Sony's Peter Dille has claimed that they are confident in their 2009 strategy for the PlayStation 3 home video game console, both in pricing and in content. Dille also touched on the PSP's rampant piracy problem, calling it "criminal" and "sickening".

The ESA board must have been reduced to tears of joy yesterday - to them, I'm sure, they now believe there is a god. This week, the Swedish court has found the four operators of torrent site The Pirate Bay guilty as charged for copyright infringement and illegal activities (digitally distributing illegal copies of games and media content). Of course, ESA is more than happy with this victory against the ongoing war on piracy - so happy, in fact, that they had to come up with an official press release about it!

A PSP price drop? A new comic book and graphic novel service from Sony? Edible PSPs? We heard all about that stuff this week, along with some news that Capcom has been digging around in its PSOne game catalog and will be releasing more classics on the PSN soon enough. It was busy in the software side as well, especially with Resistance: Retribution's launch. That's not to say that other games didn't get their chances in the spotlight. In fact, we heard more about upcoming software releases this week than in the last couple of weeks. Count how many times I said "week". Anyway. On to the show!

So whatever happened during the dev chat scheduled a few days ago for Resistance: Retribution? Well, most of it had generic questions from the fans - talk of Infected Mode and whether it's actually part of story canon (watch the ending!), plans for DLC (none!), PSP-to-PS3 connectivity, and other matters, etc., etc. - but some interesting parts of the chat had the devs commenting on the issue of people pirating their games, and another one on the cheaters roaming around online matches.

I look forward to the day David Perry finally starts to talk about a new Shiny Entertainment game. The past couple of weeks, he's been a constant thorn in Sony's side with his claims of a new UMD-less PSP. This week he's even challenged Sony to call him a liar. The company hasn't responded yet with a "liar, liar, pants on fire" quip, but they have rolled out some interesting new ideas for the future of the PSP in terms of software. Let's get cracking on this week's PSP Weekend Warrior!

After last week's media blitz of new games for the PSP, Ready At Dawn CEO Didier Malenfant gives us his bit of insight on the matter. First, he says he doesn't know what the hell Sony's talking about - this whole "we're having talks with RAD for a new PSP game" thing. He does agree with John Koller on one thing though: the whole digital distribution direction. Because Malenfant thinks it's a good idea after all, and to quote him: "It's not piracy but used games that are killing us."

Discuss: QJ.NET General Gaming forum thread

The PSP's been getting a lot of flak since last year. I often hear the questions "where are all the games?" and "what the hell is Sony doing?" (I mostly hear it from you guys :p.) Maybe these words from Laurent Benadiba, CEO of Smack Down Productions, can give some insight on the situation. At least, from a developer's point of view.

During the tail end of November, the latest official PSP firmware version (5.02) was released and subsequently decrypted. It doesn't look like a big enough update to warrant an M33 release, but two separate custom firmware versions of the 5.02 firmware have since popped up on the QJ.NET forums. Hit the full article for details and download links.

Piracy has always been the monster under the gaming bed, with everyday consumers having access to pirated material virtually everywhere. But the PSP piracy is now slowing down, and Sony sees this as the good guys winning the battle versus the economic evil.

Well no wonder you've got layoffs in the industry recently - not to mention the shutting down of certain studios and whatnot. According to research conducted by EEDAR, only 4% of the total games out in the market ever make a profit - all other 96% just either break even or lose money. Yeouch.