Jimquisition: Sony's Begging For Piracy

[immortalfrieza]

How can a company have a monopoly on its own products? Does Apple have a monopoly on the iPhone as well?

Nope, because there are products that provide the same functions as the iPhone out there, thus Apple does not have a monopoly on the iPhone product. They have a monopoly on the iPhone brand name itself, because nobody else but them can call anything an iPhone, but they do not have a monopoly upon the product.

You're saying Sony should allow other companies to produce and sell their systems. Why would they do that? There is no obligation for them to license their original IPs for cloning. Also, that would probably be worse for the consumer, since you'd have to do background research to find out which "type" of PS3/Vita you want to buy, which manufacturers make the best quality hardware, which ones offer warranties, which ones offer the best price, etc.

That would be BETTER for the industry, not worse! It would mean that Sony and companies like it would have to ensure that their products function better and have better prices than the knockoffs their competition is producing, and their competition would have try to do the same, in order to draw customers to prefer their version over anothers, or whoever didn't make enough profits would either have to abort production and switch to producing a more profitable product or close it's doors, whichever came first. It would mean better quality and cheaper prices across the board for the entire video game industry. Sure, it would be more of a pain for the consumer, but no less so than any other industry (the video game industry is the only industry to my knowledge that has this kind of monopoly on it's IPs, or rather the only one that exploits this monopoly for all it's worth.)

The products that Sony has made are proprietary hardware and software that they developed themselves. In the case of MiniDisc (another proprietary Sony tech), Sony licensed the tech to other manufacturers. That's why you could buy differently-branded MiniDisc players. But in the case of PS3/Vita, Sony has no incentive (or obligation) to license the tech. That doesn't mean they have a monopoly on it, though.

It's a monopoly because the only ones that can legally make and sell a console capable of playing a PS3 game are Sony, ONLY Sony. I can't play, say, Infamous on any other platform except the PS3 and nobody will ever be able to make a console that is also capable of playing the PS3 exclusive except those with Sony's permission until the patents dry up, which they probably never will. THAT is a monopoly.

 

[ThatGuy]

... there are products that provide the same functions as the iPhone out there, thus Apple does not have a monopoly on the iPhone product. They have a monopoly on the iPhone brand name itself, because nobody else but them can call anything an iPhone, but they do not have a monopoly upon the product.

...

It's a monopoly because the only ones that can legally make and sell a console capable of playing a PS3 game are Sony, ONLY Sony. I can't play, say, Infamous on any other platform except the PS3 and nobody will ever be able to make a console that is also capable of playing the PS3 exclusive except those with Sony's permission until the patents dry up, which they probably never will. THAT is a monopoly.

iPhone is the only phone capable of running Apple apps (some of which are exclusives, and some of which are also available on Android). PS3 is the only device capable of playing PS3 games (some of which are exclusives, and some of which are also available on other gaming platforms). But according to your definition, PS3 is a monopoly, and iPhone isn't. These two examples are actually analogous. Think about it: Apple is the only company that can legally make and sell a phone capable of running Apple software, just like Sony is the only company that can legally make and sell a system capable of running PS3 games. Whether or not the software/games are multiplatform is a separate issue.

 

[hedges1001]

i'll be honest i didn't think the ps1 => vita debacle was that big a problem you had to go through the same shit with the psp so i guess you can chalk that up to getting a 6 month old piece of tech to work with a 6 year old piece of tech.

yeah the proprietary cards suck, i admit that but when you look at how piracy on psp started out (using save glitches in games like GTA LCS) you can see why, the prices are complete BS though 60 quid ($90) for a 16gb stick .... fuck off.

finally the vitas release problem isnt the release quality, its the frequency. if they had spaced some of their launch line up over this year we wouldn't be bitching as much.

peace out bitches i'm off to play grandia on my week old vita

 

[Gatx]

How can a company have a monopoly on its own products? Does Apple have a monopoly on the iPhone as well?

Nope, because there are products that provide the same functions as the iPhone out there, thus Apple does not have a monopoly on the iPhone product. They have a monopoly on the iPhone brand name itself, because nobody else but them can call anything an iPhone, but they do not have a monopoly upon the product.

