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Sony Plans Digital Distribution?
Along with Sony's plans to take on Xbox Live, they may be planning a move to counter the Revolution's classic gaming library. GamesIndustry.biz reports that Sony may offer digital downloads of classic PSOne and PS2 titles. From the article: "In Sony's case the challenges may be significantly more difficult, since PlayStation titles were customarily several hundred megabytes in size, and PS2 titles spanned multiple gigabytes - compared to just a few megabytes or less for NES, SNES and N64 titles in the Nintendo back-catalogue. However, as Internet connections speed up downloads of this size will be far more reasonable - already, several Xbox Live demos for the Xbox 360 are over 600Mb in size - and our sources indicated that Sony may also be investigating the possibility of remastering certain PS2 titles to allow them to stream later content over the network while the player is already playing early parts of the game."
Also, is there any word on how much the games would cost? They certainly aren't worth much any more.
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in Tokyo, where they will announce actual features in a preview.
... sounds good, but for how much? Do we have to have an account that has a monthly charge to do that, or can any PS3 owner do it? What if it takes a long time and dies part way thru?
Given that, I'm not that interested in all these rumors. And I'm not going to line up for 24 hours to get a DS Lite in Bright White either.
So, downloading PS or PS2 games over the Net
-- Tigger warning: This post may contain tiggers! --
Well... that might be ok if your bandwidth is monstrous, but most people outside of big metro areas dont get that coverage. I would hate to finish a level and then have to stare at a "loading ..." or downloading % screen for 3 hours before i get on to the next level.
"Will the highways on the Internet become more few?" -George W. Bush
It has worked well for Sony Online Entertainment's EverQuest and EverQuest II franchies, so why not? Who wants to visit a brick and mortar store in today's age of high speed internet, anyway?
I say bring it on. Let's just hope they can price it right.
It sounds to me that Sony is considering this as more of a checklist item then a headline feature. They have not been pushing their online component very hard at all, compared to say, the power of the cell processor.
If this was meant to be a serious feature, it would have been mentioned and covered long before now. But since Microsoft has proven its self with Xbox Live, and Nintendo has been talking about the access to their back library for some time, it sounds like Sony is getting a bit worried.
First, a week or two ago, someone brings up a story about a possible Revolution like controller scheme. Now were hearing about downloadable games. It just reeks of damage control marketing to me.
It also does not help that Sony does not have all that much in teh way of classic, evergreen titles to draw on. Most of their monster hits have recent iterations available, and those iterations are often in the vein of Gran Turismo, where the new ones are just going to be better then the old ones. I am sure they have some titles that qualify, though. You cannot get into Sony's current position without having any enduring hits.
END COMMUNICATION
The PS2 is still out there and you can get a ps1 with all the games you'd want for a couple of bucks second hand.
By the time the PS3 comes out the second hand ps2 games will go down in price as well, I wonder if it won't be cheaper to buy all the ps1 & 2 games you want second hand than through their online service.
Nintendo's catalog is much more interesting in that respect, the originals are often hard to find and expensive, heck even microsoft's offerings on marketplace are more interesting, where else can you get those classic arcade games, legally?
4.9GB games (a few PS2 games where even dual layer disks) pose another major problem - unlike the 1MB SNES games, where are you going to store them? The cost of the PS3 is already huge, do they really have the budget to include a 200GB harddrive? (and at that size they can't even use the cost cutting measure Microsoft used - to provide 10GB harddrives, they'd just bought already cheap 20GB units where one platter was uncertified, essentially B grade units that could be salvaged for the required storage space at a fraction of the cost)
A mass market portable music player that is in the same league as Apple' iPod.
Everything else is about ready to fall into place with Cell and the PS3.
I would love to see Apple and Sony really team up on the digital media software and hardware market. Apple's hardware fiasco with Intel is going to go nowhere - the computer market isn't waiting around to pay more for OS X on overpriced x86 Intel only hardware, no matter what delusions of marketshare growth Apple fanboys have. When IBM dumped Apple last year it signed the death warrant for Apple computer hardware.
The age of the desktop computer is ending - they will still be around and sold in large numbers. But small wireless devices is where the industry is heading.
When IBM dumped Apple it effectively locked them out of Cell tech - forcing them I guess to turn to, yeeechh, Viiv. If Apple dumps their desktop hardware and starts making the UI/system level software for Sony consumer devices powered by Cell system. Oh man...gives me goosebumps just thinking about the possiblities.
Cell is really the basis of the digital content deliver world Sony is in the process of building. Once you target you code for Cell you are ready to deliver your content to a wide range of media devices. Right now we have only seen the first Cell chip, the Broadband Engine, with 8 SPEs but in the future we will see a vast range of Cell chips from single SPE chips all the way up to monster Cell chips with as many SPEs as the current process tech can handle.
