Kotaku 
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Denver, 7:56 PM
Sat Nov 14
29 posts in the last 24 hours
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11/04/09
I'd love to get some pirates to come over to my house, rake up a bunch of leaves then tell them I'm sorry I'm not going to pay them because I was "Just trying before I buy it." which is another oft-used excuse. #piracy
11/04/09
11/04/09
The first Xbox was much closer to a PC than a console. This made it a modder's dream. Not to mention some of the case mods you could do, I've seen some really sexy original xboxes. Microsoft ruined a segment of their market when they locked down the 360 hardware/software so much. They basically made it so the only mod worth doing was for piracy, and took out all the other fun. Which makes modding your console pointless, really. #piracy
11/05/09
11/04/09
I want your stuff, but don't want to pay for it for [insert random righteous reason]. So there for I am entitled to stick it to you my circumventing your profit protecting measures. HOWEVER it is totally wrong for you to stick us back because we are on the moral high ground. #piracy
11/04/09
Most users who are actually banned on Live take the chance of play a game early or modding it wrongly because they don't care if they are banned. This is why I think console banning is as viable as any other method. If they play on a silver subscription or gold it wouldn't matter. Usually you see them having two accounts with on modded and the other legit. Another as mentioned below is to have two consoles for one modded and the other legit. Still won't have them be able to play online if they are the really careful ones. In anycase M$ can't stop the pirate movement unless they actually go to certain places and monitor its effects on how they are circumventing there security loop holes. But like most if not all M$ products, its easy hackable so you won't really see an ends to an end. Sucks though since most modded console users cheat in other methods besides just having the console modded. Unless you're on a PS3 of course which is totally un-moddable in terms of playing backups. Shows you true quality when it comes to care taken? Anyway even with me owning both consoles you can always tell which one is the better quality product minus the piracy and people buy M$ console for. Heck I even have a friend who works in the gaming industry and he himself has a modded 360 with MW2. Shows to say even game developers are doing it and the only one trying to prevent it is M$ itself whose only value is to cash cow the legit users who are unaware of the situation or to charge them more to circumvent all these money spending to try to stop piracy in a way. #piracy
11/04/09
Wouldn't that also affect used games? #piracy
11/04/09
I've been considering hacking a bigger hard drive up to mine,
but not installing any firmware hacks for backup stuff. I just want a big drive at a fair price.
Any word? #piracy
11/04/09
I'm not sure they can detect them.
Since they represent no risk of piracy and only a risk of lower accessory profits, they may not pursue the HDDs with the same vigour... #piracy
11/04/09
11/04/09
11/04/09
I think it is the modified DVD firmware which is what the pirates are using.
The HDD uses stock FW and doesn't assist piracy.
They may be unable to detect it and they don't really need to worry about it anyway! #piracy
11/04/09
That is specifically aimed at memory carts that include SD memory access.
MS is afraid that it will enable cheating/cut profits.
HDD kits don't affect fair game-play or allow piracy so MS has no need to fear them. #piracy
11/04/09
But i would imagine they pursue this much less than the people flashing the dvd drives to play bootlegs cause though you may be circumventing there bad perphial pricing you are not really stealing anything. #piracy
11/04/09
11/04/09
11/05/09
"A Microsoft spokesman confirmed this morning via email that this particular move is targeted at memory units that plug into the front of the console, not unauthorized hard drives."
From: [www.techflash.com]
Someone testing the updated has also confirmed it blocked a Datel memory card, and another confirmed it did NOT block a knockoff HDD. #piracy
11/05/09
11/05/09
Not at all! #piracy
11/06/09
11/04/09
11/04/09
Though I will agree that the prices for their wifi adapters and HDDs are outrageous. #piracy
11/04/09
It's not going to have a big impact on your life as a whole, but as a consumer accepting that sort of behaviour and poor quality control is irresponsible and opens the door to more abuses. #piracy
11/04/09
11/04/09
11/04/09
Of course it isn't.
