Game Piracy Results in Lower Prices?

meejahor writes "The BBC reports that Sony will soon launch the PlayStation 2 in China, following Nintendo's lead with the GameCube. Most interesting about the story is the news that, because of widespread piracy in China, PS2 games 'will cost far less than they do in the US or the UK, but still be slightly more than pirated discs.' We've always been told that pirate games push prices up, but doesn't this news suggest that piracy in China has in fact pushed prices down? The story also notes that 'only two or three games will be available at launch' which seems crazy considering the likelihood that people will pirate imported games instead of waiting for them to be released officially." While the Chinese launch of PS2 has been known for a while, the pricing of Chinese games is pretty interesting, given their long history of piracy. I imagine this sort of thing would be considered in the U.S. and other countries were pirated games as widespread as they are in China.

Comments

Re:Lower prices

[GigsVT]

Some gamers might jizz their pants over the eye candy, but I think a lot of people would much rather good gameplay to life-like graphics. I know most of the people at LAN parties turn down the graphics options to get smoother gameplay, even the ones with high end video cards.

The graphics might be what sells a game, but it's not what keeps people playing it.