If I was working at Sony I would fire your ass. Let me explain why.

1. This is how the PSP currently operates, I.E. the UMD was originally for games and the memory card slot was for data. The only reason people can pirate games is through exploits in the firmware. They even kept releasing new versions of the console that were harder to exploit. By implementing your idea you also gimp the system. You remove the ability to save games to a memory card, as well as lower the possibility of creating games that are based off your content such as Audiosurf (not on psp but it should be).

2. Pirates would just never go online, or would create a mod chip like what was introduced for the xbox that was either stealth, or turned off when you wanted to play online.

3. You just refuted your first point, but anyway. If I’m not mistaken they already do this through the release of new firmware. New firmware gave new features to the device, and locked pirates out of new games until a work around was developed.

4. This is how the industry operates, especially Sony. Since the PS1 they have allowed a ton of crap on their system. This has worked well however because for every 100 bad games there are always at least 1 good game developed. The popularity of the PS1 was due to its huge collection of games.

5. (Your last statement)Pirates are not stupid, they design the exploits so they are not detected. If Sony could detect a modified system they would. If they could detected a modified system that could simply set up a system that flashes the firmware back to its original state. But since pirates are just as smart as Sony’s engineers that’s not likely to stop anyone.

Anyway as I said, your ideas are stupid. In the words of Donal Trump “You’re Fired”.

1. Release new hardware (PSP 2), that now only new games can play on. Keep the umd drive for full games, and the memory stick slot for the user’s photos, music and video (no access to game content), and add a hard drive that can only be used for game saves and downloadable content. *With this system try to bring HD graphics to the games and movies.

2. Have the new PSP 2 “check in” when it goes online and ban it if it has modified firmware (like the xbox360).

3. Create extra incentive for people to not modify their firmware like game addons, (like gta4:the lost and the damned) and community games that can be downloaded to the hard drive.

4. Actually start creating regular great, original games for the psp that
use its buttons well to generate interest in the system (there are only 6 games I would play, out of how many?)

The moment someone goes online after screwing around with the innards they get an error message, no web surfing, no downloadable content, and no connecting to the ps3. They can still use the umd drive to buy games though.

PSP, which has a MUCH better graphics: 480×272-pixel resolution, 16.77 million colors>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>Nintendo DS: 256×192 pixels with 260,000 colors

Anyway, back on topic. I don’t think Sony, who is VERY GREEDY and has MORE money than they’ll EVER know what to do with, should be the least bit worried about losing sales!