Posted by pspcrazy on

By Vahid Mirjamali (Owner of PSPcrazy.com)

Software Piracy has been around since the floppies were invented; people were copying games and sharing with their friends and family if they too owned a computer. The first mass console piracy came when the Super Nintendo  Entertainment Center got a device that let people put ROMs into a cartridge (at that time only 1 game at a time worked). Then the first modchip was invented for the PS1, this was the first major move in piracy because it caused major concern from Sony and Nintendo over console game security. Sony personally sued many companies over selling and having mod chips in possession. Lik-Sang.com was personally one of those victims as it was one of the biggest modchip retailers at the time. They were shut down for around 2 years before being reopened fully legal. Now companies are wasting time and money inventing hundreds of ways to irritate their customers, they now are adding copy prevention software’s into their games.

Due to this the cost of games has not only risen a large amount, but the release date of the new next-gen consoles such as the Wii and the PS3 have been shifted back almost a whole year. These companies want to make sure that their games don’t get pirated so they are on a mission to build the invisible barrier around their games being copied, unfortunately the demands of piracy is so high, that “invisible protection” is broken down within the first year of that consoles release. That leaves us the customers not only sad and broken hearted, but also angry at the fact that the games cost us now 60 dollars versus the original 40 dollars.


I am sure most of you are noticing that piracy is growing daily by leaps and bounds. A few years back, I was the only one who even knew how to pirate ps1 and ps2 games in my school, now half the people I talk to know how to pirate game consoles, and how to play their pirated version of games. People feel that when you pirate it makes you seem cooler, and somewhat of a “hacker” (I am guessing this came from all those hacker movies from the early 90’s).  Man, they are wrong, piracy is what thief’s do in order to save their hard earned money for physical items that they can’t steal so easily.


The largest piracy breakout I have ever seen in my life to date is the PSP iso loader issue. It is not only one of the easiest systems to pirate, but it also requires no modchip. That means it cost the user nothing to fully pirate a game, and it doesn’t prevent even the youngest kid from pirating a PSP game. Although I am totally fine with having a backup of  a game you own, or putting ISO’s on your PSP if you own the game in order to speed up the games loading time (As some of the PSP games do have long loading times). I have been noticing the extreme decrease in good games coming out for the PSP. At first I believed that this issue stemmed from the fact that the console has high-graphical demands that are hard to meet, but now I have figured out the true reason that good games are hard to find on the PSP.
 

Game developers evaluate many different things on a game console before deciding to develop a highly time consuming game for it. They evaluate its system potential, its market share, its popularity, and most of all whether there game will truly sell on its console. If any one of the developers even is slightly up to beat with PSP news they will know right off the bat, that their games will be pirated the second it is released, and the second it is released the game will not sell to its potential. Then they see that the Nintendo DS (Nintendo’s portable system) has a low-rate of piracy compared to the PSP, and many more people own it, they will most likely go to the DS to develop games leaving the PSP in the dust. Now that leaves us, PSP owners with a copy of Dynasty warriors to brood over, or homebrew that bores us after a year.

In recent news headlines there is news of yet a new way to pirate games on the PSP unhindered by firmware issues or game compatibility issues. It is by the method of modchip, the soldered in version of the piracy loader. It will allow you from what we have heard to play ISO’s on any firmware, and all games will work on it. I must point out if you are stupid enough to pay $90 to buy a modchip for a system that costs 200 dollars, then go through the near impossible installation process, then for all I care feel free to brick your PSP, and try again. Modchip’s are like about as safe as the early downgrader when it was released, they are usually so buggy they brick ½ PSP’s it takes a good 6-8 months to perfect the modchip’s firmware. Even though I hate modchip’s, I feel for PSPCrazy’s members, so I will tell you this if you are going to truly get a modchip, for you own sake, WAIT! until a bug-free perfected version is released, it will save you the process of getting a new PSP :)

It is your choice to pirate or not, for the good of the PSP Scene, and the future of video games please put pirating to rest.