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PlayStation 4 'Orbis' Rumors: AMD Hardware, Hostile To Used Games
silentbrad writes "Kotaku reports some 'details' about Sony's next console given to them by a 'reliable source.' They say that the console's codename is Orbis, and it is planned for release by the 2013 holiday season. Developers are reportedly being told to plan for an AMD x64 CPU and AMD Southern Islands GPU. Further on, they mention that there will be no PS3 backwards compatibility and, like rumors about the next Xbox, will have anti-used game DRM. Specifically, 'new games for the system will be available one of two ways, either on a Blu-Ray disc or as a PSN download (yes, even full retail titles). If you buy the disc, it must be locked to a single PSN account. ... If you then decide to trade that disc in, the pre-owned customer picking it up will be limited in what they can do. ... it's believed used games will be limited to a trial mode or some other form of content restriction, with consumers having to pay a fee to unlock/register the full game.'"
If you buy the disc, it must be locked to a single PSN account. ... If you then decide to trade that disc in, the pre-owned customer picking it up will be limited in what they can do
You expect this kind of craven, heavy-handed behavior out of a Samsung or a Panasonic, sure. But Sony?!?!?
But seriously, it's been clear that developers have been asking for this for some time. They already killed the used market for PC's. Now it's console time. Sadly, I suspect MS and Nintendo will follow suit if Sony goes through with it.
What political party do you join when you don't like Bible-thumpers *or* hippies?
I bet this won't fly, in the end. This is going to tick off everyone, so I bet it will be so unpopular that they will relent. Gamers will revolt... retailers will revolt. It's a revolution calling! Then again, I could be wrong, of couse. ;-)
"Never give up, for that is just the time and place when the tide will change." -Harriet Beecher Stowe ^_^
...Sony cooks up another draconian DRM scheme....
Another brilliant example of not understanding your audience. Used games are part of the lifeblood of the hobby. Make me pay full retail for every game and I will skip the platform.
Um... Yeah, and this far out in the PS3 dev cycle we thought we'd be stuck with those horrible boomerang controllers too. So I'll take it with a grain of anti-Sony-bias salt. Not that I'd put it past them, just that it's too early to start shitting myself with worry.
Good thing i stopped buying Sony crud a long time ago. If MS follow's suit, I guess I'll skip them as well.
what exactly is going to be so cool about this console except better graphics?
$60 games with no resale means i buy one or two awesome games per year
i mostly game on my x-box and use the PS3 for movies and netflix. the xbox has enough $20 GOTY editions of good games that i have years left to play them and no need to buy any of the new systems for a long time.
my dream system for next gen is x-box with blu ray and backwards compatibility. i'll buy it even if the new next gen games are locked down since i'll play the old and use it as a blu ray player after dumping my current x-box and PS3
If they're planning on limiting the resale value of games, then they better plan on lowering the price. I know a lot of people who justified spending $40 or $50 on a game because they knew they could sell it for $20 or $30 in 6 months when they got tired of it, making the end cost a reasonable $20 or so. A move like this might end up hurting sales in spite of forcing more people to buy directly from Sony (or Sony's retailers) because a large segment of the market can no longer use the money from selling older games to buy newer ones.
Big companies seem to think that consumers have an endless supply of money to spend on anything and everything they want... no concept of a consumer has $100 to spend on games this year. If titles are $50 each, then only two get sold. If titles are $50, but they can resell each for $25 then three games get sold.
... until Sony gets hacked, PSN accounts are lost and everyone's games are rendered useless. That lawsuit should be epic.
i bet best buy would devote less floor space at the minimum as well. they sell used games and no physical disks means less potential customers in the door
If you buy the disc, it must be locked to a single PSN account
no PS3 backwards compatibility
Sony, I really want to enjoy the games you and your partners put out, but if you go through with this? I have two words for you.
Buh-Bye.
(Either that or Yo-Ho, if someone finds a reliable way to pirate games on to the console)
What do I know, I'm just an idiot, right?
What happens to games when the console breaks or Sony decides to "ban" your PSN account?
