Piracy exists, and there is nothing anyone can do to ompletely stop it without seriously pissing off consumers. You know what annoys me? When the pirated version is superior to the purchased copy like in the PC version of Modern Warfare 2 or any heavily DRM filled game. The best way to combat piracy is to ensure the customer perceives that they get great value and service from a purchase over a pirated copy. Community programs like Steam and Live (with the banning) won't stop piracy, but they can help reduce it. Alternatively, you could use advanced or proprietary technology like Blu Ray in PS3 where piracy just isn't economically feasible or worth it (but this of course is more expensive for the platform holder).

Have to say I'm suprised by the sheer number of downloads for Wii and 360 games, I had no idea that console piracy was THAT high.

If piracy is actually such a huge issue, why isn't PS3s attach rate better than XBOX360s one?

PS3s used primarily as media centers and Blu Ray players? Either that or 360 gamers are just that HARDCORE!

So 1.8% of Wii owners downloaded New Super Mario Bros. Wii, and 2.7% of 360 owners downloaded Modern Warfare 2.

Looks like the real piracy problem is on the XBox. Either way, it can't be that bad when your piracy rate is lower than your hardware failure rate.

The real problem is the PC pirates, who get all political and pick specific games to boycott (and then download) like Spore and Modern Warfare, to protest the DRM or the lack of servers.

Well, no doubt piracy will never be totally gone, but I really hope console manufacturers (all of them) come up with more and better solutions to battle pirates. It's shameful.
Kudos to all the people already putting forth tons of effort battling illegal downloads.

PSP owes possibly the majority of it's hardware sales to piracy.

That's exactly what I'm saying. I bought the game after having played the copy I downloaded. I'm not really a HotD fan, and would most likely ever have bought it if I hadn't played the free copy first. Turned out I loved it, so I bought it when I found a copy. Of course not all people do like that, but in the end, including all the people who simply can't afford gaming prices, which wouldn't even be able to buy them if they wanted(which is the vasy majority of pirating), it all evens out quite well, I think. Certainly a lot more some people would have you believe.

Sure, 360 also had it's head-start to sell a few more games, and PS3 is more expensive so there may be less money for games early on, I know there are lots of reasons for the difference, but still, new, heavyly pirated multiplatform games should sell a lot better on PS3 if piracy had such strong correlation with sales, shouldn't they?

Also, it's well known that PS3 is so much moer hardcore, it has TEH CELL :P

well, who here...for example, pays for pornography, for those that watch it?

how much of what you watch on youtube is pirated?


people are getting smarter about getting their content nowadays; hope humanity spends its discrectionary income more and more on those starving folks around the world...disposable media doesn't seem to be ending anytime soon.