Sony Could Face Developer Exodus On PSN

donniebaseball23 writes "As the PlayStation Network outage continues, developers are feeling the economic pinch. There's been no word from Sony on whether they'll compensate companies who produce games for PSN, but Capcom has already said it's losing potentially 'millions' from the downtime. Worse yet, developers who rely on PSN revenues may jump ship if they aren't compensated, warns Dylan Cuthbert, creator of popular PSN game PixelJunk. 'I have a feeling they [Sony] are thinking about doing something or they will lose developers, which of course is pretty bad for them,' he said." While a major shift away from the PS3 is unlikely — downtime or not, developers don't want to lock themselves out of such a big piece of the market — it does have undeniable negative effects on some companies. For example, Bethesda's FPS Brink, which focuses heavily on multiplayer, launched without that capability for PS3 users. You can bet Microsoft will use this outage as a selling point for exclusivity or Xbox-first arrangements.

Comments

Try something new

[Pikoro]

Why not just make the games single player stand alone and ADD the networking stuff on as another mode. That way, the games don't require PSN for people to play them. Or use your own 3rd party server which would probably be even worse.

Re:Try something new

[ciderbrew]

No, what you want is more DRM added. Our sales team figures show that an always on connection is the only thing that can help here.

Re:Try something new

[Anonymous Coward]

Why not just make the games single player stand alone and ADD the networking stuff on as another mode. That way, the games don't require PSN for people to play them.

As much as I would ordinarily agree with focusing on a decent single player game, some games just aren't meant to be single player. Multiplayer based FPS like the Unreal Tournament series or Quake 3 get very boring, very fast when you're just playing against predictable, monotonous bots. The fun and variation comes in when you introduce other people who think, react, and generally play in different ways with different strategies. If you replay Bad Company 2 over and over you get the same storyline with the same script and the same situations. Play it online and you get different people with their own personalities, styles of gameplay and motives.

I don't see a problem with dedicated SP and dedicated MP games. SP games require good scene setting, a well thought out storyline and some good implementation of AI. MP games require a fairly robust set of rules that allow people to adapt to their own personal tactic preferences against whatever tactics their (often changing) human opponents adopt, and enough flexibility that the same levels don't start to drag too soon. Focussing on AI and storytelling is a bit useless for people who just want a game where they can log on, join a server and have a laugh with their friends for a while. Games like Counterstrike didn't become popular on the back of a singleplayer campaign.

Re:Try something new

[Windwraith]

People gets insane without online modes.
No, really, I was shocked to know myself. Now kids go like "single player games suck" and such things.

Re:Try something new

[Forty Two Tenfold]

Or a completely new console.

Re:Try something new

[Denny_za]

Multiplayer or not, I want my trophies, which are linked to PSN...

Re:Try something new

[Lumpy]

Are you insane you cant trust the consumer to even hold a disk they may Selfishly to a terrorist act of sharing that disk with a friend that did not pay for the right to play it or WORSE invite others over to play it. What is needed is the console to NOT have any drives or even processor, but the games are played on the local servers safe in our bunker 30 miles below the surface away from the dirty disgusting consumers.

That along with our lobbying to get implants required on all gamers so we can blind them and electrocute them when we need to will protect our precious!

Re:Try something new

[VortexCortex]

Why not just make the games single player stand alone and ADD the networking stuff on as another mode. That way, the games don't require PSN for people to play them. Or use your own 3rd party server which would probably be even worse.

In most competitive games there is no bank of dedicated servers -- one of the player's machines is the "server". Why not simply allow unranked matches between peers?

For example, "Unranked Matches > Custom Match > Join Server > Enter the IP of the game server to join."

Thus, when PSN or XBL is unavailable (which has happened for maintenance, it did piss me off) the players will still be able to play. In PSN's case, since it's already free, WHY NOT? It's not like they'll be losing money by doing so.

The secret joke of the "online" is that it's just a DRM mechanism designed to keep people from playing games -- Eg: I can't play Halo2 online in a custom match, even though all of my friends have started the game, and our XBoxes are talking to eachother (party chat) and all of our consoles know that the others' have loaded the game -- we can verify this by looking at the Halo2 icon next to our names on the friends list...

So, then we fire up OpenVPN and join a system link game over the Internet, and we're all playing Halo2 online -- XBL was not even needed for this -- We're just using it to coordinate our play-times and for the voice chat feature.

If you've ever seen "Selecting New Host" or other similar message, you'll realize that the XBL and PNS is actually just made up of the machines everyone purchased (Host == Server). Only a small number of "matchmaking" and/or media / score tracking & DRM servers exist in comparison to control how the masses play their games. In the case of Halo2 (and all original Xbox games) they've artificially obsoleted the games' Internet play features -- They want you to play the new games, not enjoy the older games.

Personally, I won't buy a game that doesn't support system link (LAN play) -- VPN stands for Virtual Player Network to me.

Re:Try something new

[mjwx]

Why not just make the games single player stand alone and ADD the networking stuff on as another mode. That way, the games don't require PSN for people to play them. Or use your own 3rd party server which would probably be even worse.

You mean like PC games have been doing since the 90's?

How novel.

MS/Sony dont want to do that because they miss out on all the revenue of being the only online service available. "But PSN was free" I hear you ask, well it was free for you but not for the developers who have to pay licensing fees for it which came out of the RRP of the game you bought so I guess it wasn't so free (and all that personal information they get from it too).

Re:Try something new

[SilentStaid]

Let's not forget how many ads you get in the store section, either. That can't be an inconsequential sum of money to make sure that the background changes to your movie poster and not someone else's for a week.

Re:Try something new

[yarnosh]

Um, how old are you? Multiplayer *is* new. Or at least the idea of making a game that only plays online is. It is perfectly reasonable to make a game that is designed to be played online. Think of how boring WoW or Eve Online (I'm not a big console player) would be in single player mode, for example. It just wouldn't make sense to plays those games standalone. But that's what makes them so appealing. If you want a standalone game, there are plenty that play just fine that way. To say that all games should be like that though is kind of silly. As for not using PSN, that's a bit overreactive, don't you think? I'm not a PS3 developer, but I imagine leveraging PSN for online play cuts down on dev time significantly. You'd be dumb not to take advantage of that. Outages like PSN is experiences are just not typical. To base your technical decisions around it is not wise.

Re:Try something new

[Culture20]

Multiplayer *is* new. Or at least the idea of making a game that only plays online is. It is perfectly reasonable to make a game that is designed to be played online. Think of how boring WoW or Eve Online (I'm not a big console player) would be in single player mode

Considering that Eve Online is just a 3D realtime Trade Wars 2002 (which is a game from 1984, not 2002), and considering the countless other MUDs, online-only games aren't that new of an idea.

Re:Try something new

[Osgeld]

that would require effort, something current game companies are pretty low on

Re:Try something new

[ciderbrew]

It's that sort of lefty talk that is the problem with this solar system. You do know we have a huge problem with people remembering what they've played and then thinking about it later. That person has taken a copy of our product and is enjoying it again without paying the correct remuneration.
Of course I support the "at birth implant" lobbyists, it's the best course of action until we develop the much needed fetal augmentation. I only hope we get the research funding bill approved.

- Also, thanks to the twonk that modded my first comment flamebait. That Aspergers must make blatant satire hard to spot.

Re:Try something new

[Lumpy]

BRILLIANT! built in mind wipes of all players! You're going to be CEO soon!

Re:Try something new

[pnewhook]

For example, "Unranked Matches > Custom Match > Join Server > Enter the IP of the game server to join."

Because my hardware firewall doesn't allow this due to the security settings I have and I'm not opening it up just to play a game.

Re:Try something new

[HAKdragon]

Can't you still earn trophies offline and just have them sync back up once the PSN is back online? (I have a PS3 but I haven't played it for a while - I decided to clear out some of my 360 backlog and I can't remember if I've ever unlocked trophies offline.)

Re:Try something new

[Anonymous Coward]

Multiplayer or not, I want my trophies, which are linked to PSN...

I hope this is just a weak joke.

Re:Try something new

[Stormwatch]

Um, how old are you? Multiplayer *is* new. Or at least the idea of making a game that only plays online is.

John Daleske's Empire, 8-player networking. Turn-based strategy. 1973.
Jim Bowery's Spasim, 32-player networking. 3D shooter/simulator. 1974.

Re:Try something new

[N0Man74]

Better yet... allow for openly run multiplayer servers like PC games have done since the beginning of online gaming (even if they have begun to go the console route more often).

Whether it's games, movies, music, or ebooks, we're increasingly becoming at the mercy of publishers and distributers in order to continue to enjoying the content that we have purchased.

It sucks, and it's going to get worse if people don't start demanding change.

Re:Try something new

[The Moof]

This is already happening automatically with the current systems. If your firewall is not configured to allow outbound connections from your console, PSN/XBL gaming wouldn't work anyway.

Re:Try something new

[ashidosan]

due to the security settings I have

You mean, the defaults? Thanks for sharing.

