Business, PC, Playstation 3, Xbox 360
Pirates Sucker Punch Capcom
Eager (and morally bankrupt) fighting game aficionados around the world can now get their hands on Street Fighter IV, despite the fact Capcom’s latest brawler has only been released in Japan.
The Xbox 360 version of the game leaked sometime this week, meaning all that stands between gamers and quarter-circle-punching glory is a bit of console modding and an illegal 6.4 GB download from any given torrent site, according to an N4G article.
Right now, it appears the piracy ends with the Xbox 360, as there’s nary a playable PlayStation 3 version of Street Fighter IV (or any other game, for that matter) on the Internet. A few paid download sites, such as Download Provider, claim to offer the PC version, but that leak hasn’t been confirmed.
Go on... Tell him you're going to pirate his game. I dare you.
So, why is the 360 the only console getting slammed harder than someone dumb enough to call Zangief ugly?
For starters, Capcom actually delayed the PC version of Street Fighter IV to discourage people from pirating it.
And as far as the PS3 is concerned, its blue-ray architecture and airtight firmware (each update deletes older versions of the software, buffing up any weak points pirates could exploit) are both huge obstacles to theft. Additionally, the data files for PS3 games can be as big as 20 GB, and who really has the time to download something that huge?
Xbox 360 discs, however, are fairly simple to rip and upload to the Internet. All it takes to play a pirated game is a bit of tinkering with the console’s firmware, and speaking from experience, modding an Xbox 360 isn’t all that hard.
(I honestly spent more than half of the 4-hour process trying to pry open the damned case with a paper clip and the screwdriver from an eyeglass repair kit.)
Of course, people who actually want to purchase the game legally (obtuse concept, I know) have less than a week to wait. The game hits shelves in North America on February 19 and comes to Europe a day later.
Tags: piracy, Street Fighter IV, Zangief
Yep, have a friend who already has SFIV on his 360. He managed to mod his w/in 2 hours of receipt of the machine. So, yeah, the 360 is quite easy to mod, from what I understand. However, the prospect of downloading a 20g file, really isn’t that big of a deal, especially given 1MB/s d/l speeds these days. Basically, the only thing stopping the PS3 from being mod’d and hacked, is the fact that Sony locked that bugger up tighter than a drum.
Morne
Yeah, you’re right about the 20 GB thing not being too big of a deal.
I was downloading a 3 GB file last night and it only took about an hour and a half.
What an age we live in…
its feb. 17th and i picked up my copy at gamstop for ps3
american gamestops have them but if you didnt pre-order
you had to get there early they had 1 unreserved copy left
when i got there at 12 noon at my local store now i got all the
characters unlocked already except 2 bosses its a good game
im glad sony locked its console down more bought games means
more developer money and better games in the future but it would
be cool to mod
You almost sound like you’re singling out fighting game fans as being pirates, but I know you didn’t mean it that way.
People who pirate are pretty lame, but I wouldn’t worry about it hurting overall sales. It’s a small percentage of gamers doing it; in fact, I’d say it’s a niche within a niche. Unless we can pull up some actual numbers of how much those pirated copies have lost in legit sales dollars, I think the game will be commercially successful.
Whoops! Sorry guys!
Looks like I screwed up the North American release date — it’s the 17th, not the 19th. My bad. I double-checked, and the European date is still the 20th, however.
On the bright side of things, this means I can go pick up my copy tomorrow!