Atari Founder: Encryption Chip Will End Piracy

[Appzalien]

Pirates don't download games, leechers do. Pirates buy or borrow the game, copy it and fix it so it will install, then upload to share with leechers and other wanna be pirates that try and disguise it as there own.

If this chip ever see's the light of day it will end up in consoles not on PC motherboards mark my words.

[ulun64]

lol!!! I don't play any atari games. They can do anything they like with their games.

[tknaught]

For this to really be effective, it would need to be an end-to-end encryption system, requiring that only trusted operating systems are allowed, i.e. no Linux. Otherwise you can always run your software in some kind of VM.

[stoi]

As far as i can see, all this will do is limit the sales of brand new top of the range hardware.

You just have to look at the PS3, its lagging behind the other 2 in sales, not because its to expensive (its less now than the 360 was when that was first released and modded) but because you cant play coppied games on the thing yet.

People wont want to spend £600 on a new gfx card, £150 on the mobo, £400 on the proc etc etc if they then have to go out and buy the games and software for it.

Because if this does ever come about, you can bet your bottom dollar that it wont be just PC Games that get this protection, but every App known to man.

So not only will PC parts go down in sales, PC games and software will go down in sales, because there will be less people that can play the latest and greatest.

I can also see a mass migration to Linux, because windows will be Encrypted. Actually this might be the blessing in disguise for linux, it will take off like no tomorrow so may become more user friendly (I have it on my PC but never use the thing, because i just cant get my WI-Fi working, but im sure if i could be assed to look into it, i could. With this move i would be sure to look into it)

I just think this is a backwards step, and the PC is a lot different to the consoles.

Consoles you have 1 Manufacturer that makes that 1 console, and they also make some games. But they make their money from the sales of the consoles, not as much from the games themselves but they still make money from some that they do.

PC`s are made from different Manufacturers, and they dont have anything to do with making games or software for the most part. so if this goes through, they will loose tons of cash, and when that hapens you will get new manufactures coming into the market, not having this chip in them.

I just cant see it working at all. (and sorry for the essay)