But in some cases, for some people, it's still better than laying down $300 for a new one. I'm just saying that since there's an option there, it's difficult to lump it in with their overpriced ad-ons. #piracy
11/04/09
11/04/09
But if that's too much money (or if learning is too hard), then I ask you this: why do you, like so many others, blame MS for YOUR choice to use wireless networking? #piracy
11/04/09
11/04/09
11/04/09
i do have a ps3...i was online in minutes. i've looked at some of the other options for the xbox, but, meh. i just find the microsoft pricing ridiculous.
and "MY" choice to use wireless networking is because I would have to have my condo rewired to allow for "ground" internet access in my living room. and that's just a pain in the ass. i don't play video games at my desk in my office. #piracy
11/05/09
11/04/09
Our commitment to combat burned discs and support more profitable gameplay from the more than 20 million members of our Xbox LIVE community remains a top priority.
All consumers should know that violating copyrights is unlawful and that modifying their Xbox 360 console to play burned discs violates the Xbox LIVE terms of use and may void their warranty and may result in a ban from Xbox LIVE.
The health of the video game business is dependent on the hope that the quality of the product is sufficient to persuade customers to pay for genuine products and services that they wish to receive from manufacturers, retailers, and the third parties that help to support them.
/Fixed.
11/04/09
Except for the many people out there who would gladly not pay for products they truly enjoy. #piracy
11/04/09
/Fixed"
/Fixed #piracy
11/04/09
God, I just don't understand why Microsoft doesn't completely trust me and leave my console alone.
/sarcasm
They should have some sort of exchange program so you can send scratched discs and they will replace them with new ones. If they did that then you wouldn't have a reason to complain about being unable to mod your console, correct? Other then backing up games is there another legitimate reason to mod your console to play burned discs? #piracy
11/04/09
Surely this was all a result of forced decisions and not choice or "piracy".
11/04/09
When Stardock released Demigod with no DRM they ended up having about a 6:1 ratio of pirated to legit copies connecting to their servers. #piracy
11/04/09
Videogame piracy has been rampant since.. well, a very long time. PC game release groups have been operating for more than 15 years in some cases. The only difference is the advent of the internet as a distribution method, so now publishers can see the number of people downloading their games and lose their shit over it.
I'd wager the vast majority of people pirating a title were those not prepared to put up any money for it. They're not lost revenue. #piracy
11/04/09
11/04/09
Stop defending piracy, it's over, your excuses are lame and disproved. #piracy
11/04/09
11/05/09
Are you really trying to say the release and success of Half Life in 1998 is proof that the state of software piracy in 2009 is a fallacy? Please be even more ridiculous, I think you have the potential to beat your own record. No one even has any idea how much money Valve lost from people pirating their software in the past anyways. You think they created Steam just for the consumer's benefit?
People who steal software do it because they don't have to pay money. Not because they don't think a product is "worth" their money; there isn't some kind of noble code directing piracy. Very rarely something really stupid will come along which will make enjoying the product easier after stealing it (i.e. Spore), but developers shouldn't be begging and scraping for scraps from self-righteous assholes like yourself.
If you want to know if a game is worth your money, do some fucking research instead of immediately taking the easy and illegal choice of stealing. #piracy
11/05/09
Beyond that, the answer is that they are not lost revenue when the option of piracy exists. What if free without recourse isn't an option? Then who does pay? With the option of piracy without recourse existing, that number is very close to 0, without the option of piracy, that number is categorically and factually not 0.
Stop defending piracy, or trying to make it a non-issue. #piracy
11/05/09
Profit was made when ppl wanted to play with their friends, which was 99% of those people who stole the game.
11/05/09
Some of the shit I've been reading in this thread makes me wonder if the average Kotaku reader is MUCH younger than I thought, or if it's just a lower average active brain cell count.
Half-Life was heavily pirated and commercially successful due to its online component. That's not to say that it should have NEEDED the online component to FORCE twats to buy it, or that it shouldn't have been even MORE successful to being with. #piracy
11/06/09
that's all Mr Insult-Angry-Flamer. #piracy
11/06/09
A business not profiting due to their own stupidity is fine, that's business. A business not profiting, or profiting MORE due to people stealing shit is not fine.
