I don't think MS is hugely concerned about piracy that doesn't affect sales. In fact, if they're smart, they'll be fine with it, because it's a form of 'perfec

I don't think MS is hugely concerned about piracy that doesn't affect sales. In fact, if they're smart, they'll be fine with it, because it's a form of 'perfect price discrimination'. That said, the question is to what extent piracy from other areas bleeds into the higher value markets. Which I believe does happens, ergo 'a crack is a crack is a crack' probably. It's funny because if the cost of getting a 'hack' of a game literally entails buying a 'CD-ROM' and going through the pain of copying it like in the 'old days', which is a small pain but more than many want to bear, it puts a natural bound on the copying/hacking: it will happen a lot in poor countries, less so in rich countries. But if a hack is 'discovered once', wherever, and then easily exploited everywhere ... not so good.