True fans probably will buy the online version too. But my guess is that they'll have to wait until the PS3 comes out for GT 5. Why? Because I think the online play was dropped because the PS2 doesn't have the horsepower to present the photorealistic GT we're all spoiled with now, and handle online multiplayer. There are other online racing games for the PS2 like NASCAR and Midnight Club. But those games have far less overall modelling detail than GT, and even at that you're talking about 4-6 car races with 4 being the best you can do performance wise generally.
So I'd say look for GT 5 to a PS3 launch title in late 2005 or early 2006. If they do it right, it should blow everyone's socks off!
Given that the online part of GT 4 was the big new thing, I think that Sony now has big time egg on their faces. So I'm going to make the big ol' guess that they will want to do something to make up for it in part. I wouldn't be too surprised to see GT 4 bundled with the new PStwo for XMas at some discount. And to sweeten the deal a bit, I'm guessing that while there won't be online multiplayer, there probably will be some kind of online goodies, like leader boards and stats, and maybe some downloadable cars later. They might even have downloads of player data for ghost races.
Now to toot my own horn, I speculated on this several weeks ago in my blog!
By using such a high capacity read only storage medium, I wonder if this signals even less need for an internal hard drive for the PS3. If the console has enough system memory and/or available memory cards with fast enough read write access and fast throughput, then most games should be able to support updates/patches on the fly. If the memory cards really are up to it, then even a large RPG should be doable without need for a console HD. Most of the game world is going to be static so it can live on the read only disk. Updates for patches and special events are small diffs relative to the global data, so those reside on memory cards and loaded on the fly. Major expansions come on all new disks.
What does this all mean? It means that the PS3 is even less likely to come out with a HD and by extension, the same can be said for Xbox 2 since it will likely use a disks of similar capacity (to keep up in the spec war). I'd expect to see memory cards for both boxes come in 128MB and 256MB flavors.
This is just lovely! Just another nail in the coffin of PC games. The usual sort of system setup woes are bad enough without the game publisher intentionally causing pain in the name of copy protection. The average user is not going to even try to figure this out, they'll just return the game. And given the large presence of casual gamers in the Sims demographic, that could be a lot of returns.
Yeah, I know most casual gamers probably wouldn't have CD emulation software installed themselves. But a lot of people share the computer with others who might have installed who knows what, especially kids. The Sims 2 scheme is just a recipe for disaster, which still won't stop the real pirates anyway! I won't be buying this for my PC, but I might check out Sims for Xbox which is going for $20 these days and got pretty good reviews.
Given Lucas' attititude about the original version of the Star Wars Trilogy, don't be surprised if he offers a bounty on the VHS sets out there. It'll be something like a discount on the DVD boxed set if you turn in a VHS set. Where will all of these VHS copies go? Why right next to all of those copies of ET for the Atari 2600 out in the desert! Lucas won't be satisfied until the original ceases to exist. It all has a very 1984esque feel to it.
Looks like my crystal ball may be working pretty good with respect to the PSTwo!
If it does come to pass, perhaps this re-released PS2 will offer some design/esthetic insights into the upcoming PS3. Will it be all curvy and meant to stand out from the rest of your entertainment components or will it be made to be right at home with them. These could be clues about how Sony feels about convergence after the relatively unsuccessful PSX in Japan.
I think the PSP consideration is a major factor in Sony's decision to buy MGM. Hopefully, Sony is not stupid enough to set themselves up for another Betamax style failure. If that is the case, then the PSP angle makes more sense. Having a huge library for UMD formatted discs will only help PSP sales and keep a large chunk of movies out of any competing portable player formats that may arise in the future. Remember, during the Playstation 2 launch in Japan, a lot of PS2s were being bought to play DVD movies. Granted, there weren't a lot of games for the Japanese launch, but there was a clear spike in DVD sales there. And it is likely that some percentage of those people never played games on the console at all. In other words, Sony effectively sold the console to nongamers (actually this isn't good given that consoles lose money initially).
So if history repeats itself, Sony could find a market for the PSP among nongamers if they have a large movie library in UMD. And best of all, for Sony, sales of the PSP as a portable movie player will still make an overall profit for them, more so if people buy Columbia and MGM movies on UMD.
