Stopping people from stealing games

The PlayStation Portable was a haven for piracy. While there's no evidence to suggest PSP software would have sold better if the system wasn't hacked to pieces, it can't have helped.

As such, Sony built a number of anti-piracy measures into the PlayStation Vita’s design – and those expensive memory cards are part of the plan.

US Worldwide Studios boss, Scott Rhode, told Gamasutra:

[Piracy] was front and centre in the early specs of this machine. We needed to have something that would combat piracy from day one, and that’s why the cards that you can purchase for the games are in their own proprietary format.

It’s something that we felt was completely necessary to make sure that people could not pirate these games. I mean, it’s a custom security solution on each one of these cartridges. That is something that we are confident will protect us from piracy for the long term.

So when you stump up $100 for a 32GB stick this week, have a grumble at Sony by all means — but make sure you save a curse or two for those people that stole all of their PSP content too.

[source gamasutra.com]