One pirated copy doesn't equal one lost sale. Just because you pirate something doesn't mean that you would be willing to buy it (or even rent it) if you couldn't pirate it.
I have a DS flash card. So for me, I don't think twice about downloading DS games that might seem interesting (unless it's utter shovelware like Imagine Babyz and crap like that) and try them out. If flash cards didn't exist, I wouldn't buy the majority of the stuff I've played. But because my Xbox 360 and Wii aren't modded, I am a lot more picky about what I play. Even if it's just a rental. Because when you have to put down money on something, all of a sudden your standards go up. I own about 22 Xbox 360 games. If I had a modded Xbox 360 (which I don't because I don't want to get banned from Live and what not), I assure you that I would be pirating a shitload more than just 22 games. I'd pirate just as indiscriminately as I did with the PS1 and PS2. Therefore piracy is not 1:1. When you put a price to something, your standards go up.
Basically you don't want to spend $50-$70 on a video game and then find yourself dissapointed by the game. Even if I spend $20-30 on a game that ended up dissapointing me, I feel burned somewhat. Let's face it. You're not going to know 100% if you are going to like a game by looking at videos of gameplay, listening to word-of-mouth or reading reviews. So your standards for buying games are definitely going to be higher than just trying out a game you downloaded for free (or burnt onto a DVD-R/CD-R that cost you a quarter). Even for rentals (I'm not as picky about what I rent compared to what I buy), I still have higher standards than piracy because if I end up not liking a game, I basically just lost about a week of my time. Compared to piracy where you don't lose too much of your time if you download a DUD unless your download is going slowly.
