Sony Deploys New PSP Anti-Piracy Strategy
It’s no secret that Sony’s first foray into portable gaming has unfortunately been plagued by an aggressive barrage of piracy. We know this. Developers know this. Sony knows this. However, the one thing that seems to elude everyone affected is how to stop it. With the recent release of SOCOM: Fireteam Bravo 3, Sony hopes to deliver a solid solution that will succeed where countless firmware and hardware revisions have failed.
Anyone wanting to shoot it up online with the latest installment of the PSP franchise will first have to register the game through the PlayStation Network. While digital copies will do this automagically, UMD versions of the game are packaged with an activation code. “But what if I buy it used,” you ask? Well, Sony’s gotcha covered and is ready and willing to serve you up another activation code–for a small $20 fee, of course.
Now before you go grab your pitchfork and set out to round up a posse, we should tell you John Koller, director of hardware marketing at SCEA, stopped by IGN to set the story straight, saying:
Today’s consumers are more tech savvy and better connected to the internet than ever before. Piracy continues to be an issue of concern for the PSP platform. SOCOM: U.S. Navy SEALs Fireteam Bravo 3 is a trial run for a new initiative we are exploring for the platform. We will continue to explore this as an opportunity for the platform going forward, but we have no announcements to make on future iterations at this time.
Despite this being merely a “trial run” –wink, wink, nudge, nudge–, we wouldn’t totally dismiss the notion of every forthcoming online title implementing this feature, unless, of course, reception from the gaming community is extremely negative; a completely possible scenario. Still, it’s interesting to see how Sony has managed to not only find a viable way to combat piracy, but also capture a portion of the revenue from used game sales.
How this will ultimately affect the used game market gives birth to many unanswered questions. Will a used copy of such a game don a lower price tag to reflect the added burden of having to purchase a new activation code? Surely Sony doesn’t expect Gamestop and co. to eat the costs themselves, do they? Also, will consumers be less likely to purchase UMDs knowing they’ve been somewhat inherently devalued? Go ahead and sound off in the comments below, or hit up the source link for the full interview while we all patiently wait for this story to develop.
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11 Responses to “Sony Deploys New PSP Anti-Piracy Strategy”
it sounds silly, since 6.20 which no one can figure out how to get CFW out of, anything on that is rendered unplayable
classic dungeon
birth by sleep
god eater
etc
with all these high ticket titles *one of which is from december and is over 2 months old now* it seems that 6.20 alone beat the pirates… i do feel however doing this will hurt games overall, such as Japan for instance i heard the game works perfectly fine which will not stop people, and not to mention, ive never seen a umd cost more than 40 usd new… so why would 20 usd for a new activation be a fair value? might as well buy online and give it to 2 other people =\
I think that the strategy is sound, but the cost is too high. They may come to find that $10 is a much more reasonable price for consumers to pay . Used game sellers are toast either way – I know EBGames only discounts $5 on used titles anyways. Heck I buy new just so that the sales numbers for games I like will go up; I consider it an investment in the game company rather than an investment in Gamestop.
Anyhow, $20 is way too high and I hope they don’t term the strategy as a failure just because they picked too high of a price point.
^ this could be more of a long term plan to get PSN more sales, since you can sell the account, you can trade them, etc you got more options than not, but either or piracy is dead as of 6.20 with no real sight of it coming back
where theres a will theres a way… and im sure they will find a way to get around this…somehow
I only buy used games… And with that $20 fee I don’t think I’ll buy any used nor new games anymore in the future for PSP… Maybe i’ll buy a NDS…
well , $20 does seem a high price for an activation fee but we really can’t bitch at Sony about it . It’s the hackers who expect to get everything for free who are responsible for it , do they really expect companies to eat the cost of development and marketing of their games and do nothing to try to recoup those costs somehow ?
if I’m spending $5 million dollars or more developing a psp Socom game and it sells only a few thousand copies because of piracy then I’m going to be pissed , these people aren’t supporting the game industry by buying a psp then immediately modding it , in the long run they’re killing the industry for current and future generations because of some misguided entitlement mentality that says they ‘ deserve ‘ free stuff . you’re really not hurting the heads of these big development companies – you’re affecting the small guy creating his first game or the employees and their families who can’t get work because there’s no use hiring people to create a game if it ultimately won’t make money .
I for one will campaign against piracy instead of complaining about any fees these pirates cause , you’re affecting me too because theft keeps game prices higher – you’re stealing games because you are too cheap to pay $40 for one , ironically if people who pirate software paid for it prices would fall because they wouldn’t have to add in the cost of these lost sales to the price of games
Companies love to throw around the world “piracy”. It’s an industry buzz word used for screwing the paying customer. It’s their “terrorism” word to justify their behavior. Let’s not forget Sony’s rootkit from years back and how they responded(“Most people, I think, don’t even know what a rootkit is, so why should they care about it?”).
Look at all the anti-piracy protection on PC software. Does it stop the pirates? No it never does. It really hurts the customer. Trouble getting the game to run or even install and a constant internet connection for some to work at all.