Wow, this will cause an uproar with families I would think!
Example: Buy game for 2+ children, but each child has own account as they don't want to have their saves touched / overwritten. Find out that game can only be used on child(a) account. Child(b) cries foul, wants his own saves and doesn't want to share etc. Fight breaks out as parent can't game to work on child(b) account.
Now I don't think this will be extremely COMMON to be honest, but I could certainly see some backlash from it! I don't like having other people in the house using my account to play games, as I fear that someone would accidentally mess up my saves etc. I'm sure a self entitled child will throw complete fits over it.
Practice Static Safety - Hack Naked
Please see subject, because you know it's true. As soon as people realize they can't trade-in games, everything is tied to one PSN account, and games still cost $60+ this game console will fly ... right back to Japan.
Same thing with XBOX - if it comes locked down and games tied to a single account and no used game sales then it will be a very expensive paperweight. A dead albatross weighting them down.
Time for a new game company to step up and create something open or ,rather, more open than the "next gen" consoles appear to be.
Dream as if you'll live forever.
Live as if you'll die tomorrow.
~Anonymous~
because perhaps at some point people will simply stop buying into Sony's 'all your stuff are belong to us' attitude and take their gaming and consumer electronics purchases to other companies. The sooner Sony buries itself in its own bullshit and dies a spectacular death, the better, as far as I'm concerned.
'The Economy' is a giant Ponzi scheme whose most pitiable suckers are the youngest among us and the yet-unborn.
If publishers can count on more direct sales
That $10 I don't get anymore for turning in the old games no longer goes towards buying new ones.
If I have been able to see further than others, it is because I bought a pair of binoculars.
It will not work long term. The big game studios and makers have enjoyed some of the largest profits in history without doing this. The pirate 'customer' now will have a better product then the paid customer. Sometimes companies fail to understand the ecosystem effect of having these used sellers out there. The used sellers make a small amount of money, but they bring money back to the consumer who spends it on NEW games and the used seller may bring in a second new customer that eventually buys full priced games as well. Just because a company Gamefly makes a little money, does not mean that the money was sucked out of Sony. With Gamefly (and like companies) in the gaming ecosystem, Sony may make MORE money. Too bad they do not understand this.
Come on, have some pity for the horse.
All of this is rumored. People shouldn't get upset about it before knowing what the final product will be. Besides.. Let's face it, the majority of the people on /. getting upset about this are the Sony haters that wouldn't have bought the PS4 even if was priced at $50 with $5 games.
I personally am a fan of Sony, and if this is true then I will be quite upset about it. However, I am reasonable enough to realize that rumors don't count for anything. Sony has been very secretive about the "PS4" so it's hard for me to believe that anyone can say with an level of certainty that any of this is true.
I wouldn't see a problem with it, as long as they adjusted the game prices to reflect they no longer have any resale value. Steam, which is quite popular, has the exact same problem, but is offset by a number of advantages. In the grand scheme of things though, the ability to get PC games a lot cheaper, both using online retailers, and from sales within steam itself is what really made this acceptable. Also, to this date, you can still make Steam accounts per game to work around this issue somewhat, regardless of its against their TOS or not. I can't see Sony handling this in the same way, though.
If you do this, I won't buy it. Lots of people won't. Stop this stupid BS.
You really need to learn to think in the long term. People will pay a lot for a game when it first comes out, but if you do this DRM crap, you MUST follow through and offer older games at much lower prices, and continue to do so for YEARS if not DECADES. Used game stores do this for you, and allow people with less money to remain rabid fans, and buy your big games when they first come out. If you kill the used game market, you cut those players off. Once they are cut off, they will find other things to do. YOU DO NOT WANT THIS TO HAPPEN.
If you must have DRM, you need to offer games from old systems that run on emulation on your new systems for free or next to nothing, and you need to offer older games at prices that used games get now. You need to keep people playing. If you keep playing these stupid DRM games without offering a substitute, then people will stop playing, and you will go the way of the music industry. Maybe someone like Apple will come along and save your sorry ass, and drag you kicking and screaming into a new, profitable business model, but I wouldn't bet on it.
