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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.
How can it be bad if it has Q in the name? The only way I would want it more is if it was named "QoreX" or "XCore".
At first I thought the summary was lacking, but there isn't even a mention of "PS3" anywhere in the article either. I take it this isn't limited to the ps3?
If you can read this, I forgot to post anonymously.
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.
Give me Classic Slashdot or give me death!
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?
The MGS Bundle for $500 that will be in stores next week has the 80GB PS3 with backwards compatibilty. Releases June 12 at stores everywhere. This is not the same as the OMG ITZ GR3Y! Limited gunmetal edition, which is a 40GB for $600, and is only available direct from Konami (seriously, who put THAT together)
TFA says that you get "Calling All Cars" for free with an annual subscription. I can't tell how much that costs in a quick search, but TFA also talks about added content for other games. Stating the obvious: If you play the games the issues have addons for, it could be worth it.
Looking around the playstation network, I saw 70 games available for download for the PS3. I have no idea if that compares to the Wii's download library, but it does exist.
(BTW, I own neither a PS3 nor a Wii.)
You can actually download Symphony of the Night and Wild Arms on the Playstation Network. The games work on either the PS3 or PSP.
It's about time a game company steps up and reaches out to the LGBT community... oh, it said Qore. I read that wrong. Nevermind.
"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.
Lots of places stopped taking preorders on consoles, after the XBox 360 and Wii fiascos. Amazon apparently is one of them. Dunno why those other companies think they can get away with selling those for $400 over retail.
"No one cares." Surely he's not the only one who is made to feel uneasy about subscription services. I'm sure all of *those* people care.