they did, but got pwned by Dark_alex and some battery. ;)

 What do you mean?

Who's Dark_alex and some battery?

Sorry for coming off as a noobstick, but I don't understand this whole PSP haxor zheen. 

Pirating seems really strange to me. Aren't people afraid of getting caught?

I thought there were agencies out to detect and stop this sort of thing. Why risk getting into a lot of trouble over something like video games?

 Dark_Alex is a very famous PSP hacker, and can hack PSP firmware within a day.

 ###### battery (I won't tell you the name, so you won't go get one. lol) is the tool people use to easily hack their PSP

thats nothing..ppl d/l DS games all the time.

 Heh, I don't even own a PSP.

But hey, if you want to keep it confidential, I don't mind.

I plan on getting one by generations-end.  Cheaper stuff FTW.

And by that, I mean buying cheap games, not pirating. Heh... 

piracy like this is just as bad and as common on the DS.

I would even go as far as saying that it's worse on the DS, considering the fact that the DS doesn't need to be hacked in order to play roms.

All that it needed is something like the R4 which is a simple DS cartridge with a slot for a mini SD card, you then put the customer firm ware on the SD card and the DS reads it like it were a game. The beauty is the fact that the DS isn't modified so legit games can be played with out any affect to the hack, also roms are so small and easy to download their simply isn't an incentive for hackers to buy it.

On the PSP things are a little more complicated in comparison, but what makes piracy much more noticible is the lower install base.

i need a PSP... I''ll hack it so I can run windows XP on it =D

not that it's a defense, but people should realize that if the downloads aren't free, some people won't buy the software anyway.

and if not for all these free stuff, PSP wouldn't as well as it is now.

of course, softwares have higher margin and overall sony is losing out on a lot of money. 3rd party suffers a lot more, of course, since at least sony is selling more hardware to make up for a small portion of the loss.

The difference between the piracy scene on the PSP vs DS is.
1. The majority of DS owners and customers (casual gamers) don't now how to get free games on their DS, nor do they really care.
2. The majority of PSP owners (core gamers) buy PSPs BECAUSE they can play pirated roms on their PSP.

@jake_the_fake1: The numbers may be common, but the percentage sure isn't.

@Lingyis: Yup, torrent downloads doesn't = a lost sale. Most people won't bother playing the game if it ISN'T free.

As a recent DS and launch PSP owner, i must say, I find the PSP much better for Custom firmware use. There's just more horse power and multimedia functions. I use my fat launch PSP for CFW and GBA,Genesis,SNES,NES,PS1 roms but i always rent or buy my psp games for my white PSP slim.