Why is this scalability important? The PS3 functions as the central media server. Raw content comes in through a fat pipe from Sony and possibly other media services. That content is then scaled on the fly to the myriad smaller Cell based devices you have in your home. Want to watch the 1080p TV show or movie your PS3 media center downloaded last night on your Cellphone, PSP, or car's media player? Cell chips slice through audio and video content an order of magnitude faster than anything coming out of Intel or AMD. Your Cell base media center recodes the content on the fly and dumps it on to your device of choice at whatever target resolution/file size you desire.
Of course all of this is DRMed which, of course, makes quite a few people unhappy. But, of course, none of it would happen if it wasn't.
Exciting times.
I know Apple and Sony have danced around each other quite a bit. It's time for them to take the plunge and truely conquer the digital media world together.
There are possible ways that they could do this without forcing people to download hundreds of megabytes of data. The most obvious way would be to compress most of the audio and video data on the server and decompress it in memory (when you consider that many, if not most, PSOne games had uncompressed cd-audio they could potentially reduce a CD from hundreds of Megabytes to 50-100 MB.
... Sony may be too far behind to offer a competative service at launch.
The reality is that there have already been rumors that Nintendo has gotten Sega onboard (and hypothetically they may have already looked at getting the Turbo-Graphics or Jaguar emulated as well)
Traditionally most of the content was (red book?) audio CD's. So that aspect of it at least could be lossy compressed to go over the wire and expanded back out to make a 'virtual' CD image. Hell, the quantity of power the PS3 will have it could be done on the fly. So basically you're looking at shipping some MP3's and maybe fifty megs of data?
Dave
I write a blog now, you should be afraid.
If the PS3 could burn the content to disc so that the person would have a physical copy, this could really amount to quite a big thing.
Sony would no doubt impliment some kind of DRM to make sure the burned copy is only played on the PS3 that downloaded it, though. Not that I would blame them entirely, but I wouldn't mind it so much if you could actually transfer it to another machine. (Suppose your PS3 goes tits up as Sony hardware tends to do...)
This has potential. As it stands now as great as net-delivered content is, I'm not real comfortable paying for something unless I get to keep a physical media copy as well. Nintendo's online content delivery service might be crippled if it's limited to storing inside the Revolution hardware, though if you can transfer it to a memory card it won't be so bad.
How many times have I jumped tracks here? I'll shut up now.
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Most PlayStation 1/2/3 games are sequels, sequels of sequels, or just not really that original.
I'm not too fussy about how original a game is, and I think that taking a good game and improving it slightly is fine. It does mean that I won't want the older version when there's a newer version, though. So when PS2 came out, most PlayStation games lost their appeal to me because they had better replacements. When PS3 comes out, the situation is likely to be much the same.
So this service isn't of much interest, except for a small handful games that haven't had superior sequels/clones yet.
This is technically a great idea, and the right way to go! However:
I may sound like a broken record here, but think about DRM. An online download could easily require authentication and even automated patching to play each time (especially on a closed hardware platform). Steam, anyone? This esentially means that whether you can play a game or not is entirely up to the mercy of whoever flips the switch somewhere out there.
This will never happen, you say. What about the following:
1. Can Sony find a reason why you shouldn't be allowed play the game? Forced obsoletion for instance? Yes.
2. Does Sony even need a reason to prevent you from playing? No.
3. Can Sony break the game with a patch that you'll be forced to install? Yes.
4. Can Sony be trusted to implement fair and reliable DRM? Hell, yeah! Right!
That's why this technology is dangerous as it is cool.
Unfortunately, sony forces you to either buy bi-monthly one-zone additions for 5.99 or _rent_ those additions by paying for their more expensive service. So if you ever switch to basic service, the contract actually says you no longer have rights to access. I don't know that they implemented it that way, but being forced to buy buggy new zones every couple of months because EQ2 had little-to-no end game and all my 'friends' would 'buy' through the more expensive subscription just isnt a great pricing system. I excercised consumer choice and cancelled. Dont buy any subscription crap from sony, buy the actual game. Otherwise you'll end up with cable-like video game service. The exact opposite of what everyone seems to want for other services (music and TV) where individual choices/purchases are championed.
I was kinda counting on either audio cassette or LP record distribution
...early 1980s)
But seriously, since when does "Digital" mean "download"?.
All my CD-ROM games are already "Digital" and have been for ohhhh....ten or fifteen years?
Same with my game cartridges....all ones and zeros there also.
and, by the way in case you think I'm joking about the Analog distribution method...