Hmmm, isn't Lik-Sang just asking to be sued by Nintendo with this update? If you want one of these new players, you'd better hurry because I just don't see how this is going to stay on the market very long. I have to admit though, I like the cool gadgets that Lik-Sang sells, but this player is definitely in a gray zone now!
Well I'm glad to see that we are hearing more and more opposing viewpoints on the outsourcing issue from noted economists. Like most things, the truth is probably somewhere in the middle. Indeed, the only thing that makes this round of outsourcing different is the fact that high paying relatively high skill jobs are leaving the U.S.. And as a result, wages are falling in the U.S.. In the long term the leakage will probably stop, but I think the depressed wages are here to stay until the next big thing comes along. For my part, this has all taught me to take a more entrepreneural outlook on my career and be more than just a wage slave.
I agree, just change the characters and story and that should be okay. Granted, this is a lot of work, but to have come so far, they've probably learned enough that building something truly original should be within reach. Indeed, now they can just let their imaginations run wild!
First, I think that it is a wonderful idea to re-release the Atari Classics. The price point is right and there may actually be a good market there with little overhead development costs. I would guess that this will be released in Japan as well as North America and Europe. Nintendo has had some great success with their nostalgia releases in Japan, so Atari may be hoping for the same thing.
Now for the dark side of this, sort of... The original Atari was well known for suing anyone who even sniffed at any of their intellectual property. While this is not the old Atari, releasing so many of what seemingly were abandoned games could set the stage for some serious RIAA style legal action. I hope it will not come to anything that ugly, but if I were running an emulation or ROMs site, I would take the soon to be arriving cease and desist letters very seriously. I hope that Atari won't attack its fans this way, as I'm sure many of us will be buying the re-releases. But someone at Atari may be preparing to cry havoc and set loose the dogs of law!
I'm a big Star Trek fan, but I just don't see how there is any room left in the MMORPG market for this game. After all of the disappointment of Star Wars Galaxies and the cancellations of numerous online games, I think the market is saturated. The only thing left is to cannibalize current MMORPG players.
As far as business goes, if they plan ahead for a high level of member churn and keep the game fun for newcomers, then maybe there is a chance. But if they think that in today's market they'll get and keep say 500000 players, they're crazy! The people who would play this game are probably already playing an MMORPG. After EQ and SWG, I've settled on FFXI as my MMORPG home and have no plans to leave. I also have no plans to add another fee based game to the budget.
Even as a fan, at least three things would have to happen for me to look at a Star Trek MMORPG.
1. Fee must be very low, or some entirely new and palatable fee model. No fee would be great, but not likely.
2. It'd better have content and be a generally kick a*s game. In other words, I won't be there on day one and will wait for player reviews. So they'd better have learned for the SWG fiasco.
3. The system requirements must be reasonable. I won't spend $100 or more to upgrade my rig. I know my 1GHz PIII is pokey by todays standards, even with a fast video card and 512MB of RAM, but it runs most things just fine. No I wouldn't even think of Doom 3 on this box!
Don't gag, but I'd be more likely to try this game if there were an XBox version, or PS2 with HD. So I hope they're at least least thinking about tapping the console market.
As many have quipped here already, there isn't likely to be a settlement in this case. So assuming that the lawyers themselves are not stupid, this cap agreement would seem to indicate that SCO has not yet racked up $31M in billing charges. And again, if the lawyers are not stupid, they probably already know, perhaps better than anyone else, that there isn't going to be a settlement. So it seems likely that when the $31M cap is reached, the lawyers will bail out. There's probably some kind of contract clause that will allow them to do this. If one knows how much has been billed already and the rate of billing, then it is possible to estimate how long it will be before the lawyers bail given the cap.
It all sounds pretty slimy when you think about it. I mean, how many millions were made on the SCO share run-up for largely baseless litigation? And one can bet that the lawyers aren't taking a loss on this deal. So they all do okay. To borrow a Chinese expression, its a sharing pork world!
Interesting. I had wondered what this price drop for the SP would do to the plain ol' GBA. You never even see the original GBA in the ads anymore. I wonder if Nintendo is even making GBA's. It's too bad really, because all the original GBA really needed was a backlit screen. I like my SP just fine, but it's easier to grip the original GBA.
As for the fast turnover though, I don't think that has hurt Nintendo all that much in the Japanese market. In Japan, consumers tend to get bored with things faster than in North America. So companies are always trying to come out with new things relatively quickly. Nintendo's NES styled SP and accompanying NES re-releases have been a big hit in Japan, but has met with less success in NA.
