@eNriqeu.

I still don't get the hate about Michael Pachter.

You do realize his full-time profession is predicting what companies will do right? You do realize he's obviously VERY good at what he does and gets paid thousands of dollars to do this right?

You do realize that he is going to be a MUCH better analyst then you are right now, and no, he doesn't state the obvious, it's just that news media tends to pick out the easy stuff because it's the easiest to interpret.

@Lagunamo

Yeah I'm sorry, but this sort of comment really annoys me because it's so flawed. By this logic, piracy isn't a problem anywhere, I mean, look at Blizzard and Starcraft 2 and WoW! They're making lots of money even though the games are being pirated! Piracy obviously has little impact!

Of course the most popular games are going to be pirated the most and yet still make a lot of money. The problem is with smaller developers and smaller games which will not see profit. A tonne of studios have been closed this year. I'm not saying they were closed due to piracy, but it is possible that without it, they would have sold a few thousand more copies and would still be around to make great games.

Piracy completely crippled the PSP. Piracy is screwing over PC gamers. The PS3 is also extremely easy to hack, and so it could very easily turn into a PSP/PC gaming scenario. The Xbox360/DS/Other consoles are bit more difficult to hack, and so it's not as easy to simply pirate. In addition, you run a high risk of simply being banned by Microsoft, so there's a moderate-high risk on these platforms versus a relatively low-risk thus far on the PS3.

Don't kid yourself that piracy has no impact. If you believe this you really are naive or are just trying to make yourself feel better about being a pirate.

@Jack Kevorkian.

Seriously, read over what you wrote. You don't want to pirate games but have to because Geohot "bested" Sony and Sony wants to try and take him to court over it as they legally should?

Let me correct what you originally wrote to reflect what you actually mean:

You want to pirate games, but feel guilty doing so. Your justification is some nonsense about how Geohot is a hero to make yourself feel better about it.

@Vidikron

I don't know if this is a very valid argument. You're basically saying that yeah, a few thousand people will benefit from using homebrew and really enjoy it, while potentially millions of people lose out due to software companies withdraw their support for making amazing PS3 games. I mean it'd be great if I was the president of the world and everyone gave me their money, but everyone else would lose out.

And yes, you're perfectly capable of doing whatever you want with your console. That doesn't mean it should be done. I can setup a website for porn, and allow child porn to be posted on there as well. "Oh well, I'm just trying to setup a legal website for porn, and it's not my fault that someone has put up child porn. I have no obligation to do anything about it though." Granted piracy is not as bad as child porn, but you should really question whether it is actually OK for a few people to benefit from homebrew when you KNOW that everyone can be screwed over with games due to piracy. It's very selfish.

Lastly, the fact that you do disagree with the current IP laws and such doesn't make it alright for you to go against them. I don't go out and molest children because I feel the laws are too prohibitive and I should be able to do what I want. The laws are in place for a reason, to protect people. Just because you think differently doesn't mean you're right or you can do whatever you want.

@jakendcooney.

Using the 360 as an example for why piracy isn't bad isn't a good argument. As stated before, it's fairly difficult and you usually have to pay money for someone to enable it for you, and then you risk getting banned.

On the other hand, if it's free for you to do this modification, it's untraceable by Sony, and it's easy to do, then you will have a huge amount of piracy.

Yeah, a small amount of piracy won't do much, but if it becomes a critical mass then you get a whole platform destroyed such as the PSP. If it's easy to hack the PS3 then why not do it? You're not smart enough? What about your friend who will just come over on a weekend with a stack of games and set you up.

It's easy to say that piracy won't affect the console when in reality, the potential negatives (your console is ruined, millions of people no longer have access to good games as they aren't being made) outweigh the positives (a few thousand people enjoy their homebrew which usually isn't that great, and maybe there is a small increase in sales due to word-of-mouth).

@Evil Pikachu.

Wasn't Chime on the Xbox360 a game that gave all its money to charity, at least for a little while?

@mywhitenoise.

Lol your arguments are silly. If you couldn't pirate games you'd have to buy them, and yes, you would buy them. If my hobby is to go rock-climbing then sure, I'll take the free rock-climbing equipment, but if I can't, I'll figure out a way to save up money to buy the equipment. This argument is not true.

Also, so the PS3 is hackable. You buy a PS3 (Sony loses money), and then pirate the games. You have just made Sony lose money, how are you helping? Explain please?

Now people who pirate are NOT helping the industry. They inflate the cost of our product, as you need to maximise profit from people and take into account things like DRM to make sure that you don't lose too much money from piracy. Additionally, they can scare developers away, such as in the PSP's case. Please refer to Pixeljunk Monsters' developers for more information.

Lastly, it's pretty awful to do in the first place. Lots of people work on a game and you're essentially taking their product for free and not helping them get a second gig. Sure, maybe buying a game gives a developer team $12 of your money, but it all adds up pretty quickly. 1 million Xbox360 accounts were banned at the end of LAST YEAR, so this number has surely risen. If one million accounts had bought a game, that's $12 million for the developer, which could easily prevent a studio's closure.

Overall, pirates are really selfish and while they try to justify their actions, they have no justifications. You've been exposed to more independent films? Fantastic! Pity they didn't actually receive anything for their time, as of course, you pirated their things. YOU definitely win (short-term, not long-term due to scaring away developers), but no-one else does.

@liam.

How bad the flaws in the security system are? Seriously? You do remember how long it took for hackers to hack the PS3 right? If this was the PC it would be hacked in a week. If it was Wii or Xbox360, it would be hacked within a year or two. It's INCREDIBLE how long the PS3 was unhackable. To say the security is bad is incorrect.

@mywhitenoise

The reason why people care is because they want an honest, fun experience online where competition is fair and where lots of games are released. Piracy tends to ruin systems like trophy systems where you can just hack as many trophies as you want. Additionally, they hurt game developer sales and thus make it so less games are released that are good. Less good games = less developer interest = the death of your console. Look at the PSP and PC. You NEED to care about piracy if you want to have access to more good games.

@Liquidfingers.

You COULD play a game like this with the Kinect, or you could just use a mouse and keyboard which would be 100x easier. I can't imagine many WoW players standing up and moving around for 10+ hours every day, although it may make a lot of them more fit.

I think it's also a matter of Microsoft selling the Kinect as a casual thing rather than trying actively to make hardcore games out of it.

@blueskyv201.

Convinces me! :) I started at level 1, and last time there was a weekend on I levelled to level 34. Now I can comfortably get up to level 50. :)