You'll be angry too, one day. Watch friends sit on the sidelines because they work in one of the most volatile industries in entertainment, and you might get there.
Video games command a large amount of upfront investment to create, so much so that the ESRB considers any game with a development budget of less than $250,000 an 'indie' game.
Now imagine being an indie developer, and after months of work putting your game on the market, only to see 90% of the users using online functionality have pirated the game. Then imagine you track that for a week and have a 0% conversion ratio (a favorite excuse of ye pirates).
Maybe the game does break even, and maybe it's a 'success', but all that success means in the game industry is that you've made enough money to fund the next project.
Pirates are crippling their own enjoyment, if they were to pay for games, developers would make more money to invest in the next game, resulting in higher quality development, and hopefully then a higher quality game.
Yes, I'm angry, and I have every right to be. #piracy
11/06/09
Well I don't pirate so i can't relate.
I know games require a lot of money up front, almost more or as much as a large budge movie.
But you make a point about the disappointment I'm sure has been felt/seen.
My only point is that if a game is good enough, it will be bought and do well. If it is crappy, it won't. Those people who would have pirated a game that may have bought it could have done that, then find out it's terrible, then word spreads, reviews go out, no one buys it further and the game doesn't do so well. #piracy
11/07/09
I was wondering why your argument was so irrational, and it's because this statement, the basis of your beliefs, is factually incorrect. 'Great' games sell poorly all the time, and 'crappy' games sell wonderfully just as often, if not more often. #piracy
11/04/09
11/04/09
AAARRRRRRRRRR MATEY! #piracy
11/04/09
...! #piracy
11/04/09
11/04/09
@kNZA: you share what with who now??
@Koztah: no shoppers were harmed in the Edmonton mall.. the last Saskatchewan pirate is in Edmonton?! #piracy
11/04/09
Charging upwards of $80 for product that usually requires after-the-fact patching and last for a total of 8 hours is equally criminal. #piracy
11/04/09
11/04/09
11/04/09
(Demons souls; Uncharted 2; Dragon Age; Borderlands; Ratchet and CLank: ACIT; Forza 3; )
Right now the industry is spitting out as many good games as any high point in the past.
Pirates pirate because they want something of value for free. They don't want shitty things for free. You don't see much gizmondo/ngage/jaguar/CDI piracy do you? If games truly sucked then piracy would diminish because the pirates don't want shitty games. #piracy
11/04/09
11/04/09
"hey remember demons souls. man it makes me nostalgic". Just like I will reminisce about the hundreds of hours I plowed into Vagrant story and Final Fantasy Tactics. All 6 of those games are high quality and 3 of them aren't sequels. They may get sequels in the future but notable entries in series are notable even when their successors eclipse them. (Tekken 2; SF2; FF4; Secret of Mana; MGS 1/2/3; ect...) #piracy
11/04/09
11/04/09
Previous generations of consoles were not afforded this luxury, nor were gamers... and the thanks is to pirate the shit. Congratulations to the many dickwad gamers out there. Many of these people are the same ones that want a job in the industry, too... we'll see how they feel about pirating in 10 years when their company starts laying people off.
If people don't have enough expendable income to buy as many of the quality games as they want to play, I suggest they get a full-time job and have more money to buy things and less time to play things... call me old-fashioned. #piracy
11/05/09
As i said the games he mentioned are really really good, i just don't think they have that unique quality that makes them stand out in a way they will be remembered past this gen. I know it's a matter of personal preference but people don't even talk about games like Uncharted 1, R&C ToD, Forza 2 etc anymore because they are all being replaced by the sequels, as will happen with them and their sequels. It is mostly due to the lack of really solid new IPs this gen that can really stand the test of time.
AC had massive potential and still does to be remembered for a while but it was ruined by the repetition which sullied the experience for so many people. Sure there have been some other excellent fresh IPs like Mirrors Edge, Dead Space and various others aswell but they just don't have strong enough core foundations to carry them into the pages of history. #piracy
11/04/09
11/04/09
I was very upfront about the unit's age and that it was repaired by Microsoft under warranty in early 2008. Haven't had any problems with it since then so hopefully it'll hold up for him for a little bit, but either way he knew about the risks going into the deal.