This certainly looks like an interesting test of the waters with only 500 units. Good or bad, these will probably become a hit on eBay. I really haven't looked lately, but I still haven't heard of any WMA based services that are the equivalent of ITMS in terms of ease of use and the not hassling too much about burning CDs of purchased music. Stylish player packaging is nice, but I bought an iPod because the whole package was attractive and easy to use. I think though, if Microsoft's upcoming ITMS clone is any good, then things will get really interesting.
McElroy, who writes a column for FoxNews.com, reports being dismayed at finding educated women who are "genuinely horrified at the prospect of dealing with 'lesser' and 'lower' men as equals in their personal lives." But one of the findings of evolutionary psychology is that females of whatever species are hot-wired to find the best possible mate.
This is already a problem in the African American community. A large proportion of men are either in prison or have been in prison which limits future economic prospects. And of those who have not been incarcerated a large proportion are unemployed or underemployed. On the flipside, African American women outnumber their male counterparts in college and are attending in increasing numbers. As a result, the prospect for finding an African American mate of comparable education and social station is on the decline. You can read about this in Ebony magazine every year. The result of this has been a great deal of friction (the bad kind) between black men and black women.
The language and accent related issues are really just a natural consequence of offshoring. In the beginning most of the people working the call centers in India (for example) were probably among the best educated there. As demand grew, more call centers were opened and more people in India heard that this was a good way to make some money. Well, the proportion of well educated and talented people in India is probably no different than in the U.S., so it was inevitable that many of the people working in the call centers now are not among the best educated and most talented. Not that they're morons, just average folk. I mean really, how many of us could communicate fluently in a foreign language? I could communicate very very badly in two or three others. With a predetermined script I could do better, but that's about it. And forget about casual conversation!
While companies could try to better train their workers, I think that with respect to foreign language skills a limit is being reached. That is, even if the person in the call center understands English perfectly, they may still have an accent when speaking it that a U.S. customer will have a hard time with. I personally like accents, but Indian accented English is one of the most difficult for me to understand. I usually have to know the person for a while to fully understand what they are saying. Unfortunately, an already upset customer in the U.S. is not likely to have the patience for that.
A lot of comments here have focused on battery life. I think that the integrated chipset may have another potential benefit. It may make the PSP easier to develop for. If this is the case, it will give the PSP a better chance of competing with the GBA and the DS. It has already been reported that Gran Turismo for the PSP will be a nearly straight port from the PS2 version. Assuming this is not overly difficult, it means that the PSP should be able to draw on the large library of PSOne and PS2 games for its first generation. Hopefully some brand new stuff will be made too, but living off of ports isn't so bad in the first year.
Ease of development was a big plus for the original Playstation. And the initial difficulty of development hobbled the PS2 (killed Saturn). Hopefully Sony is designing the PSP with development considerations in mind. Of course those batteries had better last more than a couple of hours too!
I can see the next version of Dance Dance Revolution on Playstation 3 using something like this. Combined with the Eye Toy, you could end up in some major traction!
Given that so called ordinary people will not need a Terabyte's worth of storage anytime soon, if a writable version of the 1TB HVD gets to market could this be the last disk you'll need? Hmmm, probably not since history has shown that we always find a way to exceed whatever the maximum storage capacity of a given medium is. I guess people will just fill them up with movies and pr0n. Oh, I'm sure Doom 4 will probably come on one or two of these!
Another question is will the recording and movie industries ever let something like this reach the market. Even if there are never writable versions for the consumer market, they seem pretty skittish about anything that might further ease the storage of digital data. This should be fun to watch!
This probably won't bring down game prices, but you do make an interesting point about piracy. Pirates are just like anyone else, they are influenced by ads and will probably buy some of the products. So if a heavily pirated game is indeed piling up ad revenue, then I would expect the game publisher to make sure that they get their cut of that. Indeed, this might even lead to less aggressive pursuit of pirates by said publishers. Afterall, if the pirates are ultimately making more money for them, they can hardly complain. I'd love to see the numbers on this!
