Sony America spokesperson Peter Dille has admitted that piracy is a huge problem for the PlayStation Portable platform and that Sony knows it is missing out on a huge amount of sales.
Labelling the issue as utterly sickening, Dille admitted that piracy was a definite weakness for the PSP platform.
"I'm convinced and we're convinced that piracy has taken out a big chunk of our software sales on PSP," Dille said in an interview with Gamasutra.
"It's been a problem that the industry has to address together; it's one that I think the industry takes very seriously, but we need to do something to address this because it's criminal what's going on, quite frankly...We can look at data from BitTorrent sites from the day Resistance: Retribution goes on sale and see how many copies are being downloaded illegally, and it's frankly sickening."
Dille says that piracy has cost the PSP as many as 50 million individual sales, much of which is down to the inefficiency of the hardware when it comes to thwarting pirates. Without commenting on possible designs for the rumoured PSP2, Dille would say that he thinks the future for the platform is bright though once these hardware concerns are addressed, something Sony is very keen to do.
"[i]We learned a lot from the music business, and it became so easy and so common to download illegal music - everyone was doing it. It's almost like people lost sight with the fact that, well, 'If everyone's doing it, then it can't be that bad. But, it actually is bad; it's bad for the platform. Again, I'm not saying that that's a magic wand; I think that we have to make sure from a technological perspective that it's not as easy as it is to do that.[i]"
Dille also hopes that an upcoming string of first-party, big-budget titles for the platform should help the handheld regain some ground within the market. Do you think it will help? Let us know your thoughts in the forums.
Labelling the issue as utterly sickening, Dille admitted that piracy was a definite weakness for the PSP platform.
"I'm convinced and we're convinced that piracy has taken out a big chunk of our software sales on PSP," Dille said in an interview with Gamasutra.
"It's been a problem that the industry has to address together; it's one that I think the industry takes very seriously, but we need to do something to address this because it's criminal what's going on, quite frankly...We can look at data from BitTorrent sites from the day Resistance: Retribution goes on sale and see how many copies are being downloaded illegally, and it's frankly sickening."
Dille says that piracy has cost the PSP as many as 50 million individual sales, much of which is down to the inefficiency of the hardware when it comes to thwarting pirates. Without commenting on possible designs for the rumoured PSP2, Dille would say that he thinks the future for the platform is bright though once these hardware concerns are addressed, something Sony is very keen to do.
"[i]We learned a lot from the music business, and it became so easy and so common to download illegal music - everyone was doing it. It's almost like people lost sight with the fact that, well, 'If everyone's doing it, then it can't be that bad. But, it actually is bad; it's bad for the platform. Again, I'm not saying that that's a magic wand; I think that we have to make sure from a technological perspective that it's not as easy as it is to do that.[i]"
Dille also hopes that an upcoming string of first-party, big-budget titles for the platform should help the handheld regain some ground within the market. Do you think it will help? Let us know your thoughts in the forums.
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