Sony CEO blames piracy for low software sales

Filed under: News

Jack Tretton spoke with us at a blogger's roundtable earlier today. When questioned about why software sales are so sluggish in comparison to the stellar hardware sales, Tretton noted that there were three big reasons: 1 - The multimedia features of the PSP may encourage users to play less games, watch more movies and listen to music. 2 - Gamers don't want water-downed PS2 ports; they want original games. 3 - Piracy.

Tretton told us that "we have been able to track with releases like God of War that hundreds of thousands of units in potential sales are walking out the door through piracy on day one. We knew exactly that only a few months ago. Unforutnately, there isn't much to do for pirates that are already getting their way. Millions of systems are already out there .. but there are "remedies" coming down the line. Perhaps a growing library of DRM-enabled downloadable titles will help Sony's cause. But for now, the situation looks rather bleak.