4 ms·

> Piracy wasn't a big factor, since very very few people had broadband and CD-R drives in 2000. Piracy of CD based games in the late 90s most assuredly did not

> Piracy wasn't a big factor, since very very few people had broadband and CD-R drives in 2000. Piracy of CD based games in the late 90s most assuredly did not require broadband or personal ownership of a CD-R drive. A lot of piracy happened via SneakerNet. As long as you knew someone with games (legit or pirated copies) and a CD-R drive you could get your own copies for the cost of a CD-R disc. Every college had at least one person with a CD binder full of CD-Rs of pirated PC and console games. I suspect a majority of high schools at the time did as well. Dorm ResNets were also loaded down with FTPs and SMB shares filled with games, porn, and warez.

SpecialistK 3y ago
Maybe so. I had an Action Replay disc from the time that presumably used MilCD. But according to this link (sadly Fandom), the attach rate was good: https://vgsales.fandom.com/wiki/Software_tie_ratio#Consoles https://vgsales.fandom.com/wiki/Software_tie_ratio#Consoles So SneakerNet and dorm rooms may have been a factor, but not enough of one to kill the system.
- masklinn 3y ago
  > but not enough of one to kill the system. Oh definitely no, IME piracy was a much better issue on the original PlayStation, very quickly every other friend had a cousin who would chip your console and had access to a CD-R. Plus didn’t the Dreamcast use some weirdo variant of CD?
  - giantrobot 3y ago
    > Plus didn’t the Dreamcast use some weirdo variant of CD? Yes, GD-ROM which through some tricks could fit something like 1GB on a disc. However what most pirated discs did was just stub out the FMV. Most games that used the full space on the disc did so because of FMV. Quite a few games would easily fit on a Mode-2 700MB CD-R with the FMV stubbed out. This was thanks to the MIL-CD functionality of the Dreamcast which was only removed in very late models.

SpecialistK 3y ago

Maybe so. I had an Action Replay disc from the time that presumably used MilCD. But according to this link (sadly Fandom), the attach rate was good: https://vgsales.fandom.com/wiki/Software_tie_ratio#Consoles https://vgsales.fandom.com/wiki/Software_tie_ratio#Consoles So SneakerNet and dorm rooms may have been a factor, but not enough of one to kill the system.

masklinn 3y ago
> but not enough of one to kill the system. Oh definitely no, IME piracy was a much better issue on the original PlayStation, very quickly every other friend had a cousin who would chip your console and had access to a CD-R. Plus didn’t the Dreamcast use some weirdo variant of CD?
- giantrobot 3y ago
  > Plus didn’t the Dreamcast use some weirdo variant of CD? Yes, GD-ROM which through some tricks could fit something like 1GB on a disc. However what most pirated discs did was just stub out the FMV. Most games that used the full space on the disc did so because of FMV. Quite a few games would easily fit on a Mode-2 700MB CD-R with the FMV stubbed out. This was thanks to the MIL-CD functionality of the Dreamcast which was only removed in very late models.