Piracy has exerted a drag on the PlayStation Portable’s software sales since day one, and will continue to do so for the foreseeable future, right? Wrong. Or so Sony Computer Entertainment America’s Head of Hardware Marketing, John Koller, would have you believe.
“We’ve made really no secret [that there] certainly has been some piracy on the PSP,” Koller told MTV. “We’ve seen that as a significant issue — it’s trending down right now, we’ve seen the piracy not be as such prevalent in the last month to two months. But it has been a problem for us."
We’re not sure Sony’s out of the woods yet, if recent NPD figures are anything to go by. PSP continues to be a solid hardware performer, often trumping both its overweight younger sister the PS3 and Microsoft’s crash-prone jack-in-the-box, but when was the last time you saw PSP software hit the top ten?
“We’ve noticed there’s kind of a ‘good vs. evil’ battle that we track on many of the forums and many of the pirated web sites,” Koller went on with a laugh. “There’s certainly people that are standing up and fighting for what we consider the good side, the rights of developers and publishers to make money on their IP.
"And then there’s certainly the other side that believes that they can take as warranted. It’s kind of been nice to see other consumers going and help and fight the battle for us.”
If you want our opinion (you’re going to get it regardless), a sound way to beat piracy might be to offer legitimate users of PSP software additional value, rather than punishing the illegitimate. Carrot rather than stick, in short. For example: Sony might release free downloadable levels or character skins, unlocked by inputting a one-time-use code printed on the UMD itself.
That’s our two cents – let us know what you think in the comments thread.