I'm sorry, I had to jump back on this again. You acknowledge that Apple doesn't have a monopoly on the iPhone because other companies make things that are similar to iPhones. By that logic Sony doesn't have a monopoly on the PS3 because the Xbox 360 is basically the same thing. Sure there's "exclusives" but there are also apps available only on the iPhone that aren't available for the Android.

Now I GUESS the going by your strict definition Sony DOES have a monopoly on the "Vita" and any game for it because the 3DS is at a lower tier technologically so you can't have ports. However it really is only a problem if you exclusively bought Sony products. The Vita doesn't exist in a vacuum, even though its so different, people do have the option to by a 3DS, and Sony can learn from Nintendo's success, which is more or less the same as if other people were allowed to make knock-off Vitas with better service.

 

[Sheo_Dagana]

I have always hated Sony for their shitty customer experience. They just shuffle their feet until you get impatient and give up. Truly, one can feel the Japanese spirit in every Sony product due to their attitude.

 

[The Almighty Aardvark]

*Does best to ignore ImmortalFrieza's butchering of the concept of a monopoly*

Well, that's the closest I'm going to come to completely ignoring it.

As for the video, I really cannot agree with what Jim is saying about having to offer a better service than a pirate for them to stop. Namely because you just aren't going to be able to do that. Even if it comes down to having to put in credit card information and click an extra button to confirm your purchase, piracy will always have at least as good of a service in terms of software. Reason being? They can just copy whatever software the developer's using. And when it comes down to it I'm sure that a lot of people are going to look at their wallets and say "Well I could pay $60 for this game or I can spend it on something that I can't get for free and have both."

 

[Entitled]

How can a company have a monopoly on its own products? Does Apple have a monopoly on the iPhone as well?

Nope, because there are products that provide the same functions as the iPhone out there, thus Apple does not have a monopoly on the iPhone product. They have a monopoly on the iPhone brand name itself, because nobody else but them can call anything an iPhone, but they do not have a monopoly upon the product.

I agreed with you until here, but he does have a point, the App Store, and generally the exclusive content, makes Apple into as much of a monopoly as Sony and the rest.

The list of starving artists who made art purely because of a yearning to, who lived before 1900, begins and ends with Vincent Van Goh.

then the historical times sucked significantly more than our days, because about half of the art I spent my time with in the recent years were created by people who worked on them for years, only to release them for free.

And much of the other half were copyrighted out of technical necesity to make the distribution of physical copies easier for anyone who wants one, but the artists made it clear that they don't particuarly mind piracy either, or een support it.

The remaining ones were copyrighted by publishers, and their artists worked for a salary. The only difference between that and the old patrony is, that, as Jim once said, copyright is "about already rich men getting richer" by allowing them to own what their workers created.

 

[Zeckt]

Starting off with the Grandia intro music? Jim, I think I love you.

 

[ToastiestZombie]

It's pretty bad when Nintendo is more consumer friendly and has more easily accessible content. Nintendo.

LOL, no!

Nintendo ties your games to hardware and they still don't have an account system to manage your purchases. You can now play some of your PS1 classics on your Vita along with your PSP and PS3. How many Wii Virtual Console games can be played on your DS or 3DS?

That's because the wii virtual console was made for the Wii. And the 3DS has its own virtual console where you can get NES, Gameboy, Gameboy Colour and Game Gear games for the system. And on your 3DS you can play any game you bought on the DsiWare shop with a simple system transfer and play any DS game out there. And all you need to do to transfer your DSiWare games to your 3DS is go into the menu, select system transfer and wait for the two systems to transfer data.

OT: Yep, Sony's kind of digging its own grave with the Vita. They didn't learn from the PSP, and are making the exact same mistakes again. One being making a handheld that's basically a portable console which drives up the price to ridiculous levels instead of keeping the hardware a bit less than consoles and keeping the price down. Another being forcing users to use there way of getting games, exactly like the PSP's UMD system. With the 3DS if I want to play a DS game I can just pop in the DS game into the slot at the top and play it. On the Vita if I want to play a PSP game I have to buy it again (or transfer it, which is still quite a lot), download it then install it. And considering the price of Sony's SD cards I probably wouldn't have an SD card that can fit most of my PSP games on there, so then I just can't play the games without deleting a load of other shit.

 

[BlueKenja]

So I think in the last 5 pages no-one has asked the most important question.
Where can I find that picture of the muscular young man in his underwear?

 

[SoopaSte123]

An intelligent opinion as always, but the main thing I took away from this video is that I want to play Tomba again...