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True fans probably will buy the online version too. But my guess is that they'll have to wait until the PS3 comes out for GT 5. Why? Because I think the online play was dropped because the PS2 doesn't have the horsepower to present the photorealistic GT we're all spoiled with now, and handle online multiplayer. There are other online racing games for the PS2 like NASCAR and Midnight Club. But those games have far less overall modelling detail than GT, and even at that you're talking about 4-6 car races with 4 being the best you can do performance wise generally.
So I'd say look for GT 5 to a PS3 launch title in late 2005 or early 2006. If they do it right, it should blow everyone's socks off!
Given that the online part of GT 4 was the big new thing, I think that Sony now has big time egg on their faces. So I'm going to make the big ol' guess that they will want to do something to make up for it in part. I wouldn't be too surprised to see GT 4 bundled with the new PStwo for XMas at some discount. And to sweeten the deal a bit, I'm guessing that while there won't be online multiplayer, there probably will be some kind of online goodies, like leader boards and stats, and maybe some downloadable cars later. They might even have downloads of player data for ghost races.
Now to toot my own horn, I speculated on this several weeks ago in my blog!
By using such a high capacity read only storage medium, I wonder if this signals even less need for an internal hard drive for the PS3. If the console has enough system memory and/or available memory cards with fast enough read write access and fast throughput, then most games should be able to support updates/patches on the fly. If the memory cards really are up to it, then even a large RPG should be doable without need for a console HD. Most of the game world is going to be static so it can live on the read only disk. Updates for patches and special events are small diffs relative to the global data, so those reside on memory cards and loaded on the fly. Major expansions come on all new disks.
What does this all mean? It means that the PS3 is even less likely to come out with a HD and by extension, the same can be said for Xbox 2 since it will likely use a disks of similar capacity (to keep up in the spec war). I'd expect to see memory cards for both boxes come in 128MB and 256MB flavors.
This is just lovely! Just another nail in the coffin of PC games. The usual sort of system setup woes are bad enough without the game publisher intentionally causing pain in the name of copy protection. The average user is not going to even try to figure this out, they'll just return the game. And given the large presence of casual gamers in the Sims demographic, that could be a lot of returns.
Yeah, I know most casual gamers probably wouldn't have CD emulation software installed themselves. But a lot of people share the computer with others who might have installed who knows what, especially kids. The Sims 2 scheme is just a recipe for disaster, which still won't stop the real pirates anyway! I won't be buying this for my PC, but I might check out Sims for Xbox which is going for $20 these days and got pretty good reviews.
Given Lucas' attititude about the original version of the Star Wars Trilogy, don't be surprised if he offers a bounty on the VHS sets out there. It'll be something like a discount on the DVD boxed set if you turn in a VHS set. Where will all of these VHS copies go? Why right next to all of those copies of ET for the Atari 2600 out in the desert! Lucas won't be satisfied until the original ceases to exist. It all has a very 1984esque feel to it.
Looks like my crystal ball may be working pretty good with respect to the PSTwo!
If it does come to pass, perhaps this re-released PS2 will offer some design/esthetic insights into the upcoming PS3. Will it be all curvy and meant to stand out from the rest of your entertainment components or will it be made to be right at home with them. These could be clues about how Sony feels about convergence after the relatively unsuccessful PSX in Japan.
I think the PSP consideration is a major factor in Sony's decision to buy MGM. Hopefully, Sony is not stupid enough to set themselves up for another Betamax style failure. If that is the case, then the PSP angle makes more sense. Having a huge library for UMD formatted discs will only help PSP sales and keep a large chunk of movies out of any competing portable player formats that may arise in the future. Remember, during the Playstation 2 launch in Japan, a lot of PS2s were being bought to play DVD movies. Granted, there weren't a lot of games for the Japanese launch, but there was a clear spike in DVD sales there. And it is likely that some percentage of those people never played games on the console at all. In other words, Sony effectively sold the console to nongamers (actually this isn't good given that consoles lose money initially).
So if history repeats itself, Sony could find a market for the PSP among nongamers if they have a large movie library in UMD. And best of all, for Sony, sales of the PSP as a portable movie player will still make an overall profit for them, more so if people buy Columbia and MGM movies on UMD.
I just bundle my iPod in a little cozy for warmth! Take a look here at 3 seconds of fame for my iPod!
This isn't so bad, it just means that the premium customers get to beta test the patches for the rest of us!
Hmmm, isn't Lik-Sang just asking to be sued by Nintendo with this update? If you want one of these new players, you'd better hurry because I just don't see how this is going to stay on the market very long. I have to admit though, I like the cool gadgets that Lik-Sang sells, but this player is definitely in a gray zone now!
