For many years, Asia has been a hotspot for piracy. Everything from movies to video games, you can most likely find anything you want over in the Far East, but what about consoles? Qj.net reports that the Xbox 360 and the Nintendo Wii are not immune to piracy. For example, modded 360 consoles have been available in the Philippines for over six months while modded Wii consoles have been available for over two months.
The modded Wii console package includes the console along with five pirated games of the buyer’s choice. Cost? About $400 USD. If you fork over $40 more, then you can get all the Wii 
accessories and 20 pirated games of your choice. As for the Xbox 360, you can get the basic package–one controller and five pirated games (equivalent to the core system in the U.S.) for around $402. For $482, you can get the console, two controllers, headsets, 20 pirated games, a 20GB hard drive and a cooling fan. The bigger package can even gain you access to Xbox Live.
Then what about the PS3? Looks like Sony’s console escaped piracy for the time being. According to a storeowner, "Blu-ray is giving our suppliers trouble, so you might have to wait until next year."
In a related story, despite the heavy piracy of illegal consoles and games over in Asia, a new report by the Business Software Alliance stated that the rate of Chinese piracy has decreased by 10% during the last three years. On the flip side though, global losses due to piracy have grown by 15% over the same period. "For this study," the report reads, "IDC used proprietary statistics for software and hardware shipments gathered through surveys of vendors, users, and the channel, and enlisted IDC analysts in more than fifty countries to review local market conditions."
Estimates show that the amount saved by the reduction of piracy in China is around $864 million. Nonetheless, China still remains a central area for piracy activities. For every five copies of software sold in China, four are illegal copies. During 2006, China amounted to over $5 billion in losses due to piracy, which is second to the United States at $7 billion.
[Via Shacknews]
