. But I doubt game will ever be under 30-40$..
Bah, my banned console was restored already to gain back every features lost (except online of course) and I never play online anyway. I also installed a firmware hack that lets me use any XBLA or DLC or updates anyway! So I get 100% of my 360 gaming for free + 100% of my Wii (mod chip for dvd + software hack for Virtual Console and Wiiware) + 100% of my DS (Cyclo DS).
That way, I play a lot more games than I would normally (I would only buy 3-4 titles / year max) and this lets me play games that are awesome but that nobody buys (like Retro Game Challange on DS).
I'll never go back to buying games and even if the "industry" could "die" (never will happen, exactly like the music industry didn't die and also because there will always be people that won't know or won't want to pirate) I don't really mind, since, for me, the "industry" already died after the SNES (3D doesn't tickle my fancy as much).
I just don't understand how people can convince themselves that they prefer to pay for something they can get for free... I'll be enjoying life while you work your butts off trying to pay for games you don't even have time to play because you're working your butts off to pay for them in the first place! ;)
Ive always thought PC gaming is dead, and this just proves that is at least dying. Maybe some games are better on the PC than consoles, or the other way around (MW2) but from those numbers most developers would be put off from making PC versions of their games
Companies lose profits when they do PC versions for sure... As for console, not a big problem... but boy I wonna see charts for DS and PSP XD!
This could be one reason why the PS3 counterparts of major titles are selling roughly in line or within 20% of the 360 releases...
Anti-Piracy measures certainly don't help the PS3 sell more software than its rivals... so these numbers certainly don't correspond to lost sales.
That's shocking.
ye i think this is a good start as online is defo the future for gaming
Well actually you do get offline multiplayer. I just had to point that out.
Also I beleive after your console gets banned all of your saved games, XBLA games and DLC and what not gets locked to that particular console. You can't move any of your saves and stuff to another console after the ban. So if RRoD or e74 pays you a visit, kiss your game saves and stuff good bye when you send it to M$ and they replace it for you because they didn't notice that you modded it.
if console manufactures were made to compensate third party games developers for lost sales they would make a lot more effort to make there consoles harder to crack, possibly even blocking online gaming without regular access to the console to check for modifications.
The lack of PS3 piracy has nothing to do with Blu-Ray, bandwidth limitations (ie. downloading 25-50 GB is a lot when you have a monthly bandwidth limit) or region-free (the DS has region-free and that is heavily pirated). The pirate groups don't care if Joe Blow can't afford BD-R, Blu-Ray burners and high-bandwidth internet. The pirate groups only care about e-peen so if they could be the first to brag that they cracked the PS3's security, they would do it. You know why you don't see PS3 piracy? Because the security hasn't been cracked yet. Sony did a good job with it. And you know that any scene group would kill to be able to be the first to claim on the internets that they were the first group to crack the PS3.
Microsoft's anti-piracy efforts have also been successful. You could download MW2 and SF4 all you want but after M$ bans you from LIVE, all you are left with is single-player with no HD install, no LIVE features, no DLC, no patches, etc. You are left with a gimped 360 basically. So just because you CAN pirate 360 games, doesn't mean that Microsoft's efforts aren't successful. Who good is a gimped 360 anyway? You have to sacrifice a whole lot from your Xbox 360 experience just to be able to get free software. That's not worth it to me. Not to mention that there is no guarantee that after your console breaks down within the warranty period that M$ will fix it. Because if they notice that you modified it, they will refuse to service it.
@Gearbox
Not necessarily, if those users weren't able to pirate it then many wouldn't buy the game at all.
PlayStation was not the first console to have piracy, i still remember how easy it was to pirate cassette and disk based games back in the c64-Amiga days. Piracy always has been bad.
There is one good thing though PS3 has no piracy.
You gotta put some perspective into this. In Brazil, there's only one way to console gaming: piracy.
Ps2 is the most widespread console here 'cause of what? piracy!
It's SAD and UGLY. But TRUE! =/
Gotta feel sorry for the games developers who lose huge amounts of money when the console makers sell more console being hackable, look at the ps1 and ps2 sales when others used unhackable cartridges and now wii and 360 sales compared to the hard to hack ps3.
And I love the fact that there are no PS3 games at all because that sexy black beast is UNHACKABLE! :D
For the time being at least, which is now at almost 3 years.
lol WOW 4.1 million illegal downloads of MW2 makes me understand a bit better exactly why Infinity Ward did what they did to the PC version of the game. That's horrible.
