Numerous firmware updates and even the release of the digital-only PSPgo proved ineffective when it came to combating rampant PSP piracy, but Sony says it has moved to stop history repeating itself with PS Vita.
"That was front and centre in the early specs of this machine," he said. "We needed to have something that would combat piracy from day one, and that's why the cards that you can purchase for the games are in their own proprietary format.
"It's something that we felt was completely necessary to make sure that people could not pirate these games. I mean, it's a custom security solution on each one of these cartridges. That is something that we are confident will protect us from piracy for the long term."
Back in 2010, SCEA's Rob Dyer said: "The biggest problem that plagued PSP was piracy; we have not been able to slow that down.
"We think we have some answers going forward, but we're not ready to talk about that publicly at this point," he added. "So we're working on fixing that, because that's been a big problem. Publishers, when they put out good games, are not getting the same sales results that they got a few years back. So piracy's been a big issue and we're working on that very diligently to bring about some solutions."
Comments
10 comments so far...
WHERESMYMONKEY on 22 Feb '12 said:
Well of course having a specific format for a machine will stop piracy. It did wonders for the PSP oh wait,
The things already been hacked on the PSP side of its operating system. so the modders are already looking into it. As far as piracy is concerned i hope Sony have it under control. As far as the thing getting jailbroken in someway to play emulated stuff. I really hope it does. It might just be powerful enough to run DC games and maybe more if we're really lucky. A version of Dolphin (GC emulator) for it would make me buy the thing in a heart beat.
FinalBillybong on 22 Feb '12 said:
Ha! Thousands of hackers around world all just said 'Challange accpted'.
Richyrich316 on 22 Feb '12 said:
My thoughts exactly why do sony complain about piracy when they throw out the challenge like this.
If they did not bait the hackers etc maybe they might just might leave them alone for a little longer
Imaduck on 22 Feb '12 said:
Annnnnnnnd cue global facepalm
MD1500 on 22 Feb '12 said:
The thing is, Sony have probably lost a lot of sales due to these expensive memory cards - possibly far more than piracy will end up costing them. Case in point, I'd be willing to buy a Vita with at least 16gb memory, but I'm not willing to pay that much for one.
The 3DS uses standard SD cards and as far as I know, hasn't been hacked yet. I recently upgraded it to 16gb for the princely sum of £10....
billysastard on 22 Feb '12 said:
its a sony product so it was inevitable that pretty much everyone will be trying to hack it, i seriously hope that hackers manage to rape this console as hard as the psp, even more so since it contains a network lock for its sim card and is therefore legal to jailbreak.
payback is a bitch.
Fr33Kye on 22 Feb '12 said:
What are they paying sony back for? o.O It has a network lock because they have a deal with AT&T and i guess whatever carrier they are using outside of the realm of importance. lol.
Not sure why people want this thing to be hacked.
blogs on 23 Feb '12 said:
My thoughts exactly why do sony complain about piracy when they throw out the challenge like this.http://addled.info/g.gif
Mmmmgrolsch on 23 Feb '12 said:
What a complete and utter sad little man you are.
Old Skool Gamer on 23 Feb '12 said:
Sony said that about the PS3, and look what happened, give it time and someone out there will crack it.