Re:Try something new

[Khyber]

No, you cannot.

Example games: Red Dead Redemption, GTAIV.

None work.

Re:Try something new

[Khyber]

"Um, how old are you? Multiplayer *is* new. Or at least the idea of making a game that only plays online is."

Older than you, child.

Learn what a multi-node BBS with Door Games is.

The Pit - the original MultiPlayer Deathmatch.

Re:Try something new

[MBGMorden]

Because my hardware firewall doesn't allow this due to the security settings I have and I'm not opening it up just to play a game.

Well that settles it then. There exists a Slashdot user for which this solution will not work. Time to throw the whole idea out the window and start from scratch.

Re:Try something new

[kannibal_klown]

7 Think of how boring WoW or Eve Online (I'm not a big console player) would be in single player mode, for example. 7

Single Player World of Warcraft...

You mean Diablo 1 and Diablo 2? Or Neverwinter Knights?

Granted it's not EXACTLY the same, but single-player 3rd-person fantasy RPGs are fun and used to be popular.

Re:Try something new

[pnewhook]

My PS# connects perfectly fine to PSN but giving someone my IP address is pointless because the firewall will not allow an inbound connection. Two different issues.

Re:Try something new

[pnewhook]

Exactly. Defaults do not allow this which is why the idea of trying to connect directly to someones IP is not going to work.

Re:Try something new

[pnewhook]

I'd say most users are like this which is why the idea is a silly one and will not work, except for a few stupid people that open up their firewall.

Re:Try something new

[Anonymous Coward]

No no no. The old days of just popping in a cd or cart and loading a game on your tv are OVER.

That gives YOU power.

You are a consumer so therefor you deserve no POWER and you will be forced to be tethered to said company's internet servers OR YOU WILL NOT PLAY.

You don't buy games anymore... you lease them. You own nothing.

Re:Try something new

[mister_playboy]

I have definitely earned trophies in GTAIV while playing offline. The game as originally released didn't have trophies, but once you patched the game (and started a new save file!), you could unlock them both on and offline.

Re:Try something new

[powerlord]

Um, how old are you? Multiplayer *is* new. Or at least the idea of making a game that only plays online is.

John Daleske's Empire, 8-player networking. Turn-based strategy. 1973.
Jim Bowery's Spasim, 32-player networking. 3D shooter/simulator. 1974.

No kidding. I'm not old enough to remember the 70s, but still ...

Island of Kesmai, 100+ player MMoRPG (ala WoW). 1985 http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Island_of_Kesmai

In 1984, CompuServe debuted Islands of Kesmai, the first commercial multiplayer online role playing game. Islands of Kesmai used scrolling text (ASCII graphics) on screen to draw maps of player location, depict movement, and so on; the interface is considered Roguelike. At some point, graphical overlay interfaces could be downloaded, putting a slightly more glitzy face on the game. Playing cost was the standard CompuServe connection fee of the time, $6 per hour with a 300 baud modem, $12 for a 1200 baud modem; the game processed one command every 10 seconds, which equates to 1 2/3 cents per command.

(from: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/History_of_online_games#Commercial_timesharing_services)

not to mention some of the other games on CompuServe at the time:
(Ah, good old CI$ ... CompuServer Information Systems, still remember my account numbers)
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/MegaWars ASCII based real-time/turn DECWARS combat (up to 8 players on two teams if I remember right)
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/MegaWars_III ASCII based space simulator (and persistent universe with a set reset schedule)
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/MUD1 (aka British Legends) text based MUD we all knew/loved
http://www.legendsofkesmai.com/archive/iok/renfield_iok_files/misc/you_guessed_it_game.txt You Guessed It! ... a Quiz show style game, where players divide into teams, and it even included a challenge mode where players from both teams can award points if the computer didn't judge things correctly (which actually worked, which probably says something about the honesty of the people who played it).

Then GEnie rolled out (The General Electric Network for Information Exchange) which brought things like:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Air_Warrior Air Warrior:

Air Warrior was an early multiplayer on-line air-combat simulator. A player is able to fly a simulated World War II aircraft, fighting with and against other players, each flying his own simulated aircraft. It was introduced in 1986 by Kelton Flinn and his company Kesmai. At this time the internet was not generally available outside the worlds of government and academia. Kesmai therefore used the online service GEnie for the game's networked communication.
Air Warrior originally ran on Apple Macintosh, Commodore Amiga, and Atari ST computers, had simple black and white wireframe graphics, and cost over $10/hour to play. Over time, Kesmai produced improved versions of the game, starting with SVGA Air Warrior (AWSVGA) in 1993, and continuing with Air Warrior for Windows (AW4W) in 1996, Air Warrior II (AWII) in early 1997, Air Warrior III (AWIII) later in 1997, and finally Air Warrior III Millennium Version (AW:MV) in 2000.
Kesmai also did business deals to provide access to Air Warrior through additional on-line services, including Delphi, CRIS, CompuServe, America Online, Earthlink, Gamestorm and CompuLink. A version of Air Warrior for Windows was ported back to the Macintosh in 1997 in an

Re:Try something new

[smelch]

Are you really claiming that anybody that, say, runs a web server from home is stupid? Or FTP? Or SSH? Why not allow inbound connections on XBOX_PORT be forwarded to the XBox? I think you're just overly cautious or overly stupid or both.

Re:Try something new

[smelch]

I fucking love Trade Wars. Especially when the SysOp forgets to change the default password for alien corporations.

Re:Try something new

[Anonymous Coward]

(Anon for mod points)

Yes, you can. I earned a ton of trophies playing Prince of Persia within the last week, and also on Red Dead Redemption.

Re:Try something new

[Anonymous Coward]

If there's not store, its hard to sell single player games..

Re:Try something new

[Golddess]

Still, it sounds like VortexCortex is saying add such an option _in addition_ to the current system. So what's it to you if they add such a feature? Won't change anything for you, you can continue to play on the "official" servers.

Makes it sound like you're dismissing it simply because you don't like it.

Re:Try something new

[HiThere]

Demanding is an interesting concept. I find the idea of being dependent on a network connection so unacceptable, that I haven't bought any games recently. I doubt that the game companies know or care.

P.S.: If you really care, you should put in some time developing games that are open. Nethack has been done several times, but there are also "starter versions" of SimCity (LinCity?) Civilization (FreeCiv) etc. Card games don't really need much help, but Pysol could use aid in converting it over to Python3. Etc. What's your favorite? Help them. Every project needs help, if only in the documentation.

Re:Try something new

[Anonymous Coward]

Not sure if you've ever been on Live or PSN.. I've never been on PSN, but as far as xbox live is concerned, There are MANY MANY games that you can download straight from your console.

Microsoft releases several of these games each summer, some games like Trials HD have hundreds of thousands of downloads and without Live that wouldn't be possible. I see this situation as a good thing as I own a 360 :)

Re:Try something new

[The Moof]

Right, but from your post (emphasis mine):

Enter the IP of the game server to join

You're connecting to someone else hosting a game. The mentioned scheme would still work, you would just just wouldn't be able to host games. Right now, PSN/XBL work like this and require some firewall hole punching due to the peer-to-peer multiplayer. Right now, you would be detected as having either a "strict NAT" on Xbox or a "Type 3" on the PSN, essentially meaning you aren't able to host games. It would work the exact same as it does now, you're just manually doing the matchmaking process instead of relying on a server to send you the information.

Re:Try something new

[The Moof]

Meant to emphasize the "server to join"

Re:Try something new

[N0Man74]

Demanding is an interesting concept. I find the idea of being dependent on a network connection so unacceptable, that I haven't bought any games recently.

When I say "demand", I don't mean whining on message boards. What I was thinking was insisting on this features from developers, and if they aren't doing it, then don't buy it and let them know why. Arguing "not accepting" versus "demanding' is just getting into a semantic argument.

However the problem is that losses in sales will just be blamed on piracy, and too many people have insisted on getting the newest version of Madden and don't care when multi-player support gets yanked out of their old version.

Re:Try something new

[Khyber]

I turn on my RDR: I get "Cannot connect to PSN, Trophies are unavailable."

Re:Try something new

[yarnosh]

Ok, so it isn't new, but standalone games have been the norm. Regardless of what is a new idea, the fact remains that many games would simply not be the same if designed primarily to be played standalone.

Re:Try something new

[yarnosh]

But the point is that most people don't buy WoW to have a single player adventure. It wouldn't be nearly as popular or long lived if it was designed for standalone first and online play second. It is just a silly to suggest that all games be designed to play standalone.

Re:Try something new

[exomondo]

As for not using PSN, that's a bit overreactive, don't you think? I'm not a PS3 developer, but I imagine leveraging PSN for online play cuts down on dev time significantly.

Why would you think that? What you do you imagine they save time on?

Re:Try something new

[Anonymous Coward]

RDRR.

Re:Try something new

[the_arrow]

7 Think of how boring WoW or Eve Online (I'm not a big console player) would be in single player mode, for example. 7

Single Player World of Warcraft...