Interesting, but I want to see the numbers for DS and PSP. Just due to the smaller size of the games, the download ratio must be enormous.
@shonen: I've been to Thailand this year, and you can get illegal copies there everywhere. There the download sell ratio is more likely 50:1 or 100:1 per shop
nintendo is still gonna make a lot of money on their software kinda like how they dont care about r4 chips, but the pc is huge problem, 2 million sf4 downloads months after the console release is flat out terrible, im sorry to all the good pc owners out there who buy their games legally but if i was a devloper like codemasters or capcom, i just wouldnt release pc games anymore, it takes away from console sales. pc gaming is only good for subscription based games now, i dont even wanna know how many people will pirate diablo 3 or starcraft 2.
Severance says:
@blunty
you should look at the PSP then talk about sony
Posted on: 12/30/09, 18:25
You should look at PSP too , i mean PSONE and PS2 they are like the Jack Sparrow of video game pirace
PS3 isn't piracy free. I've seen illegal copies of PS3 games. Its just that Blu-ray discs and burners are much more expensive than DVDs. Also, thanks to BD+ security for Blu-ray software is constantly being updated and changed, and as soon as pirates decipher the last version, a new one comes out. It'd be way to expensive to constantly swap the pirate software of a PS3 every time BD+ is updated, that plus having to wait the months they take to crack it before playing the new crop of games.
wow at Punch Out and The House of The Dead
@blunty
you should look at the PSP then talk about sony :-D
Talk about putting things in perspective!! I never knew how bad it w as for the consoles. real props to Sony here.
if for one download someone burns 2 discs ...can you imagine this ? the worst is that at each store that sales pirate games they must have at least five copies from for each download , its is insane , see why some wii games dont sell all that much , cuz hardcore gamers download ISOS and burn and play than for free , i sure that big games like Silent hill and Cristal cronicles on wii will be a hit in the torrent world...
Though is true that not every download would have result in a sale, it is true that in some countries a single download translates into thousands of copies sold in the illegal market.
Goes to showw who pirates most.
It seems like a lot of lost sales, but the reality is, not every download would have resulted in a sale.
new games in the us are 60$ not 20
im surprised at street fighter. those 800k for the xbox would make it outsell the ps3 version right? thts craZi
@Wyvers
Sony also realizes that SOFTWARE sales is what drives the whole industry. for someone who only buys pirated games (or worse, download itself), sony gains nothing from it. it's better to not sell to those people at all.
I say good job Sony. the only company that has actually made an half-ass effort at it
In contrast, anti piracy measures won't them bring sales. It kept a lot of pirates off of the platform and that lowered sales. It's sad but kudos to sony as the only one providing a system safe like the ps3
That's insane. Next gen I'm sure Microsoft and Nintendo will work harder to block piracy like Sony has done this gen. PC is fucked I don't think there's anything they can do about it.
They aren't anti piracy measures so much as they are blu-ray and a generally very expensive system, which have overall worked as much in PS3's favour as they have worked against it. Region-free is also a reason.
Although protection against sales being lost to piracy won't save Sony from having lower sales in general.
Good thing sony chose the expensive way of anti piracy. They could have gone the cheap way like others and could have sold millions more ps3, but the philosophy will pay out in the future
This is why is dont understand why Microsoft only ban the modded xbox 360s from live and didnt also stop them from playing games or reading hard-drives, it would present pirates with much more of a risk.
I also hate it when pirates say theyve 'saved' money by downloading games, because they havent, they just stolen it.
Just goes to show that you better program strong anti piracy measures like the PS3 has.
This is ridiculously off-topic but...
@silverlunar777
Little Link in a Luigi costume is perhaps the single-most cutest thing I have ever seen.
Sony had the right idea with PS3. Some big numbers there...
ps3 is a fortress
I really do not have money to buy original games. Taxes in Brazil are really high! While you buy a game in the United States of America for $ 20, in Brazil, which was to leave for at least $ 50 (real, our currency), goes for $ 200 (real)! In other words, it is impossible for anyone middle class or low buy original games. Sincerely, Brazil is a shit and I'm not proud of anything having to download games.
old news
Those numbers for Punch-Out and house of the Dead are terrible. Those games deserve to sell so much more.
oh this is nothing, there are much much more pirated especially on the PC and 360.
good news for the ps3 i suppose.
Right now I feel slightly ill for some reason...
Notice that the most famous games are the ones that are getting pirated?