"How you decipher homebrew is up to you."
Hmmm, we'll see!
Damn! No more silly walkin down Michigan avenue for me!
Well I'm glad to see that we are hearing more and more opposing viewpoints on the outsourcing issue from noted economists. Like most things, the truth is probably somewhere in the middle. Indeed, the only thing that makes this round of outsourcing different is the fact that high paying relatively high skill jobs are leaving the U.S.. And as a result, wages are falling in the U.S.. In the long term the leakage will probably stop, but I think the depressed wages are here to stay until the next big thing comes along. For my part, this has all taught me to take a more entrepreneural outlook on my career and be more than just a wage slave.
I agree, just change the characters and story and that should be okay. Granted, this is a lot of work, but to have come so far, they've probably learned enough that building something truly original should be within reach. Indeed, now they can just let their imaginations run wild!
First, I think that it is a wonderful idea to re-release the Atari Classics. The price point is right and there may actually be a good market there with little overhead development costs. I would guess that this will be released in Japan as well as North America and Europe. Nintendo has had some great success with their nostalgia releases in Japan, so Atari may be hoping for the same thing.
Now for the dark side of this, sort of... The original Atari was well known for suing anyone who even sniffed at any of their intellectual property. While this is not the old Atari, releasing so many of what seemingly were abandoned games could set the stage for some serious RIAA style legal action. I hope it will not come to anything that ugly, but if I were running an emulation or ROMs site, I would take the soon to be arriving cease and desist letters very seriously. I hope that Atari won't attack its fans this way, as I'm sure many of us will be buying the re-releases. But someone at Atari may be preparing to cry havoc and set loose the dogs of law!
I'm a big Star Trek fan, but I just don't see how there is any room left in the MMORPG market for this game. After all of the disappointment of Star Wars Galaxies and the cancellations of numerous online games, I think the market is saturated. The only thing left is to cannibalize current MMORPG players.
As far as business goes, if they plan ahead for a high level of member churn and keep the game fun for newcomers, then maybe there is a chance. But if they think that in today's market they'll get and keep say 500000 players, they're crazy! The people who would play this game are probably already playing an MMORPG. After EQ and SWG, I've settled on FFXI as my MMORPG home and have no plans to leave. I also have no plans to add another fee based game to the budget.
Even as a fan, at least three things would have to happen for me to look at a Star Trek MMORPG.
1. Fee must be very low, or some entirely new and palatable fee model. No fee would be great, but not likely.
2. It'd better have content and be a generally kick a*s game. In other words, I won't be there on day one and will wait for player reviews. So they'd better have learned for the SWG fiasco.
3. The system requirements must be reasonable. I won't spend $100 or more to upgrade my rig. I know my 1GHz PIII is pokey by todays standards, even with a fast video card and 512MB of RAM, but it runs most things just fine. No I wouldn't even think of Doom 3 on this box!
Don't gag, but I'd be more likely to try this game if there were an XBox version, or PS2 with HD. So I hope they're at least least thinking about tapping the console market.
As many have quipped here already, there isn't likely to be a settlement in this case. So assuming that the lawyers themselves are not stupid, this cap agreement would seem to indicate that SCO has not yet racked up $31M in billing charges. And again, if the lawyers are not stupid, they probably already know, perhaps better than anyone else, that there isn't going to be a settlement. So it seems likely that when the $31M cap is reached, the lawyers will bail out. There's probably some kind of contract clause that will allow them to do this. If one knows how much has been billed already and the rate of billing, then it is possible to estimate how long it will be before the lawyers bail given the cap.
It all sounds pretty slimy when you think about it. I mean, how many millions were made on the SCO share run-up for largely baseless litigation? And one can bet that the lawyers aren't taking a loss on this deal. So they all do okay. To borrow a Chinese expression, its a sharing pork world!
Interesting. I had wondered what this price drop for the SP would do to the plain ol' GBA. You never even see the original GBA in the ads anymore. I wonder if Nintendo is even making GBA's. It's too bad really, because all the original GBA really needed was a backlit screen. I like my SP just fine, but it's easier to grip the original GBA.