But would I buy a used 360? HELLS no. #piracy
11/04/09
In regards to any kind of cutthroat corporate outlet though, I completely agree. #piracy
11/04/09
11/04/09
This very minute there's roughly 10,000 folks grabbing MW2 for the 360. That's 10,000 right now, on top of the past few days worth, and the surge over the coming month.
And yet all MS do is a slap on the wrist n lock-em off Live.
Hey dudes, your console has fairly bad piracy problem, maybe step up n do something more pro-active before publishers drop off from you. PS3 has far to good a record in the Anti-Piracy stakes for publishers not to be swayed by it.
11/04/09
11/04/09
As I said, PS3 has had no issue's with pirated games or modded consoles. Heck they have the PSP with its horendous piracy rates n use ofCFW, but they managed to build the PS3 as solid as a rock against CFW upto now.
MS may want to look into why. #piracy
11/04/09
11/04/09
11/04/09
While I agree being pro-active to piracy is important, the notion that MS will lose publishers is ridiculous. #piracy
11/04/09
And it's only about half of the console have Live anyway, so I'm sure there must be a fair amount of folks who are happy to just do single player campaigns. #piracy
11/04/09
11/04/09
Who'd abandon a platform 200million strong over piracy?
Oh yeah, half the industry. #piracy
11/04/09
11/04/09
11/04/09
11/04/09
So I'll reply to your unedited comment:
The PSP is a hardware hack. you use the Pandora battery to kick the PSP into service mode.
And if folks are using hardware hacks to get around the copy protection system, then you use hardware techniques to block them. Sony tweaked the 3000 n Go to make them less susceptible to Pandora (I don't think it works at all on the Go)
Nintendo modified the DVD drive on the Wii.
MS on their fourth(?) revision of the 360 but yet to put any hardware measures in place to stop the modifications. #piracy
11/04/09
The addition of banning modded Xbox 360s, primarily DVD-ROMs with unauthorized updated firmware, eliminates what some hackers commented that they own on the system (i.e. with access to it they can gain access to the system).
The PlayStation3 isn't safe. As one keynote at a hacker/Homebrew Linux convention noted, the only reason why the PS3 hasn't been hacked is because it supported Linux. They even acknowledged that Microsoft has the strongest security of any console this generation, and yet it was hacked. Now, the PS3 Slim doesn't support Linux. I guess we'll see what happens. #piracy
11/04/09
It's fairly easy if you have a burner n a stack of blu-rays to pirate the discs. Just as of yet the Ps3 hasn't been modded to play the copied discs. #piracy
11/04/09
11/04/09
11/04/09
Could it change in the future? Sure. But I expect we'll see the PS3 hacked before we see publishers drop 360 support. Console modders go where the games are (and given the choice between 2 nearly identical game libraries, they hack the easier to mod system). If they have to, they'll find a hack for the PS3. #piracy
11/04/09
Linux? the OSS that everyone has access to the code for is the defender to piracy on PS3?
Me thinks its the AACS inherent with a blu-ray drive, and the complexity of the Ps3 doesn't hurt it's chances either. #piracy
11/04/09
It'll happen with the 360 to as it becomes more popular and tools for hacking become more streamlined.
Last gen we all knew someone ho could flash PS2's or had a flashed PS2. It'll happen with the 360 this gen. But if it happens too soon (Ps2 had a install base of 140million, 360s only on 30million) then MS are in trouble. So they need to stem the flow while their install base is relatively small #piracy
11/04/09
11/04/09
11/04/09
If i was referring to everyone who owned a PC the number would be vastly higher (I'd be using a word beginning with B not M for one).
And PC Gaming market isn't at 200million anymore, that was my point.
My point was that just cos you have an install base of 20 million+, doesn't stop developers leaving your platform if it has piracy. Look at PSP, 50million units, hardly touched by any publishers these days. PC was king of the hill, piracy got too big, and bam.
As far as a publisher sees a large install base as more units that can pirate their game. #piracy
11/04/09
360 modding will never really go "mainstream" for the simple reason that MS has tied a ton of the perceived value of the console to Live. They gave people sitting on the fence about modding their console a reason not to mod it. People have gotten used to having Live and most aren't willing to give it up.