You mean Warcraft? Or Warcraft 2? Or Warcraft 3?

Re:Try something new

[matt_gaia]

Bullshit.... I've earned a few trophies for Undead Nightmare, which I finally decided to start playing through, and didn't start into it until after PSN went down. The info for the trophies (e.g. when you obtained it) is stored locally and then synced up to PSN when it's available.

Re:Try something new

[pnewhook]

Open your firewall and you are opening yourself up for attack. Any hole will allow someone to get in if they want.

Re:Try something new

[smelch]

a few stupid people that open up their firewall

Your bank has port 80 and port 443 open on their servers (at least!) and there is actually a reason to hack something like that. Yet anybody who opens any ports is stupid? Tell me, which one are you, overly cautious, stupid or both? At this point it sounds like both.

Re:Try something new

[pnewhook]

I'm simply pointing out that it is a solution that opens up your computers to all kinds of attack. It's risky.

Re:Try something new

[pnewhook]

Your bank has port 80 and port 443 open on their servers (at least!) and there is actually a reason to hack something like that. Yet anybody who opens any ports is stupid?

Are you saying the $50 home firewall has the same level of protection that a bank would have on their firewalls?? Give your head a shake..

Re:Try something new

[smelch]

You are limiting the use of your network because of shadows in your own imagination. Grow up, are you really worried that traffic being forwarded from one port to your xbox/ps3 is going to lead to you being hacked? You're much more likely to get infected just by browsing the internet than opening a port and forwarding it to your console. Yet you choose to call everybody stupid for using their network as it is intended. I hate people like you. What known exploit would anybody use to hack in to a 360 or PS3 through some port then get to something else useful on your network from there? You're an ignorant piece of shit trying to act like your superior because you are crazy. You're like the guy with the bomb shelter and a years supply of canned goods telling all of his neighbors they'll be sorry. Meanwhile we will all live our lives free of stupid fears of what could happen on a network if we dare to use it.

Re:Try something new

[pnewhook]

Proved you wrong and you resort to personal attacks. Clearly you don't know what you are talking about. You should take a few college courses in computer science when you graduate high school.

Good for them.

[unity100]

Actually any moron who locks-in/builds business by relying on a company that is known to be dastardly and corrupt deserves what they get served, but hey - they have been given a chance to save themselves from a worse fate. They can still jump ship.

Re:Good for them.

[Anonymous Coward]

Yeah right. They're all equally jerks. Nintendo, Sony, Microsoft. You haven't even worked with them, have you?

Re:Good for them.

[Jafafa Hots]

Sortof like all those companies relying on Facebook these days for their customer contact.

Stupid, stupid stupid, to put all your eggs in someone else's basket.

Sony dug their own grave

[Anonymous Coward]

I have just sold my POS PS3 at a bargain basement price, and I will never be buying another piece of hardware or software from them ever again. PSN fiasco isn't the only reason to hate Sony, just another in a long line.

Good riddance

Re:Sony dug their own grave

[qoa]

Keep doing this people. I plan on purchasing many cheap games due to a used market saturation.

Re:Sony dug their own grave

[Idimmu Xul]

I know I'm selling Portal2 this weekend due to the PSN outage, it's a shame as Valve promised the PS3 experience to be the best out of all the versions and now I'll never know what it could have been!

Re:Sony dug their own grave

[RogueyWon]

If it's the co-op you're feeling that you're missing out on, then it is worth hanging on for. I finally got around to doing the co-op mode (PC version) the other day and it really is incredible. Like nothing I've ever played online before. Just make sure you have a co-op partner lined up who you know well and who hasn't played it through before. If you don't have such a partner, it probably won't be anything like as good. Some of the puzzles require a hell of a lot of trust and co-ordination between the players, and I couldn't imagine anything worse than playing it with somebody who already knew the solutions to the puzzles.

Besides, I would imagine that Portal 2's resale value would plummet pretty fast. The game is great and worth the purchase price, but it has next to no replay value, unless you really want to experience the story again.

Re:Sony dug their own grave

[Lumpy]

"Some of the puzzles require a hell of a lot of trust "

why? do you have to send them naked photos of yourself dressed in bondage leather that they use to get to the next level and you need to trust they wont post them to the internet? Or does portal 2 come with electrodes that shock your testicles and the other player has control of the shock power?

IT's a fricking game, you don't need to "trust" them at all.

Re:Sony dug their own grave

[Anonymous Coward]

Even their "performance" range laptops can't cut the mustard: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=OT5qsaHqYCM

Re:Sony dug their own grave

[somersault]

You can still play both single player and co-op offline. I don't see how the experience is different from the PC version other than that you can play local co-op. Even after playing through the single player campaign, I didn't find the split screen co-op to be a pain in the ass at all - probably because there are no mobile enemies to be aware of, and the fact it was on a 40" HDTV.

Re:Sony dug their own grave

[Anonymous Coward]

What he means by "trust" is that, for example, in some of the more complex puzzles, one person will be flying through a set of portals and the other person is required to place a new portal in precisely the right location to send the first person flying across the map, and it's really easy to screw your teammate. I played it recently with my brother, and you better believe we fucked with each other at first. But it is true co-op in the sense that you must work together in order to progress. It is impossible for one person to do all the work. It's refreshing. The co-op part is easily the best part of the game. With four portals to work with, the puzzles get more devilish as well.

Re:Sony dug their own grave

[Colonel Korn]

I know I'm selling Portal2 this weekend due to the PSN outage, it's a shame as Valve promised the PS3 experience to be the best out of all the versions and now I'll never know what it could have been!

I think the claim that the PS3 version would be best was entirely based on it coming with a free copy of the PC version of the game, which is certainly the best playing option.

Re:Sony dug their own grave

[pnewhook]

This is not Sony's fault - it's Anonymous. I hope those responsible are caught and jailed/sued into oblivion.

Re:Sony dug their own grave

[L4t3r4lu5]

"Trust" in this sense is the trust you put in the other players on your football team to not Bogart the ball and run up and down the pitch, or to kick you in the back of the knees when you have the ball. It's trusting someone else to do something which is beneficial to you both, not just themselves. Call it the Nash Equilibrium if your antisocial brain can't quite handle the concept, because you sound like that type of person.

This is why you probably won't be asked to play Portal 2, or in fact any game, with anybody else. I guess in this instance, successful troll is successful.

Re:Sony dug their own grave

[The Moof]

There's that, but there's also the cross-platform multiplayer (PC and PS3 can play together). The DLC packs are free for PC and PS3.. not sure if MS will let it go for free on Xbox (Valve and MS have fought over this before).

Re:Sony dug their own grave

[dstyle5]

You've already spent the money, why rush to sell it? I would wait and play co-op once the PSN is back, then sell it. Demand will probably be higher once the PSN is back online anyway. Also Gabe said it would be the best console experience I believe.

Re:Sony dug their own grave

[tlhIngan]

I think the claim that the PS3 version would be best was entirely based on it coming with a free copy of the PC version of the game, which is certainly the best playing option.

Yeah, but to get that PC version required using the PS3 version of Steam. Which you can't right now because PSN is down.

I know a few people who preordered the PS3 versoin purely for the PC version at first, then the PS3 play later (not sure if they followed through if they didn't realize you need a PS3 to et the PC version).

Those with PS3s who bought it to play the PC versoin (it is only $10 more, after all) also are stuck playing the PS3 version.

Me personally, I bought it only because I had a $20 off 2 games coupon I wanted to use. Bought PC version as I didn't want to buy something I can't use (refuse to update firmware, and thus, no PSN. And if you must know - no OtherOS, and I lose support for my Xbox360-to-PS3 controller adapter). And no, I didn't realize you need Steam for PS3 to redeem the PC version. Hell, I wasn't even going to buy Portal 2 at all. Just I got the coupon a few days before release and decided if I could find another, it would be a good use.

Re:Sony dug their own grave

[Anonymous Coward]

You're an idiot.

It's Sony's responsibility to secure their network. They failed.

And Anonymous is a scapegoat.

Anyway, enjoy your PSN outage, fanboi!

Re:Sony dug their own grave

[Anonymous Coward]

You knew exactly what your parent poster meant. You are simply making a desperate and transparent attempt to come off as the cool guy reality-checking some stupid nerd, in hopes of getting respect from strangers on the Internet. It isn't working.

Re:Sony dug their own grave

[Anonymous Coward]

Keep doing this people. I plan on purchasing many cheap games due to a used market saturation.

Too bad for you that with PSN down, you can't actually play any of them. But have fun looking at the box art, I guess.

free PC games

[Anonymous Coward]

Free PC games will see big growth as a result. Quake live is a good example.

Re:free PC games

[JMJimmy]

PC games should be on top right now but the wide range of hardware makes it nearly impossible to develop for without having a significant number of users having issues. Even GFW branded games are plagued by this. Street Fighter IV (PC) can't jump backwards more than 3 times in a row on my system or it goes into an infinite loop and crashes the game and makes Windows 7 too unstable to continue, install issues are everywhere, crash bugs, etc. I don't know how many people I know who are fed up trying to figure out requirements & solve serious issues with their PC games free or not.