Look at steam. I don’t use it because I know people who have had their accounts hacked and now can no longer play their games (steam will not respond at all and their system allows for password changes that don’t need to be verified at the old e-mail).
Pirates wouldn’t have bought it anyway….that’s why they pirate. The game industry is usually upset about used games, not piracy because that’s what all this “protection” is for.
All industries do not cry about used items. Music, books, cars, electronics can all be sold by the original owner and no one cries foul, but sell a used game and the industry goes nuts.
In the end Sony is doing this to profit off of used game sales not prevent piracy.
arrgghhh im a pirate
SpeCtR Says:
“where theres a will theres a way… and im sure they will find a way to get around this…somehow”
Yes, they could wait outside a shop till some kid comes out with a new copy and then smash him in the face with a brick…
Don’t bother explaining how THAT is a different kind of bad from stealing digitally!
And the claim that “pirates wouldn’t buy anyway” is absurdly naive – pirates don’t steal EVERYTHING they want, only what they can easily get away with.
This initiative gets my full support. I don’t even think it unreasonable to try and profit from used sales – everyone else profits from it, why not the publisher too? They’re the only ones who were losing out.
@FJ
I feel sad for you =[ as robo said, its a buzz word… like if your sales are bad it must be the pirates its a go to excuse that people just accept, why cant you just accept MOST psp games are either ports of a good game made slightly better but fundementally are so similar its not enough to care…
parapper *exactly the same*
disgaea *added some playable characters*
disgaea 2 *added some playable characters and a few more fights*
dynasty warriors *same game just portable*
darkstalkers collection *the same just 3 in 1, but how many people really remember this series besides myself?*
guilty gear
blazblue *if you got a ps3 it works the same =\*
megaman powered up
megaman X
monster hunter
monster hunter 2
monster hunter 2nd G
etc
a lot of these games are just ports of ps1/ps2 titles made portable, a lot of which form the main base of games people WILL play or atleast know, like persona 1/3 which appear on the psp
the other big market for games on the psp are series that are popular on the ps1 – 3 moved to the psp which make them rather lack luster
*some of these ive already mentioned*
phantasy star 1/2
the new monster hunter
pixeljunk monsters
taiko no tatsujin 1/2
pop n music portable
MGS ac!d 1/2
assassins creed bloodlines
little big planet portable
*i dont really got a lot of these since i used most i remember off hand earlier =\*
these 2 sets make up MOST of what people will buy/want to play for the psp, i bought my psp for darkstalkers collection, and i find myself really only buying/playing games that are ports/part of a series i like, this is a problem with the portable market, we see very little of things that arnt sure fire winners, and so they become what people mostly know… of the people i talk to very few will play something that is outside of these 2 groupings and a lot of these form why people want a psp in general *my friend bought it for LBP for instance thats it*
the problem with those people doing this, and piracy is people assume that moving something that did well in instance A will automatically do well in instance B…
god of war for instance, very popular series on the console, many people really want III, collection came out recently which got HUGE buzz and many people are talking about just about everything there is about god of wars greatness i mean it rivals FF XIII from what ive seen fanbase wise *not taking into account XIII is out in JP so there is more buzz but a lot of it doesnt seem to get mentioned like the no install was added here like it was news though it was mentioned a week prior to JP’s release* so when god of war came out for the psp, people thought it would automatically do well but it was short and not that fun… so sales were less than what you would assume, this also happened with pixeljunk monsters, if you remember the older article posted here sales were VERY poor for PJ Monsters on the psp…
over blaming the lack of advertising *i might have missed it but i saw zero*, the fact it just kinda came out *i dont recall anyone having it on the rumored content for ____ week list* I didnt really add much, nor do i recall many people singing the prases of pixeljunk prior or really post *even with shooter i dont see a lot of I <3 PJ people* but the first thing said was the lack of sales was PIracy, to which many people blamed the pirates for no more Pixeljunk games on the psp… as time goes it is gonna become more of a problem because as i said its the go to excuse for anyone because people assume its far larger than it is…
a lot of people forget that pirates generally dont care that much for anything they steal, i recall reading a survey explaining that pirates were more likely to buy a CD than anyone else, also a lot of people hack the psp for emulators just like a lot of people use linux for the same goal, though that is no different since those are no longer a sales factor they "dont hurt" anyone *its not like i can go out and buy a new copy of clayfighter for the genesis even if i wanted to, not saying its acceptable but i am saying it doesnt affect sales on any level*
finally as i mentioned in other posts, mario kart was the top pirated game last year and it was also the top selling game last year, this figure shows that you can do fine even with "high" amounts of piracy, I think people need to wake up and just realize if the games were better, more people would buy them…
and please note, this post is not for or against piracy, I just rather dislike people assuming that piracy is as big as it is, i wrote my thesis paper on this mentality and i can tell you they make up such a small number overall its laughable, and that number is the tech savy people so you will usually see free advertising from them making their crime a little less evil overall since it gets the buzz out…
It is clear that PSP is suffering from piracy. This strategy seems a bit confusing though.