• Originally Released: January 18th, 2005 (US)
  
• Publisher: Ignition Entertainment
  
• Genre: Action Puzzle / Bejeweled Style!
  
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Written by Matthew Latino, recorded by Jason Evangelho.

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It is not hard to see that outside of Japan and Korea that the PSP is not doing so well. Not only because of its sparse collection of good games but also due to rampant piracy. The piracy has actually become so severe that it has created a negative spiral for the platform, causing most third party developers, according to Sony’s senior vice president of marketing Peter Dille to be “…just about ready to jump off the cliff and pull support…” Dille goes onto to say in a interview he had with Gamasutra that:

“It’s not good for us, but it’s not good for the development community. 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.”

According to him, Sony attributes the loss in sales revenue due to the fact that older versions of its firmware, which can be easily hacked and modded (and has been happening the beginning of the PSP’s launch) are still readily available and it is almost impossible to compel users to upgrade. In addition, Sony also claims to be trying to close the piracy gaps so that piracy doesn’t affect this year’s titles [Ed. Note: Sony's had some brief luck in closing off version 5.50 of the PSP firmware]. Still, in the information age situations like these are not uncommon, they’re almost expected.

In many cases, piracy has become far cheaper to get into than actually buying games.

Piracy has been at the forefront of gaming politics for most every system for a few years now, but it is only with the success of services like BitTorrent and devices like the R4 and other DS flashcarts that have really put a damper on videogame sales. For example GTA: Chinatown Wars also did not meet its expected sales by significant numbers due to the readily available downloads and the cheap price of DS flashcarts. It does not end with portable market, Xbox 360 games are also heavily pirated, although to a much lesser extent due to the requirement to physically modify your system, and of course who could forget the various ROMs for older systems and the PC warez scene (most recently being in the news for the Demigod fiasco) that are constantly passed around file sharing sites like a steaming plate of paella. But what can developers do to prevent rampant piracy? From where I stand there are very few options.

They could convert their medium to proprietary formats like Sony’s Blu-ray discs for PS3, which has seen a rather minute amount of piracy since its launch; however, developers cannot just change the hardware of their systems and hope everyone will make the change. It would be naïve if they believed that would actually work. They could add lock out codes or chips into the games themselves, but pirates have always found ways around this method since the days of the SNES. I am sorry that I at the moment cannot think of another logical method to prevent the problem, but I really do not see any other way that is even feasible.

Look, I am one of those people who loves the industry enough to always buy his or her games. Sure with the influx of so many new titles I mostly find myself buying games used to save me some dough (which is another argument in and of itself that faces the industry, but that is a story for another time) but even if I want to try a game people say is good I never look towards piracy. Sure I own an R4, but I only have two games on it: One being the Pokemon Trading Card Game for the Gameboy Color (whose original cartridge’s internal battery have been known to fail and thus cannot save your progress) and a fan translation of Mother 3 (which is the only way I am going to be able to play and enjoy it until Nintendo realizes that we “deserve” to see Mother again). I admit by having these two games that there are certain situations that make piracy almost necessary in order to play a game, but when a game just comes out there is no moral reason to download it for free. Let it be known that the current recession should not make this act acceptable as piracy was done before and will still be done after we pass this moment in history.

By downloading games for free people are hurting the industry, preventing certain games from getting sequels and even keeping newer projects from seeing the light of day. How can videogames evolve as a medium if it is constantly being held back by piracy? I know the same can be said about movies, music, television and even books but at least those mediums had enough time to exist in a period where piracy as we now know it (on the Internet) was even possible. I know I cannot sway the gaming public with the words I write here today as I end this article feeling nothing but the sheer weight of pessimism that surrounds the situation. I can only hope that the future of gaming can at least withstand this issue until a true solution is found.

In typical fashion, Atlus has released the first English screenshots for Shin Megami Tensei: Devil Survivor to their faithful members. The game looks like it is shaping up to be a premier title and excellent edition to Atlus’ flagship series with great sprite detail and absolutely gorgeous background design. Little is actually known about the game’s story except that you play as another nameless, silent protagonist trapped with you friends in a quarantined area in Tokyo that is infested with demons.

What makes this game unique is that it looks to be the start of an entirely new spin off series (something that the franchise is familiar with), and we at TPG (especially me) cannot wait to see what new directions the series will take. Nevertheless we will of course see loads of intertwining dialogue-filled twists, bizarre mythology-based demons and a great big helping of Jack Frost.

We will be sure to update you when more information comes our way. The title is predicted to reach our shelves on June 23.