Re:free PC games

[smelch]

Its just you. Learn how to build a machine and keep drivers up to date. Seriously, of all the computers I've built in the past 3 years (7) with all kinds of different CPUs (AMD and Intel), GPUs (AMD and nVidia), types of memory, with four different flavors of windows (XP, XP Pro, 7, 7 Pro) I almost never run in to bugs that prevent me from playing a game. I find it hard to believe that there are so many widespread issues you encounter on PCs unless you're doing something wrong. In addition to those 7 PCs which are my friends', I also have purchased two laptops and not encountered any problems with games beyond the simple hardware limitations of some of the more advanced games. But even that, SC2 runs on a $400 laptop I picked up at walmart while on vacation on low settings.

Re:free PC games

[JMJimmy]

LOL - great assumptions about my abilities. I built my first PC when I was 11, 19 years ago and have no trouble keeping them up to date. I've built dozens of systems from scratch run a triple boot laptop (OSX, Ubuntu, Win XP) thank you very much.

My comments, while partly based on personal experience (my newest laptop running Windows 7 exclusively, which is fully updated, has the issue with Street Fighter IV), it's rather based mostly on going to forums. Going to the 360 or PS3 sections for a multiplatform game it's filled with strategies, the odd glitch, and general conversation about the game but you go to the PC version and it's almost exclusively people trying to sort out error messages, crash bugs, and other problems. About 20% (estimate) seem to have a sticky with changes to the config file to fix at least one major bug in the game.

It Seems To Me...

[Weaselgrease]

I remember the good ol' days when having internet access made a game more fun, rather than it being a necessity just to play at all. Maybe this kind of thing will 'encourage' a return to that way of planning, if only a little.

Re:It Seems To Me...

[Anonymous Coward]

Can't say I own a game that doesn't have an offline mode. The online component is usually exponentially funner, though.

Re:It Seems To Me...

[scubamage]

I doubt it. It seems like most of the publishers these days seem to only want to release a game if they can shove leashes up their users' collective asses.

Re:It Seems To Me...

[guruevi]

I remember the good old days when we tunneled IPX/SPX over TCP/IP in order to play multiplayer games. TCP/IP support in games was very late imho with most games supporting IPX/SPX, Null Modem or *shudder* DirectPlay support.

Re:It Seems To Me...

[Jarik_Tentsu]

As a general rule I will never pay for anything if I can get it pirated. Because of assholes like me, well, they need to do stuff like this - requiring an internet connection for everything and trying to make games more multiplayer focused. Don't really blame them.

Re:It Seems To Me...

[Blakey Rat]

Not on Mac. I was playing Warcraft II over TCP/IP via AOL when it first came out-- no waiting for the "Silver Edition" for us.

Re:It Seems To Me...

[Anonymous Coward]

Sorry, I wasn't born yesterday. I know that even if nobody "pirated" games, the publishers would still keep tightening the screws on the players of games. This is a society where the only thing people care about is emptying my wallet and leaving me with a broken, un-fixable product so they can sell it to me again later. Case in point, I recently purchased a used game that came out in 1999. I wanted to play this particular game on my netbook, but because of the malicious software in the game that requires the disk to be in the drive, I can't. The publisher of this game doesn't sell new copies any more, so this used one cost me over forty bucks from some fanatic collector. The developers never had the decency to remove this feature from the game, so I'm glad they went out of business in 2001.

As for the gamers, they are partly to blame for this situation. The only thing they care about is having this month's regurgitated WWII FPS game or updated sports title with new rosters. It doesn't matter if that new game requires them to be Online 24/7 to play, or it installs rootkits on their machine, it is new! and they have to have it!

Re:It Seems To Me...

[JDeane]

The sad part about your statement is that I can't really think of a game thats locked down enough to keep anyone from playing a pirated copy. In some cases the pirated version ends up being better anyway since the DRM has been hacked out of it.

I even play on a pirate WoW server almost daily. Although to my credit I did buy game and pay Blizzard for a couple of years so they got there monies from me :)

Re:It Seems To Me...

[Jarik_Tentsu]

See I disagree.

Like say, Starcraft II. Sure you can play on private servers, but you greatly limit yourself in who you play on numbers alone.

Or say, Counter-Strike. Once again, sure you could play on private servers with your mates...but if you want to start doing wars, comps, and all the fun stuff, you need a proper steam account.

Or WoW. You seem happy playing on a Pirated Server. Now I don't play WoW, but many of my mates do. And they all claim they started on pirated servers ,but started playing on Frostmourn eventually...and apparently it's *way* better.

Re:It Seems To Me...

[gstoddart]

I remember the good old days when we tunneled IPX/SPX over TCP/IP in order to play multiplayer games. TCP/IP support in games was very late imho with most games supporting IPX/SPX, Null Modem or *shudder* DirectPlay support.

That's because TCP/IP support was late coming to Windows, and you had to add it in with 3rd party stuff.

Seems to me it wasn't until '95 when Windows actually shipped with built-in network support.

I'm betting IPX/SPX wouldn't have been needed had Windows supported TCP/IP earlier.

Re:It Seems To Me...

[Weaselgrease]

Not in all cases, but in some 'you get what you pay for' is a realistic term. It does apply in this situation. If you can (and do) pay for a subscription or a legitimate copy, you get support from the people who can actually improve the game you're playing. You also get the ability to interact with more people, be involved in competitions and group activities, and make friends that way. The problem is there's a point where the joy of playing online becomes a necessity more than a feature. For some games it makes sense. WoW is an MMO, and so it's an expectation slated by part of the genre before you even purchase it. You have to have internet to play, simple as that. For games like Counter-Strike and Starcraft II, it shouldn't be. You still have single-player mode and should be absolutely entitled to play without internet access. As far as I know, Starcraft II has that option. But DRM's on consoles are becoming ridiculously restrictive of content access. If I paid for a game, I expect to play it. Not see a 'Sorry, but we couldn't validate your ownership due to a connectivity issue'. This is going to become more and more of an issue the more companies manage to skate over class-action suits without compensating any of their customers whenever they can't provide access to the DRM they sell. It's bad enough that companies still package crap with quality products (compilation CD's, two-movie DVD's, Battle Chests, etc) just to raise the price when no one was buying the crappy products in the first place. I can already see a future where Capcom has their own DRM system on the internet over IPv6, and the million or so dedicated Capcom fans are all ticked off when Capcom uses AT&T's recent 'arbitration loophole' to avoid ever having to make the DRM content playable.

Re:It Seems To Me...

[Dutch Gun]

As a game developer, I'd be willing to write off people like you. You're not a customer. In return, I don't have to listen to you whine about what you don't like about the game either, right?

Sadly, I'm also a guy who codes for a living. In other words, no one listens to my advice on how to run the business. Still, even though I love my job, I'm still dreaming of going completely indie some day and controlling everything. I hope I have the gumption to stick to my principles even when people still pirate my game more than legit customers purchase it. Honestly, I just don't see how you'd stop it without massively inconveniencing your customers to the point that the pirated game is better than the retail version.

I still think there are enough people who want to reward devs who make products they really like - enough so that I could still make a decent living if the product was good enough.

Re:It Seems To Me...

[Jarik_Tentsu]

Honestly, I just don't see how you'd stop it without massively inconveniencing your customers to the point that the pirated game is better than the retail version.

See there seems to be this big thing about the 'pirated' versions of games being better than the originals, due to all the anti-pirated features interrupting the quality of the game. But I think this is more just pirates trying to justify their actions - "We're doing it because it's better, not because we're stingy!"

Sure, there are some horrible implementations of anti pirated stuff that gets in the way. But really...how many people don't have an internet connection? How many people are actually 'inconvenienced' by being "forced" to play with an internet connection? Not many, despite what everyone would like you to think.

Multiplayer aside, i was quite happy to play the single player campaign for SC2 with my internet connection live. I didn't even notice since like most people, I'm always connected to the internet. And well, I'd argue its very successful. I don't know a single person with a pirated version of SC2, and yet, I don't know a single person with a legal version of Crysis.

Re:It Seems To Me...

[Dutch Gun]

Maybe you misread, but I'm a game developer, not a game pirate. E.g, I get hurt quite directly by pirated games. I don't pirate games, ever. Even with that background, I don't see how anyone can argue with a straight face that some of the more egregious DRM systems implemented in recent years won't in some cases directly interfere with a user's ability to actually play the game. To me, that's DRM gone too far.

I'm not opposed to all DRM or copy-protection per se. For instance, I don't see a problem with console disks using built-in hardware-based DRM, because generally speaking, it's fairly unobtrusive to the user. Steam is also acceptable to me, as they actually provide a nice benefit with their service. I just don't like relying on DRM servers remaining live in order to play a single-player game. That's a pretty crappy game experience in my definition. I'm not sure how you would consider not being able to play a game as unobtrusive. We're talking about the Sony PSN network here in this thread, remember, not your experience with SC2.

