Hmmm, I never realised how much pirating software had hurt Sony....

[Gone to Shakers]

<div style='font: 12pt ; text-align: left; '>Examining 2000, I remember Sine and a lot of people posting how the N64 was a dead system, well:

2000, PSX reportedly had sold twice as many base units as N64, yet software sales were relatively the same, the reason for this result must be from pirating:

US Top 10 Best Selling PlayStation Games of 2000

Rank Game Title Developer Genre Units
1 Tony Hawk's Pro Skater 2 Activision SPT 1,553,269
2 *Tony Hawk's Pro Skater Activision SPT 1,300,029
3 *Gran Turismo 2 Sony RAC 1,155,469
4 Madden NFL 2001 Electronic Arts SPT 990,914
5 Final Fantasy IX Square EA RPG 987,354
6 WWF Smackdown THQ SPT 976,143
7 Driver 2 Infogrames RAC 804,447
8 WWF Smackdown 2: Know Your Role THQ SPT 759,620
9 Syphon Filter 2 989 Studios A.AVG 711,997
10 Driver Infogrames RAC 675,446

US Top 10 Best Selling Nintendo 64 Games of 2000

Rank Game Title Developer Genre Units
1 Pokemon Stadium Nintendo SLG 1,701,820
2 Legend of Zelda: Majora's Mask Nintendo ARPG 1,206,489
3 Tony Hawk's Pro Skater Activision SPT 1,007,806
4 Perfect Dark Nintendo ACT 940,963
5 WWF No Mercy THQ FIG 764,737
6 Mario Party 2 Nintendo VAR 702,054
7 Star Wars: Episode 1: Racer Nintendo RAC 632,143
8 The World Is Not Enough Electronic Arts ACT 517,694
9 Mario Tennis Nintendo SPT 503,200
10 Donkey Kong 64 Nintendo ACT 499,294


And look at the top publishers:

Top 10 US Publishers of 2000

Rank Publisher Units Dollars
1 Nintendo 26,807,180 $955,169,820
2 Electronic Arts 11,946,160 $435,493,079
3 Activision 9,775,986 $332,803,304
4 THQ 6,956,563 $262,998,114
5 Sega 6,332,560 $262,494,552
6 Sony 8,927,900 $244,438,591
7 Midway 4,058,503 $135,982,929
8 Acclaim 4,684,894 $134,503,569
9 Capcom 3,633,586 $124,124,609
10 Infogrames 3,913,971 $112,687,963

Take a note that Electronic Arts (The Sims was released this year) and Infogrames have most of their sales from PC software, Activision is normally mostly a PC software company as well, but this was when THPS was very popular.</div>

[Eric]

<div style='font: 11pt ; text-align: left; '>I'm not gonna get into how pirating slaughtered the Dreamcast.</div>

[Zeus]

<div style='font: 9pt ; text-align: left; '>But the PSX did WAAAAAAAAAAAAY better in the 10-30 spots vs N64. Remember, N64 just equaled them in the top 10 games</div>

[SineSwiper]

<div style='font: 11pt "EngraversGothic BT", "Copperplate Gothic Light"; text-align: left; '>The problem is that I would buy Dreamcast games if they didn't cost 50 fucking dollars!</div>

[Eric]

<div style='font: 11pt ; text-align: left; '>Legitimate reason there Sine.</div>

[Stephen]

<div style='font: 10pt Arial; text-align: left; '>So do most of the new PS2, XBox, and GC titles. Looks like you won't be buying anything for a while.</div>

[WolfSamurai]

<div style='font: 14pt Agatha; text-align: left; '>1.) Most DC games can be easily had for less than $50 now that it's a dead system and 2.) As has been said, $50 is normal for most new video games. Deal with it.</div>

[Eric]

<div style='font: 11pt ; text-align: left; '>Hell Final Fantasy III cost $60+ when it was released here on the Super Nintendo.</div>

[Blotus]

<div style='font: 10pt "arial narrow"; text-align: left; padding: 0% 5% 0% 5%; '>Aye. It, Chrono Trigger, and other RPGs used to all be $99.99+tax here. I also remember seeing some ridiculously priced N64 games when that first came out. I think it was Wal Mart that had Doom64 for $129+tax.</div>

[Eric]

<div style='font: 11pt ; text-align: left; '>Heh, when Phantasy Star IV came out for the Genisis is was $99.99. :P I NEVER understood that one, unfortunately I rented it for 5 days, gave it back, then got the rom, got annoyed having to play through it again, so I quit again.</div>

[Gone to Shakers]

