They do. Yes, there are degrees to which a person is willing to give up their morals and ethics, it's true. If it's over something you personally deem to be unimportant, then perhaps stealing it instead of paying for it doesn't sound all that horrible. I mean really, who's going to miss, say, a paperclip? Or a piece of candy? That's entirely what the point is with piracy. To those who pirate software, the value of software to them personally is less than what is being asked for. They see no issues with simply stealing it, because after all, they're not willing to pay that much for it anyway, so who's really getting hurt in the process?

I think the classic supply-and-demand X chart might help illustrate things.

 This simple graph illustrates how it works.  If price and supply match (or come close enough to matching), then items purchased and items offered for sale are in equilibrium.  If price is too low, suppliers don't supply enough to meet demand.  If price is too high, there is a surplus.  Simple enough in concept.  In software sales, piracy occurs any time equilibrium is not present.  If there is a shortage, piracy occurs because the software cannot be found easily in stores.  If there is a surplus, piracy occurs because the existing product is too expensive in the eyes of many of those who pirate.  Basically, the rate of piracy more or less equals the imbalance between price and supply (though you do have to take into account the authentic pirates who won't pay at any price for software; even at perfect equilibrium, there is piracy).

My point in this is about the people who complain about the PSP software sales being so low, yet when the numbers of piracy are added in, it could be even higher. My purpose in creating this thread wasn't against piracy(though I am not condoning it, I'm against it as well, just the purpose of this thread wasn't against piracy in general) but the fact that people say PSP software sales are "so low." People say the sales are low, I'm saying piracy plays a part in this and that they could be higher. I'm not arguing that piracy kills the market.

 Ok, THIS makes it much easier to understand, thank you for the chart

If you want to be economically sound in your reasoning, you would say that the sales of PSP software are perfectly on par for its actual demand. It's the hardware which is higher in sales than it would be if piracy was not as easy as it is.

 Wasn't Kasz saying hardware sales would be lower if piracy wasn't as easy as it was?

Indeed, which is true. You cannot pirate hardware, after all; the closest you can come is emulation, and there aren't any decent PSP emulators for PC. Thus those not willing to pay for software who want the software can opt to buy the system and pirate the software instead of just download an emulator and run the software on that. And that's just what they do, assuming they can justify the price of the PSP to themselves.

 Oh! Sorry, just reread your last post and realized you said that...I thought you were saying they would be higher if piracy wasn't around. I'm really bad with communication and interpurtation I guess. What affect do you think this amount of piracy is having on the PSP?

Piracy has raised the PSP's hardware sales considerably, as there is no easy alternative to owning the hardware for playing the software available for it. That's about all it's done, however. I suspect that, without the ability to pirate, PSP hardware sales would be roughly 50% of what they are because of it. Certainly the pirated-to-software-sold ratio suggests as much.

Ahh.... The piracy. That's why PSP software sales aren't growing. I'm guilty. I copied Metal Slug Anthology from a friend, Other than that I don't have any games that are ISOs.

Homebrews kills sales. Not for hardware of course. They'd need a psp to run the homebrew but the games, nah memory card and a PSP is all you need.

The only reason I installed CFW is because I want to play CLASSIC PS1 Titles!!! Damn you sony, if you just made those classics into downloadable content I'd be kissing your feet.