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[sinkhead]

But imagine downloading a 50Gb Blu-Ray game? That would take forever, and I have quite fast internet at 16Mbps

- Sam

[Koji]

But imagine downloading a 50Gb Blu-Ray game? That would take forever, and I have quite fast internet at 16Mbps

- Sam

You assume any PS3 game has ever come anywhere near using all 50GB. I would imagine most if not all current PS3 games could still fit comfortably on single or dual layer DVD unless they are filled with a lot of uncompressed videos.

Media that's designed for being sent and stored digitally will be aimed at being as small as possible without reduction in quality. Of course they will all be sent using some form of compression. This isn't a guess, it's a guarantee that this is where all formats are heading in the next 10 years tops. Internet speeds are only going to keep going up in speed and down in price as the architecture get put in place. Hell, I never once paid for an upgrade to my internet speed but in the last 5 years it's gone from 1024kbit/384kbit up/down to 15Mbit/2Mbit up and down and dropped $15 in price.

[Hi]

I think we are missing a key fact about the disscussion of nintendo and sony tring to stop pirates.

Both nintendo and sony have included sucurity, so they are both clearly trying to prevent pirates.

BUT...

Only sony has been activly shutting down sites that host psp iso's. nintendo hasn't taken any steps towed shutting down sites, correct?

[Koji]

Nintendo has made moves to do so in the past, but i haven't heard of anything recent. Part of that though is most pirates are getting smarter and finding chinese or swedish web hosts which are safely outside of most international copyright laws (at least enforceable ones).

[Nyutan]

I remember when they first modded the Coleco vision to play pirated games..

[Perseid]

I think we are missing a key fact about the disscussion of nintendo and sony tring to stop pirates.

Both nintendo and sony have included sucurity, so they are both clearly trying to prevent pirates.

BUT...

Only sony has been activly shutting down sites that host psp iso's. nintendo hasn't taken any steps towed shutting down sites, correct?

It is true that all of these companies are trying to combat piracy. But they are trying even harder to make it appear to third party developers that they are combating piracy. In my cynical view of the world, that's all the copy protection really is. Everyone knows copy protection can and will be broken, but if they can convince EA that they have better copy protection, they might convince EA to make more games for their system.

[tenba]

It is true that all of these companies are trying to combat piracy. But they are trying even harder to make it appear to third party developers that they are combating piracy. In my cynical view of the world, that's all the copy protection really is. Everyone knows copy protection can and will be broken, but if they can convince EA that they have better copy protection, they might convince EA to make more games for their system.

Another observation is that people have to actually buy consoles before they can hack them.  And, if someone bricks their console while hacking it and has to buy another one (because hacking isn't covered under warranty), then that's another sale for the console company.  If we look only at the sales figures, hacking actually sells consoles too.  In addition, homebrew like DSOrganize would seem to theoretically be helping Nintendo a lot -- it adds extra functionality to the NDS, giving people more reason to buy one.  Because DSOrganize exists, the NDS is worth more (at least to me, and probably to all the other DSOrganize fans out there).

(Note: The rebuttal to the above is the claim that console sales without games actually hurt the console companies because they take a loss on the consoles and expect to make it up by taking a piece of the game sales.  I don't know whether I believe they take a loss on the consoles, but from my point of view, such questionable practices should backfire on them.)

There's also a point when the anti-piracy measures are "good enough".  In a way, Sony's anti-piracy measures have succeeded to some extent.  I have a coworker with a PSP who loves tech gadgets and a coworker with an NDS who is a mother of two children and isn't into tech gadgets or game systems.  (She first bought a Phat for her son, and then he asked for a Lite when they came out, so she had an extra Phat lying around that wasn't doing anything.)  I explained the hacking process for each of the consoles to the appropriate coworker.  The savvy PSP coworker decided it just isn't worth the trouble to even try, so he doesn't even run PSP PDA.  The NDS coworker is a happy customer of RealHotStuff and using DSOrganize.  So, even though all versions of the PSP firmware are hacked, Sony was still successful in preventing some people from using the information.  Their security efforts weren't completely worthless.

There's no way to stop the determined hackers.  However, if they can make it sufficiently difficult or intimidating for "normal people" and even a few "power users", then that just might be "good enough".

Also, note that the level where security becomes "good enough" for the more popular game machines is lower.  For example, if there are 100 NDS machines out there for every 20 PSPs, then even if 80% of the NDS owners are pirates vs. 1% of PSP owners, it's still more worthwhile for EA to make games for the NDS (20 potential buyers) over the PSP (18 potential buyers) due to sheer volume.  So, in this hypothetical example, with so many more NDS consoles in circulation, NDS security (80% "fail" rate) doesn't have to be better than PSP security (1% "fail" rate) to be good enough for EA to write games for the NDS.

Just because the companies put effort into combatting piracy doesn't mean they haven't accomplished anything at all if their console gets hacked.