<div style='font: 12pt ; text-align: left; '>Yeah, I never understood why ports of crappy PC shooters like Doom, Hexen, and Quake, on medium sized cartridges always cost so damn much. The best games were always priced around $70-85 (including titles on huge cartridges: THPS, Zelda, Ogre Battle, and Resident Evil), and the worst ones at $120+</div>

[Gone to Shakers]

<div style='font: 12pt ; text-align: left; '>Actually I remember the N64 having about 6% less of a market share, but anyways, link?</div>

[Gone to Shakers]

<div style='font: 12pt ; text-align: left; '>Actually I remember the N64 having about 6% less of a market share in software unit sales even though the console was on its last legs and games priced above PSX's (reason why was pirating, otherwise logically PSX should have been selling over 2X as much as N64 in software), but if you say so, link?</div>

[Gone to Shakers]

<div style='font: 12pt ; text-align: left; '>Remember? No, not really, link?</div>

[Gone to Shakers]

<div style='font: 12pt ; text-align: left; '>By the time the DC was released, pirating was already heavily established, with most people having CD burners by that point.</div>

[Zeus]

<div style='font: 9pt ; text-align: left; '>Wow, sales THAT old? Hmm, try Magic Box. There's a reason PSX had 120 Greatest Hits games (150,000+ to qualify) and N64 had under a dozen million sellers. That's was the PSXs strength, the "good" games. N64 had almost as many "excellent" games, but those were the only ones that sold</div>

[Judgment 1999]

<div style='font: 12pt ; text-align: left; '>Most expensive game I ever bought. Man it was like $110 after tax.</div>

[Judgment 1999]

<div style='font: 12pt ; text-align: left; '>Yep, I remember shelling out around $70 U.S. for Chrono Trigger. Well worth it though.</div>

[Eric]

<div style='font: 11pt ; text-align: left; '>Did you ever beat it?</div>

[WolfSamurai]

<div style='font: 14pt Agatha; text-align: left; '>Shit, man I got the game for the cost of a rental at Blockbuster, a cheap bargin bin Genesis game, and a pair of needle-nose pliars. :)</div>

[Don]

<div style='font: 12pt ; text-align: left; '>I bought CT for $99</div>

[Zeus]

<div style='font: 9pt ; text-align: left; '>US? Goddamn! It was that much in Cdn dollars!</div>

[Judgment 1999]

<div style='font: 12pt ; text-align: left; '>Yep, several times.</div>

[Eric]

<div style='font: 11pt ; text-align: left; '>Don't suppose you'd mind telling me how long it took you your first time around?</div>

[ak404]

<div style='font: 9pt "Courier New"; text-align: left; '>That, and the prices, of course. Pretty easy to sell a game when there's a good supply of it at a $30-50 a pop, as opposed to $60-70 a pop. (remember Zelda?)</div>

[Judgment 1999]

<div style='font: 12pt ; text-align: left; '>Took quite awhile. I'd have to say a good 40 hours of gameplay at least.</div>

[SineSwiper]

<div style='font: 11pt "EngraversGothic BT", "Copperplate Gothic Light"; text-align: left; '>Most games aren't worth $50, and therefore I'll pirate them. Deal with it. You don't see me buying copies of MS Office, do you?</div>

[SineSwiper]

<div style='font: 11pt "EngraversGothic BT", "Copperplate Gothic Light"; text-align: left; '>Exactly.</div>

[Zeus]

<div style='font: 9pt ; text-align: left; '>Most new DC games are now $10-20 (all but a couple, basically) and it's $50 for the system. That's worth it, no?</div>

[WolfSamurai]

<div style='font: 14pt Agatha; text-align: left; '>*sniff sniff* I smell some really thin rationalization boys and girls. As has been pointed out ~repeatedly~ Sine, most DC games are NOT $50 (or even close) so you're just pirating because you're cheap.</div>

[SineSwiper]

<div style='font: 11pt "EngraversGothic BT", "Copperplate Gothic Light"; text-align: left; '>Yeah, and I have no problem with that. I'll already bought a few DC games. Hell, I have numerous adaptors for my DC, including the keyboard convertor.</div>

[Garford]

<div style='font: 9pt ; text-align: left; '>Situation around SE Asia has gotten better due to constant pressure from companies like Microsoft, Sony etc on the government, but places like China, problems arising from piracy is getting worse.

From a newspaper report that I read in January, about 70% small and medium enterprises in China are using pirated software.

Imagine how bad the situation is for the game market, where the development cycle is short and new products keep popping up.</div>