As to stemming the flow, I'd guess that's part of why we see them mass ban. It's a convienent scare tactic. It's clear that they are collecting whatever data they base bans on year round but only seem to break out the hammer when they want to make a point/remind fence sitters that there is a reason not to mod.
As a side note, my guess on the lack of a public PS3 hack is the size of the bluray disk. DLing 50 GB isn't reasonable for most people, buying enough harddrive space to hold more than about 20 games gets real expensive real quick and a BR burner +media is still expensive. It's simply not cost effective right now to hack the PS3 for, I'm guessing, ~20-30 exclusives. The hardware has been in the hands of the consumer for too long for someone not to have cracked it, there's just not a reason to let it loose into the wild. #piracy
11/04/09
11/04/09
PC gaming has been plagued with excuses of Piracy, yet the past few months i've noticed that 360 games have been consistently pirated.
Just the past fortnight you've had 360 versions of Modern Warfare 2 and borderlands out on torrents before streeet date, yet no one bats an eye lid.
PC version of Bl is out for retail before street date n its locked off with DRM to stop piracy.
It's kind of "WTF?" moment on the insanity scale. #piracy
11/04/09
On topic: Good riddance. Anyone stupid enough to think modding their console in a way that allows them to pirate or cheat and gets upset about it because they feel it is "their right" is "a moron."
It's not MS' fault you didn't read their terms of service or abide by the rules they very clearly put in place for this reason in the first place. If you want to pirate games, play on PC, 'cause THAT market is doing gangbusters right now thanks to everyone's "rights." #piracy
11/04/09
It was a launch version and since everyone I knew and myself personally getting RRoD (MS didn't extend their warranty back then either) so I knew it was a ticking time bomb waiting to happen and it did finally earlier this year.
Honestly I can see why people mod their 360s. Since a lot of them die on them in less than 2.5yrs (that's what my avg was) they wanted more value for their bucks. I see people now buying new 360 like it's disposable products year after year. For me I didn't like that idea so I just ended up with a PS3 (out of 4 PS3 I owned, 1 died on me). If don't like cheaters and people who pirate games, then come to the dark side (PS3) since piracy is virtually 0.
Your statement on leave the piracy to PC is a joke. I'm a gamer (PC 70%/Consoles 30%) and every year I see its getting easier and easier for people to mod their consoles.
I might as well say don't have game developers console-fy PC games also but even I know the balance is tilting. #piracy
11/04/09
I'm not saying I don't understand why some people do it, it's just those people need to realize they are violating their warranties and possibly the Terms of Service. They simply shouldn't act surprised or offended if something like this occurs, especially if their intent was to play illegal games (intent to lengthen the life of their hardware is another issue entirely, mind you).
Also, I don't see why my PC pirating comment was humorous. It's a sad statement yet a deeply truthful one that PC games continue to get pirated at astounding rates. Just ask the developers of Demigod. While consoles may become "easier" to modify as the systems become more PC-like, we shouldn't as a community be surprised when the manufacturers crackdown on such actions. Heck, I think we should applaud them wholeheartedly. #piracy
11/04/09
I wasn't surprised when I modded my 360 and got banned but I knew the risks and getting access of JPN only games on my modded JPN 360 before I decided to take the plunge for importing the game was well worth it (saved me a lot of $$$ for backing up my legit games and trying out iffy games... looking at you Vampire Rain) before my 360 died from RRoD. I'm pretty sure that Major Nelson was talking about flash modding the dvd drive from being banned, not the case mods like Ben Hecks work or many others. #piracy
11/04/09
MS repo men, should be a part of the TOS.
11/04/09
It's hard to feel sympathy for gamers who are told exactly how they can be banned, and go ahead and risk it anyway. "Microsoft's Greed" is a separate issue that keeps getting brought into this discussion - as if that assertion will save anyone's LIVE account.
Yeah, MS is greedy, monopolistic, unfair, etc. Now wave goodbye to your achievement points. #piracy