Slashdot Mirror
Final Fight Brings Restrictive DRM To the PS3
Channard writes "As reported by Joystiq, the PS3/PlayStation Network version of Final Fight Double Impact features a rather restrictive piece of digital rights management. In order to launch the game, you have to be logged into the PlayStation Network and if you're not, the game refuses to launch. This could be written off as a bug of some kind except for the fact that the error message that crops up tells you to sign in, suggesting Sony/Capcom intentionally included this 'feature.' Granted, you do have to log into the PlayStation Network to buy the title but as one commentator pointed out, logging in once does not mean you'll be logged in all the time. Curiously, the 360 version has no such restrictions, so you can play the game whether you're online or offline. But annoying as this feature may be, there may be method in Sony's madness. "
Channard continues, "The key difference between buying titles on the 360's Marketplace and Sony's PlayStation Store is that buying a title from the Marketplace only usually entitles you to play that title on a single console. A PlayStation Network account, on the other hand, can be used to license up to five consoles, meaning any title purchased from that account can be played on five different consoles. And these consoles can be de-authorized and re-authorized at will, allowing gamers to switch licenses around. This has led to a practice known as PSN game sharing, whereby gamers can purchase a title together, thereby paying a fifth of the cost of the game, and still allowing anyone to play the game on their console. Whether this has had any direct impact upon Sony or Capcom's apparent decision to implement this forced sign-in system is unknown. [Though an email from a Capcom employee seems to confirm this.] But Final Fight is the first title to feature this system — it'd be interesting to know whether this was done at Sony or Capcom's request."
simple as that. Only by refusing to buy DRM laden product will we win.
Xbox 360: Everything you download is tied to your gamertag and your console. Either your gamertag must be logged in, or it must be running on the specific console that the content is licensed to. Microsoft provides a license transfer tool that you can use to migrate your licensed console in case of system death, which you can use once a year (more if you talk to the service agents). You can re-download content as much as you want as long as the purchasing gamertag is logged in.
- Advantages: Very difficult to illicitly share content. For the most part, it happens behind the scenes without the user ever knowing. Content can follow you to other consoles with your gamertag.
- Disadvantages: When the console breaks, licensing issues become very confusing and unexpected. License transfer & re-download is easy, but time consuming.
PS3: You get 5 downloads, tied to the purchasing PSN account. This can be onto your console, or the consoles of bunches of friends. If you choose to download to the consoles of a group of friends, you won't be able to re-download in the future if your console dies. As the grandparent poster pointed out, this leads to sharing groups on PSN... groups of friends who buy once, share 5 times.
- Advantages: Relatively straightforward. Easy to understand. Trusts the user. Can use content on friend's machines (afterward, so can they).
- Disadvantages: Lots of cheating. Migration is a lot less streamlined. After a certain point, the user simply cannot re-download to new consoles.
Wii & DSi: Downloads are tied to the system, not the account. If your system breaks, your content needs to be re-purchased on the new one.
- Advantages: Extremely simple & hard to cheat.
- Disadvantages: Any console failure means all of your digital items are lost.
Steam (for comparison): Downloads are tied to the account, which must be logged in to the steam application to play. Additionally, steam may or may not require being online at the time of play. However, player can download and connect to as many machines as they install steam on, and can switch freely between them so long as they are only logged in once.
- Advantages: Relatively easy to understand. Download anytime, anywhere. No need to keep old games on your HDD that can be re-downloaded later.
- Disadvantages: Requires frequent network access. Some games install secondary DRM.
The ______ Agenda
You think they haven't thought of that?
They only have statistics to go on, like what percentage of the population would buy games at all, what percentage has broadband access, how many of those can or would buy their games, and of those, how many are broadband subscribers.
Following those stats, it's not hard to see how they would think a large enough amount of their potential customers has net access, especially in this case - it's a download title after all.
Why anyone would buy any of those in the first place is beyond me...
Truth arises more readily from error than from confusion. -Francis Bacon
What he's saying is; if there is a choice between DVD and Blu-ray for a particular Title, set the PS3 to only play the Blu-Ray version - because the profit margins on Blu-Ray are higher and so are more valuable to a media company like Sony.
These comments are my personal opinions and do not necessarily reflect the opinions of the other voices in my head.
Look! It's a game which requires that you are logged in to PSN to play it, which will require you upgrade your firmware to the latest version which disables the "Other OS" feature!
I DID NOT SEE THIS COMING.
Finally had enough. Come see us over at https://soylentnews.org/
No, but at the same time, you don't hear the parent crying himself to sleep either.
That's the idea of boycotting in capitalism; not to punish companies, but to consciously refuse to compromise your principles, resulting in you getting only what you truly want.
You know, there is a difference between trolling and pointing out the flaws in your reasoning. Just saying.
well, you've touched on the actual story here, which slashdot completely missed. Lots of PSN games require you to be signed in to play, that part is nothing new. What Capcom did with Final Fight is disable the ability to share the game between 5 accounts like you can with everything else on PSN. And it has nothing whatsoever to do with Sony, no matter how much everyone loves to hate them, the move was entirely Capcoms.
Dear Sony,
I now see that by removing the Other OS feature I paid for with my PS3 console you were intentionally trying to upset me so I would no longer be a customer for any Sony or related products. I see you did this for my benefit so that I actually might be spared enormous headaches down the road when playing games as I do not have a persistent connection to the net with my console. You truly are a noble and caring company.
Your former, but grateful customer,
xxxxxxx
Dear Sony,
Could you please share your secret of making a profit by pissing off customers? I am very intrigued how you manage to do that. We are a company of people with a proud heart for our jobs. Time and time again you demonstrate that satisfying customers is not the way to go.
But what is? What makes your customers want to buy products that will be crippled remotely after a while or even directly at sale? Is it some marketing trick? Do you select your customers for misplaced good faith? Is it some other twist of genius?
Curiously,
An honest craftsman.
Nae king! Nae laird! Nae yurrupiean pressedent! We willna be fooled again!
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the number of syllables
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GLaDOS for President 2016! "Well here we are again. It's always such a pleasure." -- GLaDOS, 2011