[playa_playa]

Originally Posted by TheGame

Umm... why can't they just do like Sony? Make it harder to pirate next time?

Exactly my point. It seems you have acquiesced that piracy is bad regardless of userbase considerations. Anti-piracy will have to be a facet to be discussed with MS in the next generation. My point in arguing this is that this bad move (which allowed easy pirating) worked against MS and forced them to be tighter w/ their options in their next considerations (since it will reduce their profit margin drastically; whether the primary goal was to build userbase or not). I don't think anyone can make a point in saying that MS expected to totally lose money this generation to make money next generation. If that were the case, why not give Xbox's away?

A hardcore Halo fan who pirated it this gen, and can't pirate it next gen, will buy it next gen. Right? I know people who didn't buy jack in the Psx generation, many people, but once Ps2 came out and they could no longer pirate, did they just crawl in a hole and quit on Sony? Nope. If anything, all the pirating just turned into an ad for the games they could miss out on Ps2.

Halo is just a game. To pirates, anything that is able to be bootlegged has a playtime value. In their mindset, anything that is free is worth trying out compared to something that may be good, but comes with a $50 price tag. Just as your anecdote about people who amateurly bootlegged ps games, I know of too many stories about people who do nothing but buy systems and pirate. This builds userbase how?

And how many exclusive aa titles does Xbox have to warrant this sort of loyalty? Okay, there's Halo, I guess....and like, some other stuff. Let's say that another system comes out w/ about the same number of AA titles or more, you think those people who pirated Xbox games are gonna stick around w/ Xbox2 b/c they saw some good titles w/ Xbox but see a hell of a lot more in PS3 or some other system?

I've said it many many times: DC pirating was one of the reasons it went downhill - one of the primary reasons. You think those people who bought a DC, pirated the hell out of it, are all migrating to Sega games now b/c they saw quality in Sega? Is that why Sega's doing so well now?

So I guess you're saying pirating isn't much of a problem if not a blessing in disguise given MS's situation. I guess somehow you could make that argument. But I'm not buying it. Profit is profit. Profit allows more amibitous ventures. Even if you're saying potential userbase built w/ pirates may allow eventual migration, I don't see how a cogent businesses would allow a marginalizing subsidiary to develop bigger by dumping more and more funds into it - even if it's clear that the subsidiary lost money and lost it big. Sure, you can make an argument about making an initial impact. But through the lifetime of Xbox (I dunno, say, 4-5 fiscal years?), if profits keep marginalizing due to piracy and hardware losses, MS could very well rethink their strategy in the console market.

Also, pirating on Xbox right now is far from popular... and much harder and more expensive to do... and if MS finds out who started it (hey, they did it before), it could be far more costlier than the whole pirating game on Psx.

Well, according to your argument, if it's far from popular, MS is losing out on potential userbase, right? heh, j/k.

And this is right after how I explained how easy and cheap it is to pirate? Back in the days of PS pirating, you had to either buy bootlegged games or buy a cd burner (which was costly back then) and the modchip - the modchip required soldering.

There are myriad of easy-to-install modchips for Xbox that requires no soldering. Most of them cost anywhere around the $60 mark. You can then either buy a dvd burner (which most hardcore modders don't recommend), or buy a large HDD to replace internal one in the Xbox. All of this is done w/o any soldering, is easy as replacing a computer part (since Xbox parts are essentially computer parts) and most of all, only requires $60 for the modchip and about $80 for a respectable HDD - which equals to buying about 3 Xbox games, if that.

Getting the games themselves? Hard? hahahahaha, thanks for a good laugh. If you know how to use newsgroups, which every movie, software and porn bootleggers in this country know how to use, you can d/l all of the games absolutely free of charge. Just use your newsreader and search around for Xbox dvd images.

Don't wanna go through the trouble of using newsgroups? Then get a generic dvd-ripping program, goto your local blockbuster, rent an Xbox game, then write it into a dvd image. Transfer it to the Xbox via a network cable (how much does this cost? $5?), voila, done. Btw, doesn't it sound like the computer-like setup of Xbox is responsible for this?

I suggest you browse some boards about Xbox modding, and then make a statement about its difficulty. I don't know where you're getting this hard and expensive and far from popular tirade from, but I think it's pretty far from the truth.

MS knows there's piracy going around with Xbox. Hell, they know that there's piracy going around w/ all of their software! But how can they regulate newgroups? You think b/c the music industry knows about ripping mp3's that they can do a lot to stop it? Give me a break.

Which bring me back to my original point: if MS wants to stop piracy, it has to be done through hardware. It's simply too late to fix Xbox to stop this. Therefore, it has to happen in the next generation.