Slashdot Mirror
Sony Wants To Put Your Game Saves In the Cloud
itwbennett writes "Sony may be planning to have three platforms (Android devices, NGP, PS3) running PlayStation Suite content and needing access to the same saved data stored in the cloud, says blogger Peter Smith. At last week's PlayStation Meeting, game developer Hideo Kojima said his 'dream' was to offer the same game on the PS3 and the new PlayStation Portable with saves in the cloud. If Kotaku has it right, that dream may be coming in firmware version 3.6. Also, in an interview with Engadget, Sony's Jack Tretton first said that PlayStation Suite games would work on the PS3. He then retracted that comment, but it's sounding a lot like Sony just isn't ready to talk officially about plans to bring Suite content to the PS3, says Smith."
Storing game saves in on the network is a great idea. As long as they are also saved offline and are available for manual backups too. Network storage is not a substitute for offline backups.
Give me Classic Slashdot or give me death!
I don't know how many games I've played 1.75 times because I reformatted and couldn't find/forgot about the dang savegame files.
Saves aren't automatically forced to the cloud if you're someone who will be without internet access for a time. Also, they hopefully won't use this to deter piracy by holding people's save games hostage.
There is no -1 Disagree.
Although there's plenty that can go wrong, 'cloud' storage is a cool concept for my save data. It's not fun having to scrounge up a compatible device to backup my PS3's saves when I've upgraded the drive, and I'd hate to have to restart a game on my portable just because I lost my save on a Tiny-Micro-Whatever SD card no bigger than my pinky-nail.
That said, it raises the stakes on what happens if I decide to jailbreak my devices. Is there always going to be a hard copy, or do I get a nastygram message at startup saying "Your account (and all of those saves) have been locked out due to unlicensed use of your hardware"? Let's not forget that many manufacturers (Sony and Nintendo included) are moving towards digital delivery systems.
That could be really good! So long as I wasn't required to be connected to the internet in order to play my games. If there was some kind of consolecloud replication and games could function in a completely offline state it would be pretty great. It sucks balls when Blizzard is offline and I can't get my StarCraft 2 injection.
No sig for you. YOU GET NO SIG!
Privacy concerns aside, it seems like a good thing if the save files are *mirrored* online. I could see the benefit of wanting to load up my game elsewhere or having them saved in the cloud when my PS3 takes a dive into the crapper (which happened to me recently). However, I would be extraordinarily pissed if I couldn't play a certain game if my internet connection flaked out or if the servers are down or something like that.
Saved online and offline. Not many steam games do this though. What's more useful is the control binding saves in the cloud. Rebinding TF2 (and L4D, and L4D2, and Portal, and HL2, and Garry's Mod, and Fallout3... you get the idea) to ESDF is an exercise in frustration. I have no problem with this, as long as you get offline saves too.
You should turn signatures off.
Uh, what about those that don't HAVE good network access... I've recently been allowed a glimpse into the pain that many have with these idiot notions that you can simply rely on the "cloud" to get updates, demos, etc. It only sort-of works when you've got access to 3-5 Mbits/sec without caps on the bandwidth (3G networking doesn't work overly well for either unless you've got WiMax/LTE and coverage in your area...and even then, the caps cause their own sets of issues.. It only REALLY works if you've got what I've got back at home or higher, which would be 20 Mbits/sec.
Until the ISPs are on the same damn page as the companies wanting "The Cloud" it's a non-play. And that doesn't get into the OTHER problems with "The Cloud"- which would be security and reliability of the supplier in question.
I am not merely a "consumer" or a "taxpayer". I am a Citizen of the State of Texas
When I buy a game I want to be able to play it as long as I have the ability to do so (as long as my hardware/emulator still works). If any corporation decides it's no longer profitable to keep up the "cloud storage" for my particular game, am I then no longer able to play?
If Sony chooses what you do with your games, are they really yours?
Violence is the last refuge of the incompetent. -- Isaac Asimov
Both me and a friend of mine have PS3s, and we take turns visiting each other's homes to play games. So we're in the target audience for this feature.
But we've been getting by just fine by using USB keys.
So ... why would I want to subscribe to (and presumably pay money for) a feature that I already have? Sure, I have to save onto a USB key manually, but it's just an extra minute after our gaming session.
They want everyone keeping all their devices connected to the online hub. This way they can control licensing, require updates, etc., more effectively than they do today.
You might like jailbreaking your console, but will you like it as much if your saved games are inaccessible? (maniacal laughter)
I also want to add that not all users wants to connect to the internet - at all.
I bought the ps3 so that I could try linux on it and to play single player games. In my book that's where I get relaxation, I just get more stressed when playing against others (and in some cases against time). That's why I loved the game skate for instance. No pressure, just cruising around for a few hours etc. I don't need to be "social" in the ps3 - in fact I don't need to be social at all when using a computer. That's why off line mode is important to me.
Actually I got bored with the ps3 and the lack of games that I sold it and got back to using the ps2 which is a fucking great console also. The guy that bought the ps3 was happy that I hadn't even connected it to the internet once. Sure, I might have lost some of the magic with the console from updates and trials etc, but I didn't feel that was important to me.