I'm also not trying to paper over how some pirates try to justify their actions as being some sort of fucking moral high ground either. If someone is going to do it, at least have the balls to admit it's because you're cheap, and don't whine and bitch to me if you eventually get in trouble for doing it either.

Change is gonna come

[senorpoco]

Hopefully events like the PSN outage will give companies pause in their rush to move everything online. Only a few weeks ago DragonAge players found themselves unable to play their single player game as it required an online login and the servers were down. Hopefully it will force companies to come up with better solutions, sadly it will probably just force them to alter their EULAs to avoid any and all liability.

Re:Change is gonna come

[Anonymous Coward]

Just a precision : in fact Dragon Age does not require a connection to play, and the servers were not offline. The real trouble was that if you are online, Dragon Age does connect to the servers and authenticate your DLC. And the servers went havoc. So once it messed up with the authentication, you just were screwed even offline; and indeed it made little difference.

The most awful DRM incarnation award winner is still in my opinion the PC version of Assassin's Creed 2 when it was released, for which a connection was mandatory during all the play time (and which paused/exited if ever the connection dropped).

Re:Change is gonna come

[senorpoco]

thanks for the clarification.

Re:Change is gonna come

[thegarbz]

Hopefully events like the PSN outage will give companies pause in their rush to move everything online.

Dear User,

The PSN outage over the past week has given us time to pause and reflect on our past practices. We are happy to conclude we're not only rolling in money, we're rolling in a shitload of money.

See you online.

Forever Yours,
Companies

Re:Change is gonna come

[Anonymous Coward]

I too was thinking about what changes this incident will cause.

Will we start seeing 20+ hour single-player games again? Will console-exclusivity be a thing of the past? Will we see P2P matchmaking either hosted by the development/publishing companies or using some type of cloud solution (with millions of consoles, why not have them do the work instead of dedicated servers)?

I can only hope that something good comes out of this.

Consoles are inherently evil.

[Weezul]

Valve's Steam lets people play games offline.

Re:Consoles are inherently evil.

[Anonymous Coward]

I just checked, my offline PS3 games still work.

Re:Consoles are inherently evil.

[Riceballsan]

*unplugs network cable from gaming PC... Hmm... Team fortresses online multi-player does not appear to work offline. Yes sony really screwed the pooch, left their security too weak on something that both the developers and their players expected to enjoy from their investments, hardly a fair comparison though, if more games had a draconian DRM that prevented access to single player modes while PSN is down, then your comment would make sense.

Re:Consoles are inherently evil.

[somersault]

So do PSN and Xbox live. I'm assuming this story is about potential lost sales. Funnily enough I expect developers will get more sales in the month or two after PSN is back online, as people get to play better demos with PSN Plus.. if I can't play a demo of your game, I will not buy it unless it's super cheap or very well known for being good.

Re:Consoles are inherently evil.

[SCPRedMage]

Actually, TF2 works just fine on LAN play without a net connection. You may have problems with the ONLINE multiplayer, but the game will still work on a LAN. Hell, if Valve does eventually shut down everything related to the game, you should still be able to play online, albeit with online default weapons.

Re:Consoles are inherently evil.

[Anonymous Coward]

Did you try to install a new one recently?

Re:Consoles are inherently evil.

[icebraining]

The problem is centralized servers; you shouldn't need to rely on any company's server to play; every online game (except maybe MMOs) should come with a dedicated server binary, not only to avoid downtime as to prevent forced shutdowns (like the MGS3 servers, who were shutdown less than a year after the game was released).

Re:Consoles are inherently evil.

[grumbel]

Unless I am mistaken, offline mode in Steam requires you to be online to activate it, so it only helps you when you know that your Internet is going away, but doesn't help much when the network has an unplanned downtime.

Re:Consoles are inherently evil.

[Blakey Rat]

Yes, but Steam doesn't let people *buy* games while offline, which is what Capcom is rightly angry about right now. If Steam went down for 3 weeks, you bet your ass game developers would be as angry at Valve as they are at Sony now.

Being able to play games offline is a total non-sequitur. Both PSN and Xbox Live Arcade let you do that-- *once you've purchased the game*.

Re:Consoles are inherently evil.

[Anonymous Coward]

You are mistaken.

Re:Consoles are inherently evil.

[TrancePhreak]

Offline mode is only available on games you have actually played. The first time you play them it does the main verification. Any time after then you are able to play the game offline.

Downtime?

[Aladrin]

Downtime? I'd think the developers would be more worried about how much smaller the market is for the PSN now.

I can't possibly the only one who decided instantly not to buy from Sony any more. (Okay, I admit, Sony-exclusive stuff will still probably draw me in, if it's good. But anything cross-platform is going to be bought elsewhere.) There must be more who decided all this pain (including the insults like the 30 days of free PSN+) is not worth paying for Sony stuff any more.

And the security issues? Obviously Sony doesn't know much about security. Their system stayed un-hacked only so long as they left Linux on the PS3 for the hackers to be happy. Sure, someone was working on hacking the PS3 through Linux, but he wasn't there. Immediately afterwards, people started hacking for real. And of course the online networks both got hacked... 1 of them WHILE they were fixing the first. They should have been aware.

No, if I were developing for the PSN (which I can't, because you basically have to be established before they'll consider you) then I'd been looking for greener pastures for more reasons than just the downtime.

Re:Downtime?

[Anonymous Coward]

PS3 owner who will never use PSN for anything other than Netflix, reporting in.

p.s. Netflix didn't seem to care that the PSN was down.

Re:Downtime?

[RogueyWon]

Yes, I think this is broadly right. Personally, I probably won't stop buying from the PSN altogether, but I certainly will move to using pre-paid points cards rather than letting them have the details of my (new, just replaced - thanks Sony) credit card. That adds a potential layer of inconvenience to purchases which will certainly make me less inclined towards impulse buys.

Plus, as an owner of both a PS3 and a 360, it's yet another reason to favour the latte when making decisions on which platform to buy multi-platform games for. Unless there were glaring technical differences in the PS3 version's favour (a la FF13), I was already inclined towards the 360 on the basis that I prefer the controller and have more friends who also own 360s than PS3s (and hence a larger Xbox Live friends list). After seeing the PSN's dire resilience demonstrated, these decisions are going to become pretty much no-brainers in future. So I'm only likely to buy single-platform exclusives for the PS3 from now on.

Meanwhile, developers inclined towards giving Sony those exclusives are going to be thinking their decisions through very carefully. After all, the PSN has been painful to a lot of game developers - not just those who have seen PSN launches postponed or games launch with multiplayer not functioning, but also those who have DLC as part of their business model (which, like it or not, is most of them these days). Bioware haven't been shifting any Dragon Age or Mass Effect 2 DLC on the PS3 since the PSN went down. Gust haven't been selling any Ar Tonelico Qoga DLC. Black Ops: Escalation? Forget it. Now in some cases, customers will just postpone their purchases until the PSN store comes back up (which is likely to be the final component to do so), but in other cases, they'll have "moved on" from the game in question and the sale will be lost forever.

There's been a lot of hyperbole about the impacts of the PSN outage and data leak. I find it very hard to imagine large numbers of people rushing to trade in their PS3s. In fact, largely due to a lack of new releases that have interested me since Portal 2, I've spent the last few weeks using my PS3 way more than I normally would as I work through my backlog of games I've been meaning to finish. I played Killzone 3's campaign through (and was very impressed by how well the PS Move controls work). I sank 40 hours into Ar Tonelico Qoga (one of the few Japanese RPGs of this console generation to be actually good). And I finally got around to finishing the first Uncharted game. The PS3 has a large installed base now and, after a slow start, a decent library of games. In the immediate future, it isn't going anywhere.

The damage for Sony will, I suspect, be more subtle and long-term. There will be changes to how customers spend their money in the PSN store that could prove painful over time. And there will be damage to Sony's commercial relationships with the wider industry that could take years to repair. Compare how Nintendo managed to annoy a huge chunk of the industry (including, critically, Squaresoft) through sheer arrogance during the transition from the SNES to the N64, with the result that despite the SNES's dominance, the N64 and Gamecube died a slow death due to lack of third party developer interest (a problem which still afflicts the Wii to some extent). Sony are running a high risk of finding themselves in a similar situation now - you mess with your partners' bottom lines at your peril.

Re:Downtime?

[Anonymous Coward]

You mean owners which at best will be 25% of the total sold PS3s, and of that group a further majority which does not have the services. Yeah, I'm sure Sony will feel so much better now.

Re:Downtime?

[scubamage]

Not all users have been so lucky with netflix. Some reported that they could get in after hammering through the login process numerous times, some report that they simply could not get in, and still others reported no problem. Luckily my wii has none of these issues.

Re:Downtime?

