A UK High Court has passed a ruling making the use of a mod chip in a Playstation 2 illegal. Now a mod chip or a 'chipped' Playstation 2 allows the owner to not only play games imported from the USA and Japan but pirated copies of games and backup versions of games and this is where the problem lies (Sony doesn't like it).
More often then not games are released in the USA or Japan with no intention of a UK release and the only way to play these games is to buy the game via a UK game importer and then play it on the Playstation 2 via the mod chip (I won't get into the PAL vs NTSC debate here). With this ruling, this is no longer an option.
Surely an option to cut down on piracy would be to make the games cheaper. It costs roughly 1 earth pound to produce a CD, and with some games costing upto £50 where does the other £49 go? Few people can afford to pay out £50 each time they buy a new game, no wonder piracy is on the increase.
Just to confuse matters an Italian Court ruled the other way making the mod chips legal, on the basis that it's up to the user, not Sony, how they use their PS2.
Whatever the courts or Sony for that matter rule, it won't stop people from pirating games and then finding ways to play them on their favourite console mod chip or not.
More information:
http://www.theregister.co.uk/2004/07/21/ps2_mod_chip_win/
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