I feel the future consoles isn't going to offer as much to me as the previous ones did. Call me old, after all, I'm half way to retirement ;-)
Only pirates play video games offline. No one ever has a good reason not to be online. Off switches are illegal.
and have to deal with them limiting your bandwidth the 25Gb per month.
I'm all for in-the-cloud saves as an OPTION. My gripe is that how long between offering this as a free service, when cloud-saves are the de-facto standard, and when you have to start paying money to be able to load your save games? Sony, like any good business, is out to put money in their pockets. This seems like an easy way to get more money out of power gamers without irritating the casual crowd enough to affect their bottom line.
Now, give me the ability to push my saves to any server I want and just charge for the awesomeness of Sony's Save Servers, that I'm all for. But Sony has never been a company into standards or openness (see MemoryStick vs SD cards; MafiAA).
Tip for telling if someone is pulling your leg: if they have marginally unreasonable views listed with completely unreasonable views (off switches are illegal?), they're being sarcastic.
...they don't abuse the power.
For instance, Nintendo happens to sign your save game files with a per-console key. This allows developers the option to lock their game's saves to the console, preventing you from moving them from one machine to the next. Certain homebrew applications were created that allowed you to actually back up your save file.
This hit me when I bought Ghost Squad. I unlocked a bunch of guns, and wanted to take the game to a friend's house to play on his Wii. I tried to copy my save file to the SD Card, and it told me no. That's some balls, telling me that I can't copy my own save file. WTF?
:(){
Imagine your PS3 hard drive dies. Your saves are online, or your PS3 is in for repairs. You can still use a buddies PS3 and login to an account and play from your last save. Even upgrading to a new console (of the sony variety) and still having your saves for backwards compatible games. That sort of service gives incentive to buy future products.
Imagine this instead: Sony only allows online savegame storage, without the possibility of local copies (because that might allow someone to duplicate items in games with artificial scarcity, etc.). Then they suffer a server outage, and lose everything (a la MS and Hotmail recently).
Or how about: Sony releases the PS4, and drops support for the PS3 because there is no short-term market incentive and like most executives these days, they ignore long-term financial views. Your PS3 games become unplayable because they require online savegame storage. But hey, have fun buying the PS4 sequel that's vaguely like the original.
Thanks, but no thanks. I already have the capability to back up my console savegames to whatever location I want. Most of the functionality is built into the console, but in the case of asinine control-freak developers who set the "you can only move the file, not copy it" flag, I have third-party hardware that ignores it.
If console makers require online savegames, they can guarantee they'll lose at least one customer in the form of me. There are enough existing games out there already that I could never buy a new game again and never run out.
"...always new atoms but always doing the same dance, remembering what the dance was yesterday." -Richard Feynman
what do you think the chances that Nintendo would still have SNES or hell even NES savegame servers up and working properly now 20 or 25 years after the fact. Would my zelda and Final Fantasy 1 saves still work if I want to pop those games in? Would emulators (which is how I play those games now, even though I DO have a working NES console in a box in the garage) be invalidated as "games played on non-standard/hacked hardware"? Maybe Zelda and FF1 would work just fine because they are high profile, but what about less "famous" games?
Sierra took down the Starseige:Tribes master server after about 5 or years. That was a fairly popular game, and the server stored nothing more than the IP addresses of servers that had been verified as up in the past few minutes. You expect companies to keep servers up that have magnitudes more in the way of data storage and transfer needs?
Speaking of bandwidth concerns, some savegames can get pretty damn big. The last thing I need in my games is -more- waiting and loading time. "please wait while we download your savegame". Can you imagine the fun ever time a game's autosave goes off? "please wait, in the middle of this cooridoor, while we transfer your savegame to a server somewhere." And from somebody who was worked extensively with WAN-based applications that -SHOULD- easily work phenomenally fast, yet don't for a reason nobody can figure out, trust me that when that sony save server logjams and millions of people can't play their games because they can't load a save, you'll have MMO forum whining x 100.
also, who the hell is going to pay for all this?
On the other hand... if they take down those hypothetical NES/SNES savegame severs, that would provide some strong incentive to buy those "recently re-released for the 4th time, classic remastered collectors edition" versions for sale on the psn/live/wii stores... Ploy much?
no thanks sony, no thanks at all.
As always, the solution to a Microsoft problem is in the Knowledge Base: http://support.microsoft.com/kb/981974?sd=xbox
The Xbox 360 has always had the ability to backup most of your data through the use of proprietary "Memory Units". With the Spring 2010 Update they added the ability to use standard USB devices as well; granted you do have to partition it to a proprietary format and allow half a gig storage loss for 'security' data. They also impose a 16GB limitation per memory device and allow a max of 2 connected at a time. They don't want to cut into the profitable proprietary hard drive market.
Yes, it is cumbersome but it is possible and at least the data isn't tied specifically to the console it was backed up from, which means that you should be able to move your saves to a new system should your old one die.. unlike say the PS3.
Thanks a lot for that, Sony. Just one more reason why I will not spend another cent on you.
I have absolutely nothing to add to this topic, except to chime in with support for this statement.
We bought a Sony BD player that actually crashes during fast-forward. A disc player - in 2011 - that crashes - requiring a full power cycle.
Their PS3 shenanigans were bad enough, but I'd always thought they were technically sound. Now I've been proven wrong on that front too.
Last post!