PS3 and Piracy
PS3 Center has an interesting article about piracy on the PlayStation 3. But I’m not sure he’s on the mark about everything:
With dual-layer Blu-ray discs storing up to 50GB, the question quickly becomes how would pirates even distribute the games? While bandwidth is certainly getting cheaper, connection speed would bottleneck any piracy efforts. A relatively speedy 768kbps internet connection would face download times in excess of two weeks to obtain a single game via BitTorrent, and a Square Enix release spanning multiple discs could literally require months to download. On top of that, saturating an internet connection for days at a time would no doubt draw the ire of one’s internet service provider, making the download of Blu-ray discs a logistical nightmare for the foreseeable future.
Sure that might be true of 50GB games, but I don’t think we’ll be seeing those for quite some time. After all, the Xbox 360 only has a DVD drive, and it doesn’t seem to be suffering for the lack of disc space. I’m sure, though, that over time people will start using more and more disc space, but I’m also sure that it’ll be a long time before they get to using all 50GB.
Here’s another one:
And even once one obtains a Blu-ray title, how would they get it to the console? Back in the day, Nintendo and Sega were able to effectively neuter piracy by printing their games to proprietary cartridges. While blank cartridges (and the devices to upload pirated games to them) were certainly available, the cost was astronomical, and as a direct result, the average consumer had no idea that piracy was even an option. Sony seems to have established a similarly strong protection method by using its proprietary Blu-ray technology for the system. Burners for Blu-ray discs won’t be cheap or readily available for the early years of the PS3’s life, and one blank single-layer Blu-ray disc is expected to retail for $50 when introduced to the consumer market, with dual-layer speculated to be debuting at $80.
With companies like Dell and Apple supporting the BD format, this isn’t going to be true for long. The BD format is going to be a standard format supported on many PC’s, unlike Nintendo and Sega’s media efforts. So this argument doesn’t really hold water.
Thoughts?
PS3 Center -Playstation 3 News - News - PS3: Next Victim in The Modchip Wars?
February 27th, 2006 at 10:52 am
A 50GB game? iDon’t c that happening 4 some time either; maybe not even w/ the PS3. Developers r cry’n now ’bout the assets they need to fill X360 games & the reuirements 4 larger budgets to take advantage of the the system and others as the generation matures. Thats their justification of $60 for X360 games now which r not yet approaching the capacity of the 9GB DVD, what will it cost 4 a 50GB game? $80? More? I’ll bet that most games on the PS3 will fit on DVD until something happens w/ the developers. Maybe Square’s Final Fantasy XXXVVVIII will fill up a BR will FMV but not gameplay elements.
What the author fails to realize is that piraters can usually strip certain parts of a game to make the overall file size smaller. For example, Dreamcast games were sometimes stripped of their FMV sequences to get the file size small enough to burn on a regular CD.
Also pirating options r getting more sophisticated. iKnow someone who has this program that he uses to download full PC games in a few hours. iForgot what its called @ the moment but he downloaded a 3.2GB game in about 1.5 hours using basic cable internet service. Guys like this will find ways to shorten that estimated 2 week download for a 50GB game.
February 27th, 2006 at 7:38 pm
The xbox hackers group has been busy for the past 4 months figuring out how to crack X360.
So far, NO xbox360 games can be pirated. Thanks to the encryption built-in directly to the x360 cpu… whatever that’s mean.
February 28th, 2006 at 10:39 am
If I was a game company I would fill every disk with useless info so that every game would fill up the entire disk. Walll to wall data. Sure the game would only need 5 gigs to actually play but the other 45 would be pictures os static or useless text. It’s just a way to make the games too hard to download. Only for the rally commited.
The downloading is piracy discussion completely muddies the discussion though. I dont; believe a group of guy should be able to copy a game hundreds of times and try to pass them off as real. I do beleive that I should be able to make a back up.
February 28th, 2006 at 10:45 am
Project51
It means a lot of things but from what iUnderstand: Basically it means that piraters will have a rough time modding X360. For the most part, past game systems simply required soldering a few leads, from the mod chip, to various places on the mobo. W/ the X360 those leads now have to find their way onto the CPU die itself which is not possible. Piraters have to invent a practical cost effective solution to intercept that signal which iHope they never do.
February 28th, 2006 at 6:06 pm
I can’t see games taking that long. I downloaded the 1.3 gig Project Gothem Racing Demo off of Live in like 30 minutes. I use cable internet at 5 mbs speed. I should be getting the improved 8 mbs speed sometime this year for free.
I can’t see games getting much larger than their current sizes. It took Bethesda 2 years for Elder Scrolls:Oblivion and the game is only 4.6 gigs. Their is a 16 mile square area to walk around and this does not include the inside of buildings.
You won’t see a Blu-Ray game for a few years. As long as games fit on DVD9 they will be put on DVD9. They will transfer data faster than Blu-Ray and be much cheaper to produce. Sony is using the whole Blu-Ray thing to establish a format, not improve our gaming. Blu-Ray will make an impact on PS4 and Xbox 1080 if it wins the format war (which it should)
November 24th, 2006 at 10:04 am
how many day to download 25 gb, using the faster speed of modem?
November 24th, 2006 at 10:33 am
I have a fast connection, and it would probably take me over 9 hours.
August 4th, 2007 at 1:17 am
I am not going to buy a ps3 until a mod chip or any other sources like custom firmware or Blu Ray backup is available. I will never buy originals. Backup Rules. Fuck off sony you cannot sell Blue ray disc or expensive players in a poor country like us.
This message is as simple as that…!
April 24th, 2008 at 10:48 am
the rise of the sales of consoles are primarily due to the ability for superheroes like piraters (people who give people who are not rich, a break). Developers will survive even if originals can be backed up or else why is the game industry becoming f*ck*ng stinking rich. Yeah a lot of politicians want a piece of that like that ban thing, or lawsuits for claims of injury because of games. Patronizers are hypocrites saying they haven’t done many or even some backing up with games, downloaded from the net or bought somewhere. I’m not taking myself seriously here, at least not in the part where I may get responses from hypocrites saying I’m an idiot but hey, truth hurts. Piraters will always find a way. Piracy is like culture now (no hypocrites please, and certainly no self-righteous b*st*rds). The Ps2 and the Xbox were considered big then and we were awed at how were going to mod this sh*t. It seemed impossible then but look at where those developers are, at the top of the market because of mods. Serves developers right for having their games too expensive for even renting off anyone’s soul, the reason why pirates are always at their heels nipping with rabid intent. Pirates might even be more better developers than the ones high on the rack. Which ultimately made me want to suggest that companies hire these geniuses to solve problems. But then again, we wouldn’t anymore pirated games to enjoy. Just saying, you all…no hard feelings whatsoever, just practicing freedom of speech. I told you I wasn’t taking myself too seriously he he he.