The Daily Telegraph, Sydney, 27 July 1998
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HERE
PIRATES CUT CD GAME COST TO $15 THE hottest Playstation CD-Rom was selling for $15 in Sydney yesterday � although it's not due to arrive in stores for another month and should cost $89.95. The Daily Telegraph bought the $15 copy of NBA Shootout 1998 from a Chinatown pawn shop, one of many outlets doing a roaring trade in pirated software. The purchase illustrates the bootlegging that is plaguing the manufacturers of the Sony Playstation machine. The popular TV game console has found a permanent place next to the video recorder in more than 500,000 Australian loungerooms. Bootleg copies of the new games, CD-Rom-styled packages which normally retail for between $70 and $100, can be easily found around the city for as little as $7. The bootleg copy of NBA Shootout has a one-sheet colour photocopy as its cover and an amateurish imprint on the disc. Bootleg games can only be played in a standard Playstation machine once it's been installed with an unlicensed modification chip, or "modchip". As for the games themselves, anyone with a common CD burner can copy the software in half an hour. With their managing director out of the State, no one at Sony Computer Entertainment was willing to make an official comment on the problem. But as Australian Playstation magazine deputy editor Nic Healey explained, Sony is making a concerted effort to quell what has the potential to spread into a multi-million dollar cancer for the firm. "The official line from Sony is that if you put a modchip into the unit, you've voided your warranty instantly," said Healey. "The main problem for them is that modchips allow for pirated games ... it's really contributing to an intellectual property theft. So Sony are really hard on it." Last week, lawyers for Sony Computer Entertainment asked The Trading Post to remove ads offering installation of the modchip for between $50 to $80. Modchip installer Ned Gligich, of Cabramatta, remains adamant he's not doing anything wrong. "We're not breaking the law by modifying these Playstations," he said. "As long as the customer is aware that once a machine is modified, the manufacturer's warranty is void. "We're not copying the games. We're just putting these things in."