[Anonymous Coward]

Oh come now, do you really think this will make any kind of impact on their sales? No, we'll have a few weeks of people complaining and swearing off Sony for life, then it'll go back to business as usual. The very fact that there are still so many people complaining shows that nothing was learned from all their mistakes of the past. If people still buy from the company that tried to rootkit their computers and sold them a console with an OS that they ripped out without compensation after the sale then I doubt a few weeks of down time and some lost credentials will put people off. It's a sad state of affairs but repeat Sony customers have taught the company that its actions are basically free of consequences, it can screw them over time and again and, aside from some moaning online, they'll just go back for more.

Re:Downtime?

[pnewhook]

And the security issues? Obviously Sony doesn't know much about security.

There is absolutely nothing that is perfectly secure (digital or physical) given someone with enough time and determination to break through it.

Re:Downtime?

[HAKdragon]

Personally, I probably won't stop buying from the PSN altogether, but I certainly will move to using pre-paid points cards rather than letting them have the details of my (new, just replaced - thanks Sony) credit card.

Same here, and I'm thinking of doing the same for my XBox Live purchases, especially since Microsoft doesn't make it easy to remove your credit card from their billing system. Oh well, not like the one that's in their system is valid anymore.

Re:Downtime?

[Aladrin]

I hadn't heard of anyone dumping their PS3, but I guess that's a logical consequence of not buying any more games, if you tend to sell the ones you already have.

I have quite a library of games for PS1-3 and I intend to keep my PS2 and PS3 for while to be able to play them.

And the point card thing is spot on. Sony will never have my credit card again no matter what. I really, really hate having to get a new credit card. This time it cost me $15 because I needed to have the new one rushed out, instead of waiting 7-10 days for it. The worst is having to update every site you use to fix the billing, though. I'd gladly run most of my online purchases through Google or Amazon to avoid having to do that again, but I don't see most companies being willing to give them a cut.

Re:Downtime?

[Translation Error]

Plus, as an owner of both a PS3 and a 360, it's yet another reason to favour the latte when making decisions on which platform to buy multi-platform games for.

Mmmm, latte... I applaud your decision to forgo the latest overhyped game and go out for a latte instead.

Re:Downtime?

[Dogtanian]

I can't possibly the only one who decided instantly not to buy from Sony any more. Okay, I admit, Sony-exclusive stuff will still probably draw me in, if it's good.

Yeah, got to love the way that your typical Slashdotter always proclaims their principles loudly and states their commitment to a boycott... until push comes to shove, reality dawns and anything *remotely* approaching self-sacrifice would be required (i.e. foregoing EvilCorp's latest instalment of Fanboy Franchise). In which case there's plenty of backtracking and a convenient get-out clause that shows just how wishy-washy they were in the first place.

Oooh... you might be more likely to buy some discounted second-tier game on XBox (lemme guess, unless the PS3 version has much prettier graphics)? I bet the Sony execs are *quaking* in their boots at the thought! Especially as you'll probably have forgotten about your vague boycott two weeks from now.

Re:Downtime?

[metamatic]

p.s. Netflix didn't seem to care that the PSN was down.

Only if you already have it set up. My PS3 died, and I bought a new one, but Netflix on the new one won't let me activate it until PSN comes back up.

Re:Downtime?

[Stuarticus]

Oh well, not like the one that's in their system is valid anymore.

As far as I'm aware that's the only way to make them stop taking your money!

PixelJunk is not a game

[3vi1]

>> "...Dylan Cuthbert, creator of popular PSN game PixelJunk."

PixelJunk is a series of games, not the name of an individual game.

No OtherOS?

[Anonymous Coward]

PSN is PWNed and WE are HAPPY.

Re:No OtherOS?

[NoAkai]

From the looks of it, you're also on MDMA... But hey, I don't judge.

Complication..

[Junta]

Think they are talking about the developers who only do games not available on media. Typically cheaper and by smaller groups of developers, frequently independent of large publishers. We are talking about developers for whom the barrier to entry for creating and distributing media is too high and/or incurs a cost too high for the type of game.

As much as I'm displeased with the current state of affairs of 'owning' your purchase brought on by XBL, Steam, PSN, etc. (it being a step ever further back from copy-protected media), it does allow smaller game studios to get in the market without a lot of the logisitics problems associated with media distribution.

Sony is in denial

[onyxruby]

They think this was all about stealing credit cards. A heist that large though plummets in value as it is too well known and the cards too readily canceled. I would imagine the market value for the stolen cards to be far less than a typical heist that doesn't become publicly known.

I really think this about punishing Sony for doing evil things. Whether you want to pick their DRM infatuation, pursuite of GeoHot, removal of other OS and any number of other things doesn't matter. Somebody was trying to send a message to Sony that in the real world a court room victory bought with the best lawyers you can find can still have a very real cost.

Estimates that put the cost of this in the billion dollar range have been making the news lately. Sony, you just need to ask yourself, was it worth a billion dollars, the loss of public goodwill and a number of pissed of developers? Whether or not Sony will stop playing hardball and start being the corporate bully is doubtful. In the end whoever did this will likely end up in prison, the only question is what lesson did Sony learn from this?

Re:Sony is in denial

[citizenr]

They think this was all about stealing credit cards.

Wonder if anyone shorted a massive amount of Sony stock before the news broke.

Re:Sony is in denial

[Culture20]

Wonder if anyone shorted a massive amount of Sony stock before the news broke.

Quite a few people probably did due to the bad press they were getting before this scandal.

Re:Sony is in denial

[Anonymous Coward]

Oh, so it's not a thief, but an economical terrorist! That makes me feel soooooooooo much more sympathetic toward the perp.

I'm hoping the feds find the perp and do an UBL on him. He deserves it. Whatever Sony has done (or has not, in terms of security) is not a justification for putting millions of people through this.

Re:Sony is in denial

[DdJ]

I really think this about punishing Sony for doing evil things.

This would provide pretty good cover for someone who did just want to steal credit cards and other information they could profit from.

(The credit cards aren't the data I'm most scared about. The "answers to security questions" is what I'm most scared about. Suddenly, someone out there has the answer to a billion "mother's maiden name" and "first pet's name" questions. The damage from that is harder to contain than credit card theft, and is the single most troublesome aspect of this from my perspective.)

I believe there's an economic motive just based on observing security breeches surrounding Blizzard and banks. Sure, compromising a bank (or their customers) is potentially a source of more revenue than compromising a gaming company (or their customers), but the banks and our legal system expect bad guys to do that -- they're (on average) more likely to get caught and more severely punished if caught.

A WoW account (for example) is something a criminal can monetize. Is doing so more work than monetizing, well, money? Sure. But it's way lower risk on a variety of fronts, because huge swaths of our society go "oh, it's just a video game, it's not important". The risk/reward ratio looks pretty good, and so in theory we should see a lot of criminal activity surrounding it, and in practice we do.

Makes sense for the same chain of reasoning to apply here, no?

Re:Sony is in denial

[Anonymous Coward]

The hunter was led into the snare, baited by someone else, and someone else pulled.

Sony "announced" the removal of OtherOS at the end of March 2010, with a firmware that was released around April 1st, 2010.

A custom firmware, nearly exactly a year later, was released toward the end of March 2011 that allowed developer access to PSN. Credit card exploits show up within 2 weeks supposedly. PSN goes down shortly afterwards.

It seems to me it's about both. They released firmware to screw over customers. Incited hacks. A timely hack was developed and released that could mess with PSN released nearly exactly a year later as the OtherOS removal, and speculating here, probably knowing full well what it could do. And someone or some people in that pissed off community saw the opportunity.

Saved Games

[Jetboy01]

A few weeks, possibly even months ago, Sony announced a feature that would let PSN+ members store their saved games in the 'cloud'.
What happened to that? Are all those members now locked out of their saved games, or did the feature not go live yet?

I wonder if they'll still be touting that as the next big thing?

Re:Saved Games

[iainl]

The way it works is that you still save to the hard drive within the game. PSN+ subscribers just have an option in the dash to back that save up to Sony's servers, where it can then be downloaded onto another of your PS3s (because you've got lots of them, haven't you?) and still used. As supposed to doing exactly the same with a USB memory stick, or what have you.

Basically, it's nothing a PC owner with a Dropbox account couldn't achieve.

Re:Saved Games

[HAKdragon]

One thing that really irritates me about the ability to copy/move saves from the PS3's hard drive to a USB drive is that some saves and content is locked and can't be copied. (I'm not sure if this the case when you use the built in backup utility or the PSN+ cloud backup). I think there is 360 saves and content that, unfortunately, works the same way.

Re:Saved Games

[powerlord]

One thing that really irritates me about the ability to copy/move saves from the PS3's hard drive to a USB drive is that some saves and content is locked and can't be copied. (I'm not sure if this the case when you use the built in backup utility or the PSN+ cloud backup).

I'm not positive, but I believe the PSN+ cloud backup WILL let you backup "protected" files also. (they had mentioned that it will let you backup/transfer files you can't normally backup)

I was planning on testing this with a friend, but didn't get a chance before the outage.