[Hi]

Well said Tenba.

[Koji]

Tenba: You can check lots of financial reports. Sony and Microsoft do lose money on their consoles. Especially Sony (I think I read something along the lines of a $150-200 loss per console sold because of the blu-ray drive). Nintendo on the other hand DOES make a profit on their consoles, and has ever since the release of the GBA SP. Before that, they too lost money on each console sold.

[gamesphere]

Exactly Koji, Sony reportedly loses more 500$(Yes that is the actual cost for Blu-Ray). Microsoft now loses a rough 90$ because they cut cost on parts. Nintendo actually makes profit off their console. It roughly only takes 200$ to make.

In the history of Consoles, Every single company loses a huge amount of money at launch. Millions and Millions. It's not the selling of consoles where they make their money... It's peripherals and Games where they make back their money from. Games that pirates get for free, thats why Companys like Sony and Microsoft DO NOT TOLERATE. This still doesn't explain why Nintendo isn't as motivated as them though...

[tenba]

Tenba: You can check lots of financial reports. Sony and Microsoft do lose money on their consoles.

Shh...  Don't disillusion me; I'm in denial.  I keep trying to disbelieve reality because I think it's wrong.  

Selling the console at a loss strikes me as being offensive to basic logical principles.  Besides, selling at a loss is fundamentally monopolistic.  They're using their size to squeeze out potential new competitors because new competitors can't afford to sell at a loss for nearly as long as a big company.  So, people with great new ideas for consoles who don't already work with a console company have to come up with a whole lot of money to get their ideas to the market and sell at a loss long enough for things to catch on.  Not only that, but they have to have enough agreements in place with game developers to get a share of the game profits.  That means that the startup with the great idea has to concentrate on the deal making as much as the new techology to stand a chance of surviving, and that would slow down innovation.  So, while I can see why companies would choose to sell their consoles at a loss, I think it's "cheating", and I'd still root for the white hat homebrewers even if the companies are taking a loss on each console because those companies shouldn't do that.

Nintendo on the other hand DOES make a profit on their consoles, and has ever since the release of the GBA SP. Before that, they too lost money on each console sold.

Then that makes Nintendo just all kinds of impressive.  Now it makes perfect sense to me why Nintendo would no longer put as much effort into fighting piracy.  I definitely have to admire Nintendo for the NDS and Wii trouncing Sony's PSP and PS3 even though Sony tried to "cheat" (in my opinion) by selling at a loss.  I think that speaks volumes about how good Nintendo's technology is: not only can they come up with features people want, they can also do it cheaply enough to make a profit in a market in which their competitors can't.  If they used to sell at a loss, it must also take guts to fix their economic model and decide that their consoles are good enough to compete without playing the games everybody else is.

I think the change made sense.  If they don't sell the console at a loss, they don't have to worry so much about piracy hurting them directly because they'd still make their profit.  So, they don't have to put as many resources into anti-piracy measures.  This means that they can spend those resources on making more innovative consoles.  In the end, people don't buy new consoles for the anti-piracy measures.

Besides, selling the consoles at a loss gives the hackers and pirates more and more incentive to crack any security the console company tries to put in.  For example, if the (hypothetical) PS720 is actually worth $1000 of computer parts, but they're only selling it for $500, then it'd be worth $500 of someone's time to get that $500 set of parts to act as a $1000 machine.  If a tech wiz gets $50/hr at their day job, and if he can hack the box in less than 10 hours of working on the console, it's worth it to hack the console even if he doesn't enjoy hacking and even if he doesn't like games at all and only wants to run Linux and a web browser.  If the tech wiz can crack the security, he can get $1000 worth of performance out of Linux and the web browser by spending only $500 on the machine.

Also, the more of a loss the company takes on the console, the more the games have to cost to make up for it.  As games cost more, people have more incentive to pirate those games.  Worse, raising the price of the games to make up for selling the console at a bigger loss also makes the honest game buys pay even more to subsidize the pirates.  In addition to being monopolistic, selling consoles at a loss and planning to make it up in games would seem to aggravate the piracy problem by raising the economic benefit of pirating games.

So, yes, buried deep down somewhere, I know that the console companies are selling at a loss, but the rest of me is going to stay in denial, stubbornly refusing to believe that they'd do something that strikes me as being so very wrong.

(By the way, I was a Sony fan only three months ago.  I have a PS1, PS2, and PSP.  There's still good in them!  I can sense it!)

(Then again, I already sold off all my shares of SNE...)

[tennisgy]

90 dollars lost on a 360?  I read a tech magazine around its release which stated 60 ? Are the parts getting more expensive?  shouldnt they be getting cheaper?

[Koji]

Tennisgy: It probably is 60 on hardware, but there is more to the loss then just hardware. You have to remember there is still assembly and random testing of the hardware which would also figure into the price. $90 would probably cover both the costs of the loss to hardware and everything else.

