Sony’s ongoing fight against piracy will stand a major test in the coming weeks, now that the PS Vita is officially launched in the U.S. While the portable has been available in a ‘pre-release’ bundle, the software and hardware manufacturer is confident that several steps taken with the new console will help combat piracy for the long term.
Speaking to Gamasutra, Sony SVP of worldwide studios, Scott Rohde, noted that Sony has had a problem in the handheld market for hacking and user-generated mods. The Vita, on the other hand, has been designed to discourage such actions this time around.
"That was front and center in the early specs of this machine," he offered. "We needed to have something that would combat piracy from day one, and that's why the cards that you can purchase for the games are in their own proprietary format."
"It's something that we felt was completely necessary to make sure that people could not pirate these games. I mean, it's a custom security solution on each one of these cartridges. That is something that we are confident will protect us from piracy for the long term."
Sony has been pushing for a noticeably stringent set of rules for the new portable, something that was not seen in either the PS3 or PSP at launch. More restrictions, more proprietary hardware and more security features could very well mean that Sony could avoid another hacking scandal similar to what was seen in mid-2011 for the PSN.