Re:Saved Games

[matt_gaia]

Basically, the protected game saves (i.e. Megaman 9/10) can't be copied manually to a thumb drive, but they will get backed up when you do a full system backup to an external drive. I'm betting what powerlord said is correct as well, since the saves are tied to your PSN account. If you're a PSN+ member, it should set some kind of flag in the save file to let it go to the cloud backup. This coming from a non-PSN+ member, that is....

Let's be realistic here...

[Mr_Silver]

They could face developer exodus ... but it probably won't happen.
They could face customer exodus ... but it probably won't happen.

My bet is that a year from now, this issue will have be a distant memory for the vast majority of people and PSN will be ticking along as normal.

I'm sure there are plenty of people who would like to see these issues cause Sony to crash and burn - but past history (with things like the rootkit) has shown that it is unlikely to happen.

Sorry, but just being realistic.

Re:Let's be realistic here...

[somersault]

Definitely not going to abandon my PS3, but it will be a serious consideration when the next generation rolls out. Hopefully Sony have learned a lesson here. If they don't tighten things up, they will be hacked again within a few months.

The only hassle for me so far was phoning up the bank to get a new credit card sent out. I don't play online games much, and offline games and blu-rays are still playing fine.

Re:Let's be realistic here...

[iainl]

I suspect people will still use PSN. But I also suspect many will be more wary of providing credit card details, and go get points cards from a shop if they want to purchase DLC or downloadable games.

That really pushes a lot of impulse purchases away, and could be fatal for the likes of Cuthbert, if his margins are already tight.

Re:Let's be realistic here...

[Dorkmaster Flek]

I know I personally won't be putting my credit card info on there ever again. That means I'll likely be playing cross platform games on my 360 exclusively.

Re:Let's be realistic here...

[delinear]

Exactly what I was thinking - if the fact that this company tried to put spyware on their paying customers' computers without their knowledge, or that they are massive advocates of DRM and locking down equipment you supposedly own and going after anyone who makes it easy for you to get around that, or that they will happily sell you a pricey console on the basis that it has a bunch of functionality which they then proceed to take away after they have your money, or any of the many other things they've done to the disadvantage of their customers over the years wasn't enough to put people off PSN in their droves, I very much doubt that a few weeks' server outage and the hassle of replacing credit cards will do the job.

Re:Let's be realistic here...

[Nationless]

I don't see how those two are mutually exclusive?

Re:Let's be realistic here...

[Dorkmaster Flek]

They're not mutually exclusive. DLC for disc-based games, or cross-platform digital download titles like Mega Man 9, for example. Even if it's disc-only, I'd rather get it on another platform at this point just because of how poorly they've handled this.

Re:Let's be realistic here...

[internerdj]

Absolutely there will be a lesson: We now have a positive spin reason to charge our customers for the PSN like Microsoft does for our next gen console.

Re:Let's be realistic here...

[somersault]

You mean so that even more people can have their CC details stolen? I don't see that particular spin working :p

Re:Let's be realistic here...

[somersault]

BTW, there is already a paid-for subscriber system for PSN called PSN Plus, and it obviously didn't help security one jot.

Re:Let's be realistic here...

[Phanatic1a]

Yes, this.

Remember when Sony used rootkits surreptitiously distributed on things that appeared to be standard Redbook audio CDs and then used those rootkits to install secret CD drivers on users' computers, which contained no uninstaller and would render the drive inoperable if the user attempted a manual uninstallation, and which also left the users' computers open to invasion by other malware from other parties?

Remember all the people who swore they'd never give Sony money again? They ran out and bought PS3s.

Re:Let's be realistic here...

[Anonymous Coward]

Yeah... and I used to like Blu-Ray...

Still love HD though but I understand Apple's aversion to the format now.

Re:Let's be realistic here...

[drinkypoo]

A vanishingly small segment of the population did not. I have a 360 and a Wii, but no PS3.

Killing Lik-Sang, killing Sega... didn't even take a rootkit to piss me off.

Re:Let's be realistic here...

[Anonymous Coward]

@Mr_Silver: I totally agree. The PSN will come back up stronger than before. Might be a few kinks at the very beginning but nothing major. A year from now people totally forget about this outage and continue as usual. Perhaps a few hardcore gamers will switch over to XBox but that's a small percentage. The XBox fanboy or not, the PS3 is a fantastic piece of hardware and the platform has PLENTY of top tier games.

As far as the developers leaving for greener pastures due to potential money lost, that's absolutely ridiculous. They will make their money back with NO problems. The people who were going to spend the money within the time period will STILL spend the money. Making money won't be a problem.

Re:Let's be realistic here...

[Anonymous Coward]

"Definitely not going to abandon my PS3, but it will be a serious consideration when the next generation rolls out. "

I'm still planning on getting a PS3 but most of the games I've already bought for it are primarily offline single player rpgs and the like.

But the consideration for next generation are already over. With all the utter bullshit the industry has been pulling this generation (on all consoles.) I'm just calling it quits. I have so many games already bought from the 2600 up to the PS3 that still need to be taken out of the box and played I won't even notice the PS4 get released.

This is the same along the handhelds line as well. The PSP and DSi are the last handhelds I'm planning on owning.

For the fanboys out there that will say "you're going to miss out on a lot of awesome games!" I say fuck you. I'm ALREADY missing out on a lot of games that I've already spent a lot of money on in some cases. I'm going to enjoy going back to them.

Mind you, if I find a 3ds for 20 bucks used, I'll probably go ahead and buy it. But seriously, it will have to be that cheap.

Offline multiplayer

[tepples]

As much as I would ordinarily agree with focusing on a decent single player game, some games just aren't meant to be single player.

Then I guess developers should quit taking split- or otherwise shared-screen multiplayer modes out of video games.

Developer signup page is down

[tepples]

Think they are talking about the developers who only do games not available on media.

You're right. Since the incident, new developers haven't even been able to sign up for PS3 devkits. A press release advertising SCEA's programs for developers mentions a web site for signing up that has been down for at least the past month.

I misread it.

[Anonymous Coward]

I thought they were talking about developers from PSN, but seriously who would want that on their resume if jumping ship?

Offline multiplayer

[tepples]

*unplugs network cable from gaming PC... Hmm... Team fortresses online multi-player does not appear to work offline.

*turns off WLAN router... Yup... Super Smash Bros. Brawl's offline multiplayer still works. If another console maker has worked around this problem for the most part, why can't PC games and PS3 games offer offline multiplayer?

if more games had a draconian DRM that prevented access to single player modes while PSN is down

Several games sold on PSN in fact do phone home in single-player mode, in order to counter what studios consider to be misuse of the PS3's PSN game sharing feature.

Capcom should shut up.

[Anonymous Coward]

Capcom would lose money anyway, because they make stupid decisions... like not supporting development of Mega Man 2, for instance...

Goodbye PS3...

[Anonymous Coward]

I have to say I'm quite annoyed with the move to ONLINE EVERYTHING. I can't even play some of my games thanks to the PSN outage, and others have worthless single player. Even when PSN is up, I feel like every time I start up my PS3 I've got to spend an hour downloading updates...for what!? Nothing. I kept a bunch of my Xbox 360 games from when it RROD'd back in the day. Today I'm bringing all my PS3 stuff and and switching to the new 360. I'll finally get to play Halo again, not to mention awesome awesome Earth Defense Force 2017. And I'll finally get to play those 360 exclusives!

I'm not fooled into thinking I'm getting a deal here, but I am just not satisfied with the PS3. This PSN outage is lame of epic proportions -- enough for me to switch.

What I don't get . . .

[RazorSharp]

These hackers hate Sony because of all the evil things Sony has done. So they're driving users off to Microsoft. . .

It's not like anyone who will abandon the PS3 because of this is going to switch over to a Wii. They may go the Nintendo route when the new system comes out but not now. These kids don't seem to realize that Microsoft has a much richer history of evil than Sony does.

So what happens if they succeed in this endeavor? XBox will dominate the market and everyone will be locked into a MS platform. That's when the REAL evil starts. Just look at Windows and Office. Do these kids have any perspective as to what they're doing? Unless Google gets into gaming (which I don't see happening) there's no non-evil company to take Sony's place.

If these kids wanted to remove the evil from game systems they'd go after game systems in general: program emulators, distribute ROMS that can be burned on to DVDs/Blu-Rays, and then allow people to hook a Linux box up to their TV and run all the console games. Make a PS3/XBox WINE. Of course, that would require hard work and a dedication toward something productive. But then they wouldn't be attacking the gamer community itself, they'd be aiding it and only attacking these 'evil' companies.

Re:What I don't get . . .

[Blakey Rat]

PS3 and Xbox 360 play different types of games from Wii. So different, it's almost a different market altogether. You couldn't replace an PS3 gaming environment on a Wii... but you could get awful close with an Xbox 360,

(For non-game features, though, like Netflix, this could be a boon to Nintendo as it is to Microsoft.)