As for the fast turnover though, I don't think that has hurt Nintendo all that much in the Japanese market. In Japan, consumers tend to get bored with things faster than in North America. So companies are always trying to come out with new things relatively quickly. Nintendo's NES styled SP and accompanying NES re-releases have been a big hit in Japan, but has met with less success in NA.
This certainly looks like an interesting test of the waters with only 500 units. Good or bad, these will probably become a hit on eBay. I really haven't looked lately, but I still haven't heard of any WMA based services that are the equivalent of ITMS in terms of ease of use and the not hassling too much about burning CDs of purchased music. Stylish player packaging is nice, but I bought an iPod because the whole package was attractive and easy to use. I think though, if Microsoft's upcoming ITMS clone is any good, then things will get really interesting.
Oh well, I guess this is better than that do it yourself cruise missile guy! Though I'm not sure his mother-in-law would notice the difference!
McElroy, who writes a column for FoxNews.com, reports being dismayed at finding educated women who are "genuinely horrified at the prospect of dealing with 'lesser' and 'lower' men as equals in their personal lives." But one of the findings of evolutionary psychology is that females of whatever species are hot-wired to find the best possible mate.
This is already a problem in the African American community. A large proportion of men are either in prison or have been in prison which limits future economic prospects. And of those who have not been incarcerated a large proportion are unemployed or underemployed. On the flipside, African American women outnumber their male counterparts in college and are attending in increasing numbers. As a result, the prospect for finding an African American mate of comparable education and social station is on the decline. You can read about this in Ebony magazine every year. The result of this has been a great deal of friction (the bad kind) between black men and black women.
The language and accent related issues are really just a natural consequence of offshoring. In the beginning most of the people working the call centers in India (for example) were probably among the best educated there. As demand grew, more call centers were opened and more people in India heard that this was a good way to make some money. Well, the proportion of well educated and talented people in India is probably no different than in the U.S., so it was inevitable that many of the people working in the call centers now are not among the best educated and most talented. Not that they're morons, just average folk. I mean really, how many of us could communicate fluently in a foreign language? I could communicate very very badly in two or three others. With a predetermined script I could do better, but that's about it. And forget about casual conversation!
While companies could try to better train their workers, I think that with respect to foreign language skills a limit is being reached. That is, even if the person in the call center understands English perfectly, they may still have an accent when speaking it that a U.S. customer will have a hard time with. I personally like accents, but Indian accented English is one of the most difficult for me to understand. I usually have to know the person for a while to fully understand what they are saying. Unfortunately, an already upset customer in the U.S. is not likely to have the patience for that.
A lot of comments here have focused on battery life. I think that the integrated chipset may have another potential benefit. It may make the PSP easier to develop for. If this is the case, it will give the PSP a better chance of competing with the GBA and the DS. It has already been reported that Gran Turismo for the PSP will be a nearly straight port from the PS2 version. Assuming this is not overly difficult, it means that the PSP should be able to draw on the large library of PSOne and PS2 games for its first generation. Hopefully some brand new stuff will be made too, but living off of ports isn't so bad in the first year.
Ease of development was a big plus for the original Playstation. And the initial difficulty of development hobbled the PS2 (killed Saturn). Hopefully Sony is designing the PSP with development considerations in mind. Of course those batteries had better last more than a couple of hours too!
I can see the next version of Dance Dance Revolution on Playstation 3 using something like this. Combined with the Eye Toy, you could end up in some major traction!
Given that so called ordinary people will not need a Terabyte's worth of storage anytime soon, if a writable version of the 1TB HVD gets to market could this be the last disk you'll need? Hmmm, probably not since history has shown that we always find a way to exceed whatever the maximum storage capacity of a given medium is. I guess people will just fill them up with movies and pr0n. Oh, I'm sure Doom 4 will probably come on one or two of these!
Another question is will the recording and movie industries ever let something like this reach the market. Even if there are never writable versions for the consumer market, they seem pretty skittish about anything that might further ease the storage of digital data. This should be fun to watch!
This probably won't bring down game prices, but you do make an interesting point about piracy. Pirates are just like anyone else, they are influenced by ads and will probably buy some of the products. So if a heavily pirated game is indeed piling up ad revenue, then I would expect the game publisher to make sure that they get their cut of that. Indeed, this might even lead to less aggressive pursuit of pirates by said publishers. Afterall, if the pirates are ultimately making more money for them, they can hardly complain. I'd love to see the numbers on this!