Last night I read an interesting article about piracy in Asia (which ofcourse, I can't find now that I have gotten curious about the subject) and how the Wii and 360 got sold there and the PS3 hardly because it wasn't cracked.

This leads me to wonder how many consoles are sold to "pirates" once they are cracked and if a new modchip will make a rise in hardwaresales. Also , is there some place you can look to get an approximate figure on illegal game downloads?

Oh really? That's interesting, btw if is not much to ask do you have the link of the article? :) I don't think there is a way to get an approximate:S, but who knows maybe there is.
"This leads me to wonder how many consoles are sold to "pirates" "
Good point never thought of that.

I'll do my absolute best to look for the link, found it on QJ.net. Also had some info on a "pirate" xbox live version being developed.

Good questions. I've looked for information but I haven't found any solid data on the scale of pirating in places like China today. It's obviously huge - folks I know from China at my university, mostly students who know the game culture pretty well, say modchipping and pirating are widespread. That said, it seems to be limited to university students and the upper middle class who can afford computers - maybe 50 million people or so. But we don't really have good numbers on this, just educated guesses.

Ok, found the link I was talking about and another. http://www.qj.net/Xbox-360-Wii-fall-to-Asian-piracy-PS3-resisting/pg/49/aid/91802 and http://www.qj.net/Piracy-in-China-rampant-and-so-efficient-that-it-s-impressive/pg/49/aid/106301