These kids don't seem to realize that Microsoft has a much richer history of evil than Sony does.

Microsoft was evil 20 years ago, and pretty neutral now. Sony's evil this instant, and has been insistently evil for the last 5 years. Nobody who regularly plays a PS3 remembers IE4 vs. Netscape, or that Stacker thing, or the look-and-feel lawsuit with Apple. That stuff's ancient history. Their experience of Microsoft is Windows 2000 and up, generally ok products executed in a non-evil way. (Only the geekiest of geeks have heard of, or care about, the ODF thing, that's the only "evil" thing I can think of MS doing recently. That pales in comparison to Adobe, or even to Apple.)

Re:What I don't get . . .

[TrancePhreak]

I still think Netscape died because they stagnated and came out with a buggy, bloated experience. IE4 was lightweight in comparison.

Re:What I don't get . . .

[Blakey Rat]

I do too, but the Slashdot collective considers that "evil", and it's pretty well-known, so I just put it down as an example.

Re:What I don't get . . .

[metamatic]

Microsoft was evil 20 years ago, and pretty neutral now.

You don't rate the patent lawsuits against Android devices and attempts to extort B&N to use Windows for the Nook as evil then?

They were leaving anyway ...

[Eponymous Coward]

... to do more phone and mobile development. Console gaming is a large but stagnant market. Mobile gaming is bigger and still growing very quickly.

The outage is only convincing more people to take evaluate where they put their development resources and it isn't looking good for *any* of the console makers.

Re:They were leaving anyway ...

[Dutch Gun]

Growth in one market doesn't necessarily equate to loss in another. This is just gaming moving to fill a new market segment. It doesn't mean that consoles are going to dry up. Also, how exactly is mobile gaming supposed to give anywhere near the experience that a console hooked up to a big-screen TV + surround sound speakers will give you?

Mobile gaming killing consoles just doesn't make a lot of sense to me. I have a feeling that gaming consoles have a pretty long life ahead of them.

Re:They were leaving anyway ...

[Eponymous Coward]

Growth in one market very often does equate to a loss in another. Companies have limited resources and they will put those resources to work where the biggest returns are found. Recently PS4 development was temporarily suspended while Sony made a big push into mobile gaming, especially Android. If you talk to some of the people who were retasked, they are in no rush to get back to their console work.

And just because one form of gaming displaces another, doesn't mean it's superior. It this case it's all about a bigger and more profitable market emerging.

They had the right to ban lunix!!!!11!

[Crass Spektakel]

And whatever you say, they had the right to ban communist limux from their system, really!

Every god loving america^W^W^Wmoney loving japanese company has to enforce protection of their control over their customers.

Only problem: by banning linux the shit really hit the fan. No matter if Sony is right or wrong, in the end they are simply fucking stupid for provoking the shit-fan.

I have a solution!

[Anonymous Coward]

Why don't we make games that have an immersive, long playing, single player story! That way, in the even of an internet outage or lack of internet access, players can still enjoy the game! Maybe we can even add in multiple endings and top it all off with some multiplayer modes!

Oh, wait...this sounds familiar. They only did this until the current generation, but oh look, easy money on the internet!

Re:I have a solution!

[indecks]

+1 I'm not much of an online gamer so I don't miss PSN at_all. I have XBL Gold, but only for Netflix, and whenever the XBL Gold comes to re-up, I won't, since about 60 other devices I own can do Netflix.

I think I played Halo 3/Reach online for maybe a couple of weeks but after that, nothin'.

I totally prefer a single player campaign.

That's right

[ashidosan]

developers who rely on PSN revenues may jump ship if they aren't compensated

I was going to hack my firmware and distribute my PSN-capable homebrew software, but now that Sony has shown they care nothing for its users, I'll take my business elsewhere.

I wonder...

[Anonymous Coward]

how much MS might have paid some group for this crack

The PSN Downtime has been good

[Anonymous Coward]

The PSN down time has actually been a moment of serendipity. It has made Sony take security seriously and appoint someone to oversee it and, more importantly, it has directed more anger towards Capcom's PSN DRM that requires PSN connectivity.

Did Microsoft lose developers after Christmas 2007

[necronom426]

From what I hear, Xbox live went down for about 2 weeks round Christmas 2007. Did developers leave them?

I don't know why it happened that time, but if they weren't hacked, then was it just a crap system? I think it's worse if you pay for a system that goes down for weeks through incompetence rather that an actual attack by criminals on a system that is free and works under normal conditions.

I think MS gave a free game to people. Sony are giving 2 games and 30 days of PS+ for something that wasn't their fault.

I'm just saying...

Sony should go Steam

[Prien715]

After playing Portal 2 on PS3, the multiplatform experience was a breath of fresh air. The PSN is not a money-maker for Sony -- just a reason to buy their console.

Steam already works on PS3 -- no more porting needed. Merging two large communities of players gives you a huge competitive advantage in the market over Microsoft and studios could publish truly cross-platform titles (competitive FPSes? Probably not. RPGs, strategy, racing, rhythm, fighting games? Sign me up!)

Lastly, Steam already owns the online PC market -- with the notable exception of Blizzard -- and they have something to gain here too. In the 10 years of its existence, I have never seen Steam down for more than a few hours and it'd give a chance for Sony to rebrand its online experience to something that's more reliable than the XBox live and still free.

Will Sony do it? Snowball's chance in hell. Would it be revolutionary to have a console/PC agnostic matchmaking/gameplay system? Yes. Do gamers want it? Every review I have seen about Steam on PS3 has been glowing or at the very least, having no complaints. The engineering's been done. All Sony would have to do is show some leadership.

Re:Sony should go Steam

[exomondo]

Steam already works on PS3 -- no more porting needed.

I'm not sure you know what Steam is, that or you don't know what porting is. Steam isn't a runtime, just because it runs on PS3 doesn't automatically mean every game available through Steam magically runs on the PS3 hardware now.

Re:Did Microsoft lose developers after Christmas 2

[PanzerW]

XBox Live was down on Christmas Day in 2007, not for 2 weeks. It was also experiencing connection problems for a couple of weeks afterwards do to a heavy load. But the two situations aren't really comparable.

Idle threats...

[Dahamma]

The whole statement doesn't make sense on the face of it. If they are "losing millions" from being down for one month, then clearly they are making millions when it's up.

After the dust settles Sony may lose some fraction of their customer base, but in the long run no game developer is going to give up on a platform with ~30 million customers just because of this fiasco.

Re:Idle threats...

[exomondo]

The whole statement doesn't make sense on the face of it. If they are "losing millions" from being down for one month, then clearly they are making millions when it's up.

And what's so wrong about that?

Re:Idle threats...

[Dahamma]

Absolutely nothing. My whole point was one month of downtime is a revenue blip and is going to make no difference in strategic decisions as hypothesized in the article...

Re:Idle threats...

[exomondo]

Absolutely nothing. My whole point was one month of downtime is a revenue blip and is going to make no difference in strategic decisions as hypothesized in the article...

if one of your most profitable divisions suddenly not only ceases to make a profit but swings to a significant loss for a month that most certainly will affect strategic decisions.

Re:Idle threats...

[Dahamma]

Sorry, do you have the slightest real world evidence to back this theory up? Because in fact I work at a company experiencing this exact situation, and while we are pissed at the situation there is NO WAY IN HELL we will drop the PS3 platform or PSN once it's back up. After you said "most profitable divisions" nothing else about your statement really mattered, and as I already said, a month is a blip on the long term revenue chart. Unless you can name a couple other game consoles with 70+ million customers that we somehow missed...

Re:Idle threats...

[exomondo]

Sorry, do you have the slightest real world evidence to back this theory up?

Why are you apologising? It's basic business sense, if the PSN downtime is costing them millions then that has to be covered by profit from the time that PSN is up since they aren't standing down their workforce while PSN is down.

Because in fact I work at a company experiencing this exact situation, and while we are pissed at the situation there is NO WAY IN HELL we will drop the PS3 platform or PSN once it's back up.

And what company would that be anyway? No-one is going to drop the PS3 platform, that's an idiotic suggestion. A loss of potentially millions is going to affect strategic decisions given that those millions are a large percentage of a game budget.

After you said "most profitable divisions" nothing else about your statement really mattered

why is that?

and as I already said, a month is a blip on the long term revenue chart.

And it's likely a huge percentage of their profit that goes out the window because they have to pay for these potentially millions in operating costs that isn't covered by revenue.

Re:Did Microsoft lose developers after Christmas 2

[exomondo]

From what I hear, Xbox live went down for about 2 weeks round Christmas 2007.

There was an intermittent outage of some services, not a full service blackout.

Soldner X 2

[Anonymous Coward]

So many that means X-Box Live users will finally start getting awesome PSN games like Solner X 1 and 2. No point in staying with PSN at this point since you have no clue when it is coming back up. On an upside, I am totally buying an older one, throwing custom firmware on there for pirating and getting as many games as possible. No point in hooking my ps3 to the internet anyway.