Btw something that has not been mentioned yet... If the PS3 were to be capable of playing backups, I reckon it would actually cost more money to buy a Blu-ray burner + discs and download the 25-50GB file (via electricity costs) since there probably wouldn't be that many seeders.
Since not many people have PS3s here the pre-owned games are really cheap. All of my PS3 games are 2nd hand... although that may change once FFXIII and GT5 come out
Cheapest Blu-ray burner: $180 or so
Blu-ray discs: 10-15 for $30 (I think)
Electricity: A buck or less per day
On the high end, after 30 days of downloading, that's $240 for the first 15 games, assuming all the discs come out okay. New releases are what, $60? That's $900 for 15 legit games.
The next batch of 15 pirated games would be $60 for the discs and electricity on the high end. Also, if a person is pirating a PS3 game, they're probably also downloading other media, meaning that their system is probably on when unattended anyway.
