Sony Announces "Qore" Playstation Bundle

Sony Computer Entertainment America has announced a new subscription-based, multimedia, Playstation bundle that promises to feature developer interviews, game previews, demos, betas, and add-ons all delivered in high definition. Supposedly hitting the streets on June 5th, "Qore," seems an awful lot like paying to get more advertising. Hopefully the playable gems make this (admittedly cheap) service worth it.

Comments

Ownership

[Hatta]

I have to say any subscription based service makes me uneasy. What happens when they shut down the shop and I can't access my favorite game? What's going to happen to the classic gaming scene in 20 years, when all these subscription services have been down for years and you can't find a working console anymore?

I spend a lot more of my time and money playing classic games than new ones, I have 30 year old consoles that work flawlessly today. I just hope emulators for the current generation of systems get really good really quick.

Re:Ownership

[TypoNAM]

The entertainment industry (Music: RIAA, Movies/TV:MPAA, Gaming: EA Games, etc..) wants it all it go subscription only so that they have complete control while the consumer has none. They want to either annually or monthly make you pay out of the nose so to speak for their "Intellectual property" of which according to them you're not buying the product instead you're licensing it.

I believe things are just going to get worse once the majority are convinced it's more "convenient" to just subscribe for movies, games, music and such instead of buying a hard copy. By then there won't be any alternatives to getting your fix of media except their "approved" subscription providers of content delivery services. Cause once they don't get their periodic payments they simply lock you out and only option you've got is pay to restore the subscription (of course there will be a re-activation fee). Then they'll start to decide on what content you'll get. Say they figure it's cheaper and easier just to provide music that is nothing more but remixes of past decade's music and not release anything unqiue or new until they feel they've squeezed every last penny possible out of it.

There's quite many different views to be taken on this whole subscription based media content and the reality is that they simply want to have complete control over their products and ultimately you as to what you've got access to, when, how, and limited iterations of playback without further payments.

Maybe I shouldn't post such dark discussions as they could be used as blueprints of world conquest by the entertainment industry. ;)

Re:Ownership

[rob1980]

This sounds like a magazine more than anything else. Not like the Virtual Console or XBLA. I doubt anybody's going to care about the content released through Qore next year, let alone 20 years from now.

What the Quck

[poot_rootbeer]

If I'm interpreting this announcement correctly, this is pretty much the same thing as the "Nintendo Channel" that launched on Wii a couple of weeks ago, except all the advertorial content is in High Definition. And you have to pay for it.

Who qares?

Re:I don't understand why it's bad

[JordanL]

Most posters here seem like they are completely lost.

Not surprised with the uninformative summary though. This is basically a digital subscription to a multimedia version of a PlayStation Magazine. It's a more convenient, and slightly cheaper, alternative for those who love picking up gaming mags. No grand scheme of villany here, just a giant company changing their business model to reflect the changes in technology and consumer expectations.

Which if I recall correctly is something people here are usually begging for.

Re:Odd.

[powerlord]

To quote the original Sony Blog entry http://blog.us.playstation.com/2008/06/03/introducing-qore-taking-you-behind-the-curtain-with-playstation/:

To get Qore, simply log onto PSN and go to the PLAYSTATION Store, as you would purchase any other form of downloadable content. Once the single Episode or annual subscription is purchased, that month's episode will be downloaded under the "Game" heading on the Cross Media Bar (XMB). Users who purchase the "Qore Annual Subscription" will notice only that month's episode is available to download. The following month, the new episode will automatically appear in your download list.

So yes, its limited to the PS3. Its basically an electronic version of a "dead tree" PlayStation Magazine.

Personally I'm pretty excited about the idea of an "old style idea" (PlayStation Magazine) being adapted to a new media (made for on-line, Downloadable, Pay on-line, Automatically downloaded as soon as its available each month).

Re:Sony doesn't get it

[Guppy06]

"but you would think that they would find some of their old partners to revive the games and sell them online."

Most of their "old partners" would rather sell remakes at full price rather than the original games for a $10 download. Square-Enix, for example, has made it quite clear that you'll never see any old games with the words "Final Fantasy" or "Dragon Quest" in the title on any download service; they'd rather sell you Tactics as a $40 PSP game, or Origins as two separate $30 titles. Konami's SotN seems to be an aberration, and I wouldn't be surprised if they weren't simply responding to some sort of pressure after releasing it on Xbox Live (and it's currently the most expensive PS1 downloadable by far).

There's also holes in the other download services as well (I'm not seeing the phrase "Mega Man" anywhere near the Virtual Console, not even Soccer), but the consoles supported by the Wii were and are all heavily supported by their respective manufacturers' first-party titles (Nintendo, Sega, Hudson, SNK, etc.). The original Xbox, like Sony's consoles, had a small number of self-published hits, and Xbox Live's collection of downloadable Xbox titles, dominated by Microsoft titles, is even smaller than Sony's.

To their credit, Sony's library of downloadable PS1 games is larger than Nintendo's N64 offerings, and I doubt there's any technical reason why many of the Virtual Console games can't be transferred to the DS, as Sony offers with the PSP. But Sony introduced a new approach to video game consoles with the original PlayStation, one that only really supplied hardware and let third parties handle almost all software sales. And unless those third parties see compelling reasons (read "cash") to release their back-catalog as-is instead of super duper ultra mega high-definition re-re-re-re-re-re-releases (complete with artwork and director's interviews), what you're seeing on the PlayStation Store is about as good as things can possibly get.

If persistent rumors of Super Mario RPG showing up in the Virtual Console end up being true and Square-Enix starts seeing some fat checks from their stake in the title, then you might see the third-party situation start to turn around on all three consoles. But it's a big "if" and even then I doubt things would change overnight.