We’ve been there before, with companies claiming a piracy-proof device one day and six months later seeing said device selling like hotcakes due to piracy.  It’s a vicious cycle but one that seems to be successfully broken by Sony.

Like it or not, both the PS3 and the PSP Go are STILL piracy-free.  The PlayStation 3 can thank it’s BluRay drive and locked down firmware while the PlayStation Portable can thank the PSP-3000 (and past iterations) for the PSP Go.

This time around, Nintendo is the one doing the claiming.  The iconic company believes that all-new anti-piracy tech in 3DS will be foolproof to cracks from illegal downloaders.  This means no Free DS games, no Free DSi games and quite certainly no Free 3DS games for you Nintendo 3DS buyers.

“What excites me even more [than 3DS games] is that there’s technology built in that device to really combat piracy,” said Ian Curran, THQ’s executive VP of global publishing.

Curran further adds:

The problem with the DS market in the last few years, particularly with the DS Lite, is that it’s just been attacked by piracy. It’s made it almost impossible to shift any significant volume. The DSi combated it a little bit, but the 3DS has taken that a step further.

I actually asked Nintendo to explain the technology and they said it’s very difficult to do so because it’s so sophisticated.  They combated the piracy on Dsi, which they don’t believe is cracked yet – but they know they’ve been hurt across the world and they believe the 3DS has got technology that can stop that.

Therefore the opportunity for people to invest more in product development [on the system] and bring more 3DS products to market comes out of that. It’s going to probably cost us more to do it all in 3D – so we want to make sure we get a return on our investment when we do it.

The DSi isn’t cracked?  I guess this guy hasn’t heard of the R4i o_O.  Still, it will be interesting to see what Nintendo puts to the table.

The Nintendo 3DS is set to come out next year and we have at least 6 months to see if it will really stand up to what Nintendo claims.