i read the article, than looked at the comments and laughed completely. so where do they get those 95% figures from exactly ? theres no way for them to know 95% of their games are being pirated unless they see it on other peoples machines, and as the comments said they are probobly just doing it to avoid the fact that not many people want to buy their games. and if games need some kind of online connection to prevent piracy than that still leaves square with a lot of options.
number 1, do it with steam and while unlikely would give them the online component that they need through the startup and achievement system. 2 have some kind of required connection to square servers.
Z
Yeah... I didn't read the articles. Because I'm a hypocrite xD My point was still relevant though... Just for some perspective, on one torrent site, new game releases generally have 1000-2000 people leeching and old games have 100-200. This is pretty constant, so you can have some idea of the scale, and taking into account the average number of people each person shares the games with... also they could do anonymous surveys and stuff, which would allow them to create a confidence interval and, if they came to the conclusion of 95%, it would mean 95 +/- 5%...
I dislike required connections but they are the best way to prevent piracy. It worked for Diablo because the game was built around the concept but, for a collection of last-gen games, adding required internet connection isn't well justified.