I *am* old enough to remember programs & games distributed on audio cassette (I had a Radio Shack/Tandy MC-10 which used a cassette interface for storing programs
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If you were storing programs on tape, that was digital also. Remember, hard drives use magnetic storage as well, just on platters (and much more dense of course)
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...this could really screw me over at school, since the housing contracts only allow us 5GB of data (upstream and downstream combined) for any 7 consecutive days.
I dunno know about everyone else but I absolutely cringe at thinking of the poor souls who would decide to download Final Fantasy XII, let alone Final Fantasy VII. I'm pretty sure it a good couple of hours just for me to download each of the pre-loads for Half-Life 2, and then still had to download some more once the game came out.
Not to say this isn't a bad idea, but its borderline "too early" for this, at least in the states where DSL saturation is nowhere near what it is in Japan.
At least the revolution you're talking downloads of maybe 100 megs or so for N64, and that's assuming no compression. You can fit early SNES games on a floppy disk.
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I'm not sure this is going to work as well as Sony thinks. The problem is that Sony's old games don't have the nostalgia value of Nintendo's. When people see Sony's PS1 games, they are reminded that there are now newer and better versions available. When they see an old NES game, it's different. 9 out of 10 gamers, you put them in front of the original Super Mario Bros, and the minute that music starts to play, they'll crack a smile. Don't misunderstand me. Sony's games are good, and I think everyone enjoys them. But they don't have that timeless emotional appeal. When you see an old Sony game, it's a cheap older game. When you see an old Nintendo game, it's a classic.
Just because audio cassette was a magentic medium doesn't make them digital. The signal is still stored in an analog form (continuously varying signal). Hard Disks (and Digital Audio Tapes) store the data in a digital form, with discrete values. The point being that (sufficiently small amounts of) noise can be tolerated without any degredation, since the signal can be reconstructed exactly as there are only a small number of valid signals.
The "correct" signal on an analog tape can have any value, so any noise is indistinguishable from the desired signal.
You're right though about Nintendo and Microsoft. Nintendo has at least three generations to go through (NES, SNES, N64) not counting the Gameboy line and Microsoft has LEGAL classic arcade games plus a proven track record (at least for consoles) of handling online services.
you don't expect me to believe that you stored programs as analog... sure, every waveform transmitted is technicly analog, it just gets interpreted as digital. Same with tape backups. Perhaps my example of hard disks bad, since the computer doesn't determine if the stuff it read was above the "1" threshold, the HDD does that... but think data recovery, or bit rot or whatever... the magnetic values are analog... I'm having trouble making a good example, but basicly, everything is analog, but some can be interpreted as digital just fine. There are digital cameras that record on "digital tape" which is just tape that is read as digital instead of analog.
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It's important to note that the management of sony's computer entertainment division is very very different from that of their music division.
I really really doubt that Sony would intentionally break a game you've already downloaded unless it was free with a time limit. With this much cutthroat competition that would be like digging their own graves.
The drm in all their other hardware is due to the pushing of music/movie studios. I'm sure sony's hardware division wouldn't give a rats ass about drm in blu-ray if not for these studios (including their own).
Hmmm... Pie...
This sounds like an awesome idea! For PSX games, most of them are either out-of-print or very difficult (if not impossible) to find, and this also applies to some PS2 ones already (e.g. Disgaea). If they want, it could open the door to wider library of games than before; I personally would love to try out some games that never got out of Japan, some that are ruined by poor dubbing (I don't like dubbing in general). Another benefit might be the load time, since they'll probably be run off HDDs. Imagine your favorite RPG without the load times between each screen! Hope this flies.
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And Sony will call its new download service.
drum roll please...
"ROOT KIT DIRECT".
Final Fantasy 8 had this feature, sorta - the main character has a gun sword - when you choose attack he'll attack with the sword, and if you press R2 or R1 (can't remember) just as the sword hits he'll fire a shot from the gun part for extra damage. His limit break is the same, and apparently, when you have control of Seifer in beginning of the game, you can use the R1 button to trigger his gun.
Granted, it's not in the same league as Super Mario RPG, though.
Yes Sony is Sony but expect all divisions to act in the same manner and you'll be largely disappointed.
Hmmm... Pie...
Ah but there is a flaw in your logic as well. Digital, in the true sense of a word is just a method of storing 1s and 0s, tape can easily be as digital of a format as anything else. Now if you think digital even implies random access, you'd be wrong there as well. Many things are digital and sequential. You could store digital with a sequence of anything on any device. Hell, you could use morse code like dots and slashes to indicate digital information over a wire if you could build the interpreter. Digital is simply a concept, a method of storing info regardless of format. That's why modems are so popular =).
But your overall point is correct, PS1 and 2 games are already digital.
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