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."

Comments

How Console DRM Works for digital downloads.

[cgenman]

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.

Re:If you don't like it don't buy it

[eeCyaJ]

Phantom Pirates vs. Ghost Ninjas?

Re:What I've experienced with PS store

[Anonymous Coward]

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.