Anyone note the irony to which Sony is going? I mean, they're making the Xbox 2 - still x86 based (like the original Xbox).
Makes me wonder if Bunnie Huang and eveyrone else will dust off all the old Xbox hacks they have and give them a go on the new machine. Don't think Sony can secure it any better than Microsoft could. Heck, it would be amusing to see if Windows 8 would run on it...
What you've just said ... is one of the most insanely idiotic things I have ever heard. At no point in your rambling, incoherent response were you even close to anything that could be considered a rational thought. Everyone in this room is now dumber for having listened to it. I award you no points, and may God have mercy on your soul.
- Principal Oblaski, Billy Madison
An enigma, wrapped in a riddle, shrouded in bacon and cheese
You expect this kind of craven, heavy-handed behavior out of a Samsung or a Panasonic, sure. But Sony?!?!?
Why wouldn't you expect this of Sony? Recall that:
Don't know how many times you have to see SONY acting in this manner to realize that's the way SONY really is.
I don't really have a problem with this. It's not like it's going to affect game prices that much, I can go to a local store and find $20 games that are "brand new". Of course, I may have to wait a year or two, but that doesn't mean I have to buy $60 games. Most of the stores where I live who sell recently released "used" games only take off $5 or MAYBE $10.
So, as someone who doesn't sell games, this doesn't bother me in the least. If you do sell games, then your issue would be with the business who buys them from you, not Sony.
What exactly is the problem here? As long as the games don't feature the "always be connected to the Internet" feature (and I use the word feature loosely), I'm not really concerned with this. While I understand everybody likes the idea of DRM-free media, I also understand the other side of the situation, where businesses are making money on products they didn't put in the time or effort to create, and really have very little in the way of risk. I don't have a big problem with shutting out businesses who take little risk and make good money off the hard work of other people.
Not only that, Sony would be signing their own death warrant. If these main-stream stores think it will hurt them to promote their system, Sony will probably die. They should just stick with the One Time online-key for those that want to buy a used game and use the online part of the game. Make them just buy a key, I agree with that more than anything, other than just keeping the current model.
Greed - here's what they see
Ah, this person spends 100$ on games per year. These games are used and cost 20$ each.
So clearly they buy five games per year.
BUT, just BUT, if we make it so they have no choice, they will pay 60$ each, getting us an extra 200$.
That way each person gives us 300 in total!
IDJITS, We aren't going to spend more. You're just going to sell less, dumbshit.
Plus we're we'll be less interested overall, and only purchase the big block busters. B- games can kiss their sales goodbye.
Since I would then place less games, I'd be less inclined to purchase a console for a lot of money since the games cost me to much and it's not worth the price to play like two games a year + cost of console.
Sony wants to sell licenses to use software that happens to be distributed via physical media. In contrast, consumers think of themselves as buying physical media containing software. In other words, consumers believe that any license is attached to the media, whereas Sony wants the license to attach to the person. Because there is no physical media associated with digitally distributed content, consumers don't have any trouble with that concept in that arena. However, in the case of physical media, Sony wants to screw consumers on both sides. If you lose the disc, you can't play the game anymore and if you sell the disc to someone else they can't use it.
If Sony wants to switch to solely licensing software, they should stop selling discs. Otherwise, they should anticipate consumer revolt and rightly so.
I don't practice what I preach because I'm not the kind of person that I'm preaching to.
While I agree this is very un-cool, it is very free-market, PROVIDED that everyone knows what is going on before any money changes hands.
With some exceptions, games are mainly entertainment. If I don't like the terms, I can just not buy.
If I know that I won't be able to sell my used game at the price I would have been without DRM, then the price I'm willing to pay for it drops accordingly.
Knowledge is how to play a game, intelligence is how to win, wisdom is knowing what game to play.
