To give them hope, or to at least keep them occupied as they wait to be dug out, trapped miners in Chile have been given PlayStation Portables, according to MSN International. Copiapó, Chile - a provincial capital situated on the west coast of South America's Andes Mountain range - has been the focus of the international media as the story of miners wait for a rescue which some say could be two to three months away.

The trapped miners include 1 Bolivian and 32 Chileans, who are getting along well despite their current situation, are doing their best to keep hope alive as rescue crews lower food and supplies via bore holes that are described as "roughly the width of a grapefruit."

The PSPs were given to "help preserve their mental health" during the long wait for a rescue tunnel to be drilled and to give them a means to escape their current plight. The PSPs were delivered via the small cups that are used to shuttle supplies to the men down the mine shaft. A power supply was also lowered down to the men because the average battery life of a PSP is a mere 6 hours.

Writing for The Escapist, Pedro Franco details brazen sales of pirated games by retailers in Brazil's largest city, São Paulo.

It wasn't alway so, writes Franco. He describes Brazil as a legit marketplace for games until the mid-1990s. Since then, however, low per capita income, high tariffs on games, the switch from cartridges to CDs and lax government enforcement combined to make Brazil a game pirate's haven:

The Brazilian Association for the Development of Electronic Games... estimated in 2004 that no less than 94 percent of the country's games market consisted of pirated merchandise...

 

If you're really interested in buying a game, your best bet is to enter one of the many "pseudo-malls" around São Paulo... The asking price is ridiculously small - usually around R$10 to R$15 (or $5 to $7.50) - but after a little negotiation, you can easily end up paying half that...