Slashdot Mirror
Sony May Use Downloads To Fight Piracy
Gamaustra reports that Sony may be planning to use game downloads to deter piracy in Asia. From the article: "According to the article, Yasuda is quoted as saying that the 2006 plan of SCE Asia is to construct a PlayStation 3 infrastructure on which software makers can distribute software digitally ... selected developers will get prototype funding from KIPA, and additional post-prototype funding from SCEJ, as well as free technical support and PlayStation 3 development kit rentals. Further online reports have indicated that digital downloads of game material, as currently available for the Xbox 360, should be relatively simple with the PlayStation 3, though details of the PS3's online service are still closely veiled." Kotaku, meanwhile, reports that some Korean developers don't like this idea.
Maybe this is part of how Sony will keep itself from going under.
Build a $800 console, sell it for $500, make up the difference by taking over the IP of developers.
Also, make your console more desireable by promising online titles that you can't get on the X-Box, etc.
All they have to do is hope for developers that are crazy or desperate enough to take them up on the offer.
The slashdot summary for this article is wildly inaccurate and should be changed immediately. This slashdot story takes two unrelated items and flat out states that one is because of the other. This false claim by Zonk in the article summary entirely changes the nature of the second article.
By reading the article summary, one would immediately come to the conclusion that the plan in the second article which Korean developers reacted negatively to, is the plan which is discussed in the first article. This is not the case.
The first article discusses a comment by a Sony executive who mentioned Sony is considering an XBox Live Arcade like game download service.
The second article discusses an event where Sony offered to publish an MMORPG for the PS3, but offered such one-sided terms that the companies approached were somewhat offended.
Not only are these two unrelated events, but my understanding of the situation is that Sony is not acting in the same capacity in these two events. In the first story, Sony's actions as a platform vendor-- the creator of the Playstation 3 console-- are being discussed. In the second story, Sony's actions as a publisher of games are being discussed. This context is crucial, as the kinds of terms one would consider reasonable for a developer license for the PS3 are entirely different from the kinds of terms one would consider reasonable from a game publisher. The attempt to confuse the two in the article summary destroys that context, altering the meaning of the second article.
Zonk, I assume that this is just a simple error and not an attempt to fabricate news. I hope we can expect you to do the right thing and correct the summary as soon as you can.