[imisssunwell]

Originally Posted by stepurhan

Doesn't quote percentages, specific piece of software, specific region, anecdotal (though I presume you have some reason for considering this site a trustworthy source. I've never heard of it and the story doesn't link to a microsoft site showing the figures which would give the story veracity.)

see:

http://slashdot.org/articles/07/04/18/1512216.shtml

Also from:
http://news.softpedia.com/news/Only-...na-52273.shtml

according to a report from Gearfuse citing the Windows Vista chief distributor in Beijing, the 244 copies of Windows Vista represent all the operating system's sales country wide. Apparently, the Beijing distributor controls over 90% of the national volume of Windows Vista products in China and in this context it is in the position to most accurately estimate the market performances of the operating system.

Estimated. As in, figure we've just made up for the news story. There may well be a solid basis for the figure but the story doesn't present it. Also, if 90% is for a specific region where piracy is prevalent then the percentage has to be lower.
Maybe your proxy argument is valid as well. I don't have statistics on the prevalence of dynamic IP addresses or proxies. My point is, without this information the figure is unreliable. You're saying that the variation is only going to be about 3% either way but without data on what could throw the figure out that's just an amount you've pulled out of thin air.

So still pretty high and companies going to console only is going to make it a growing market because pirates will have to switch to pirating console games if that's all there is.

Well all the figures will be estimations in that sense, the precision you are asking for needs some sort of internet big brother to monitor & register all traffic and then report that to copyright holders. Unless we have that all data is anecdotal?

Also, since it appears you didn't understand it, 3% was not a specific number, it was a number to show that 90% can have fluctuations both downwards and upwards.

We don't know how well pirates can react, so far they can react 90% worse, in the future no-one really knows.

Devices exist that allow you to pirate console games (I was offered an item that would allow me to do just that for a well-known hand-held. I wasn't interested) Even if piracy on PC is currently higher than console (even if I'll argue the precise figure not requiring extra hardware to accomplish makes it seem likely) going console only is only going to slightly slow down pirates, not stop them.

but fact is that there piracy seems 90% lower. PC piracy is 10x times console piracy. You say thats slightly slow down, I say its a huge slow down, both are opinions but here the only known fact is that 90% less piracy is good enough for developers to pay more attention to consoles.

Also for handhelds, the job is easier and there is little to lose if you do it but for the xbox you lose DLC, access to online services.