Sony: PSP Piracy 'Trending Downwards'

Software piracy for Sony's PlayStation Portable handheld is on the decrease, according to claims made by John Koller, Sony Computer Entertainment America’s head of hardware marketing. Piracy on the PSP has always been particularly prevalent, with the system’s memory card slot making installation of counterfeit games relatively easy -- though multiple operating system updates included with PSP games have tried to lock out pirates. The piracy problem is potentially a factor in the generally low software sales of PSP titles, which are far below what might be expected from the otherwise strong hardware sales in some territories. Sony has never denied the problem, but speaking recently to consumer website MTV Multiplayer, Koller said that piracy on the PSP has decreased over the last few months. "It’s trending down right now -- we’ve seen the piracy not be as such prevalent in the last month to two months," said Koller. "But it has been a problem for us." No specific reason was given for why the problem should have decreased recently, but Koller suggested that Sony closely monitors piracy websites. "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," said Koller. "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," he added. "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."