 

[Epona]

It's pretty bad when Nintendo is more consumer friendly and has more easily accessible content. Nintendo.

LOL, no!

Nintendo ties your games to hardware and they still don't have an account system to manage your purchases. You can now play some of your PS1 classics on your Vita along with your PSP and PS3. How many Wii Virtual Console games can be played on your DS or 3DS?

That's because the wii virtual console was made for the Wii. And the 3DS has its own virtual console where you can get NES, Gameboy, Gameboy Colour and Game Gear games for the system. And on your 3DS you can play any game you bought on the DsiWare shop with a simple system transfer and play any DS game out there. And all you need to do to transfer your DSiWare games to your 3DS is go into the menu, select system transfer and wait for the two systems to transfer data.

Nintendo designed the Wii and 3DS VC's to be exclusive. You COULD play your downloaded SNES games on your 3DS and maybe you could have on DS but Nintendo designed it in a way where you couldn't do that. Certain NES games can be played on both but you have to buy them one time for every system you want to play them on (like Super Mario Bros). If you have two Wii's and two 3DS's and you want to play SMB on all 4 of them, you need to buy it 4 times. That's pretty shitty considering that if I buy a PS1 classic, I can play it on 2 handhelds and 2 PS3's without any sort of system transfer. Stop making excuses for Nintendo.

Yeah, Sony is fucking up but they still aren't as restrictive as Nintendo.

 

[Zeren]

We get in trouble for talking about piracy, but he gets to make a video about it? Yea that's fair.

 

[ToastiestZombie]

It's pretty bad when Nintendo is more consumer friendly and has more easily accessible content. Nintendo.

LOL, no!

Nintendo ties your games to hardware and they still don't have an account system to manage your purchases. You can now play some of your PS1 classics on your Vita along with your PSP and PS3. How many Wii Virtual Console games can be played on your DS or 3DS?

That's because the wii virtual console was made for the Wii. And the 3DS has its own virtual console where you can get NES, Gameboy, Gameboy Colour and Game Gear games for the system. And on your 3DS you can play any game you bought on the DsiWare shop with a simple system transfer and play any DS game out there. And all you need to do to transfer your DSiWare games to your 3DS is go into the menu, select system transfer and wait for the two systems to transfer data.

Nintendo designed the Wii and 3DS VC's to be exclusive. You COULD play your downloaded SNES games on your 3DS and maybe you could have on DS but Nintendo designed it in a way where you couldn't do that. Certain NES games can be played on both but you have to buy them one time for every system you want to play them on (like Super Mario Bros). If you have two Wii's and two 3DS's and you want to play SMB on all 4 of them, you need to buy it 4 times. That's pretty shitty considering that if I buy a PS1 classic, I can play it on 2 handhelds and 2 PS3's without any sort of system transfer. Stop making excuses for Nintendo.

Yeah, Sony is fucking up but they still aren't as restrictive as Nintendo.

Yes, I admit that sucks. But that doesn't make them as restrictive as Sony. Like I said, there is no way to play PSP games on your PS Vita other than buying them again on the Vita, since the Vita doesn't support UMDs. And with the 3DS you can actually just do a simple system transfer for ALL your games, including NES games and eShop games. Seriously, you're saying Sony isn't as restrictive as Nintendo when Sony literally forces you to buy their SD cards which cost way too much just to play games on the Vita because they didn't pack one in like Nintendo does with the 3DS. And like I said, you can't play UMD games on the Vita, making you either transfer any games you downloaded onto your PSP (which if you didn't get the Go would have been very little) or buy them all again. With the 3DS you can play any DS game you want without hassle.

 

[Epona]

We get in trouble for talking about piracy, but he gets to make a video about it? Yea that's fair.

Better that someone on this site gets to talk about it than no one. After all, it's an important issue and it needs to be discussed, not ignored.

 

[ToastiestZombie]

We get in trouble for talking about piracy, but he gets to make a video about it? Yea that's fair.

Not talking about piracy, you get in trouble for saying "You should all pirate, I pirate too and it's awesome!". Which Jim wasn't doing, he was saying that it's Sony's own fault that so many people want to pirate Vita games. It's a pretty wide spread opinion that piracy is mostly a service problem, not the fault of anyone really but the publisher doing shitty things they shouldn't be doing.