If you wanted to be really anal you could add in the price of storage, shipping, the hardware and software engineers pay, etc etc into the price as well and consider their losses... But that may be going a bit too far to prove a point.

[Hi]

It makes sense that sony and microsoft would be more likely to try to combat piracy if selling at a loss. However, tenba, I dissagree with this...

"I think the change made sense. If they don't sell the console at a loss, they don't have to worry so much about piracy hurting them directly because they'd still make their profit. So, they don't have to put as many resources into anti-piracy measures. This means that they can spend those resources on making more innovative consoles. In the end, people don't buy new consoles for the anti-piracy measures."

I don't think that nintendo dicided to sell their consols at a loss because they wouldn't have to take as many anti-piracy mesures. There are still very few pirates- atleast for modern video games. Emulation is a different story...

Point is, Nintendo stopped selling at a loss because they COULD. And if you CAN and still keep your systems cheep enouph to stay in the game with conpetators, you'll make more money, pirates or no pirates.

Speaking of the emulation comunity, I wonder what nintendo will do about them. I mean, tons of people pirate classic games and emulate them. TONS! And if everyone is pirating classic games, no one will use the virtual consol. I don't think this will make nintendo very happy. I think It'll be interesting to see what they'll do.

In the mean time, I think that we are all less likely to be sued for pirating nds games then for pirating classic games. The more pirates, the more problems for the company, and the greater the chance the company will take action. And taking action is what I expect nintendo to begin doing very soon...

[tenba]

I don't think that nintendo decided to sell their consoles at a loss because they wouldn't have to take as many anti-piracy measures.

Probably.  But just because Nintendo didn't intend anti-piracy to be one of the reasons doesn't mean that the reasoning makes any less sense overall.

Speaking of the emulation comunity, I wonder what nintendo will do about them. I mean, tons of people pirate classic games and emulate them. TONS! And if everyone is pirating classic games, no one will use the virtual console. I don't think this will make nintendo very happy.

I think this might be backwards.  The tons of people were emulating classic games first.  Nintendo noticed them doing that and decided to try to convert some of that demand into profit.  The Virtual Console strikes me as a relatively cheap gamble on a potentially very small market.  I think it's also a tactic to get infrastructure out there.  I think they plan to piggyback something bigger and better off of the delivery mechanisms for Virtual Console.  I don't think Nintendo would be all that surprised or upset if the Virtual Console itself doesn't sell much.  The mechanisms under the Virtual Console (the Wii having a monetary account that can be automatically charged, the networking, the downloading, the checks that it only plays on the Wii that paid, etc.) are all potentially useful for new games.  The Virtual Console could be a proof of concept for those features, demonstrating the possibilities within such features to potential game developers.

In the mean time, I think that we are all less likely to be sued for pirating nds games then for pirating classic games. The more pirates, the more problems for the company, and the greater the chance the company will take action. And taking action is what I expect nintendo to begin doing very soon...

I very much doubt that.  Nintendo must've known in advance that tons of people were already emulating classic games long before they ever thought of making Virtual Console.  Why else would they actually create such a thing?  It's counter-intuitive: the video game industry seems to pretty much assume that most people want the latest and greatest video games -- who would've thought that anybody cared about the old ones for dead platforms?  But, if they already know that tons of people have demonstrated wanting classic video games, then it makes sense to try to capitalize on it and convert some of those pirates to paying customers.

Besides, I don't think it's even possible for Nintendo (or anybody else) to sue emulation, and I think it's a huge waste of legal resources to even try.  There's nothing illegal about emulation itself.  You can win if you sue people who pirate ROMs, but then you don't get anything from doing so (other than a big legal bill) unless you can demonstrate they're doing monetary damage, and that would be hard because those things have basically no monetary value left -- you can't sell any actual original cartridges because nobody's printing them, and nobody will dedicate inventory space to cartridges of long-dead systems.  Nintendo can win a legal case against people who steal ROMs, but it seems very unlikely they'd get much compensation for winning such a legal battle.  So what if someone pleads guilty to pirating the original Pong?  If their uncle is a good lawyer who can demonstrate that it's worth $0, the court fines them $0, and that's about it.  Even if they don't have a lawyer uncle or something, the legal fees will probably hurt the pirate, but the copyright holder still gets nothing.  It's not worth the copyright holder's time and resources to sue someone if they're going to end up with such a result.  Besides, how would they explain to their shareholders why they spent resources on a legal battle that resulted in no profit even though they won?

In the end, it's still money that matters.  The old classic ROMs are probably worth very close to $0.  It's not worth it to sue for that.  Combine that with the idea that I don't think that the emulation in the Virtual Console is the end goal, overall, I think it's very unlikely that Nintendo will try to sue the people who pirate the old ROMs.