I got Mass Effect 2 from a friend. I traded him a game for it. I liked the game so much, when Mass Effect 3 came out, I purchased the full retail version because I couldn't wait to play it. If you make your games compelling enough, people will flock to buy them brand new. Take a look at Madden '10. Within 1 month, 1.9 million people bought it brand new (http://kotaku.com/5356888/madden-tops-charts-again-but-sales-plummet-on-ps2-wii). After a 3 months, 3.9 million (http://www.joystiq.com/2009/11/10/madden-10-has-shipped-3-9-million-copies/). I'm sure it has sold more since then .. but come on, a quarter of a billion dollars for a single video game that they just re-used old code and made a few tweaks to.
People are still buying brand new games. I am if I like the game enough and typically the only way to get me in to a franchise is by a friend lending me a game, or me buying it used. I don't want to eat up 2 gigs of my 250 gig/mo limit to try some crappy limited demo.
This is a great opportunity for a 4th gaming system to come out without DLC and without prohibiting used games. I would buy it in an instant.
Screw me once, Shame on you; Screw me twice, Shame on me...
Good Luck Sony and Microsoft...
I know of thousands of Techs in the industry, that already avoid both of your products specifically. :-D
You must want to add the rest of US consumers to that list
People don't like "Re-Paying" for items that have already been purchased from the store.
This story marks the absolute end of my purchasing ANY products from either Company EVER again.
I refuse to contribute to Greed of this magnitude... Greed is killing the world.
Used games do not hurt the industry. In fact they help the industry!
First off used games have been around since day one. The game industry has only grown since then. Obviously there's no harm. Now onto the specifics.
Used stores are used by two groups, high volume game consumers and people not willing or able to pay full price.
The high volume consumers sell the games. Why do they do this? So they have money to buy more games?
The buyers fall into two basic categories. People who are frugal and people who can't afford $60. Even though these people don't buy games at full price used stores allow them to still be gamers. This allows people to enter the hobby, and thus the market, at an earlier point. They get hooked. Eventually they make more money and don't want to wait for games so they start buying games at full price. Frugal people will never pay full price for games. It's against their nature. Trying to get them to will at worst result in them leaving the market, at best only buying things at discount.
Additionally used game stores put more money into the pockets of game companies. They do this by funneling the money from the used buyers and giving it to the hard core gamers who sell the games to the used stores. You remove this middle man and your hard core gamers have less money to buy games, you lose the customers who can't pay full price due to economics.
All because some exec sees the games in used stores as lost sales, when in fact they all were sales, in order to try and capture a demographic that by it's nature will never be direct customers of theirs.
I find being offended by me offensive.
Yeah, only that's WHY you can't play used games. To boot up any game you need to be signed in to PSN. While this doesn't necessarily imply that you need to stay connected during play, you almost certainly will do. It will, I'm sure, be spun as a feature, since you save "TO THE NANOBUZZWORD CLOUD". So, next time hackers take down PSN, everybody will find their PS4 completely non-functional, except possible as a BluRay+1 player. And they'll probably try to tie THOSE to PSN accounts so you can't trade sell or lend them. (The MPAA wants to outlaw used and borrowed movies just as bad as game developers want to outlaw used and borrowed games, and publishers want to outlaw used and borrowed books).
ASCII stupid question, get a stupid ANSI
no one will buy it and that will be the end of that. nothing to see here.
insensitive clod overlords obligatory xkcd car analogy russian reversals whoosh pedant fanbois ftfy in 3...2...1..PROFIT
except that development budgets have been OK, MARKETING BUDGETS have sky rocketed
every time activision releases their annual military shooter the marketing budget is hundreds of millions of $$$ even though the engine is like 7 years old
EA/Bioware spent money on sending copies of ME3 into space to float back down along with CGI trailers that never made it back into the game
in some cases the marketing budgets are more than the dev budgets
I was wondering what to do about getting a new system. This settles it .. I will be switching to PC gaming!
Thanks sony and xbox!!
Game Stop is fucked.
Look at all this from Sony's perspective - what has been one of the wilder gaming successes in recent years?
The iOS platform.
There people cannot trade or otherwise share games. But it ends up not really mattering because in the iOS world there are so many developers vying for purchasers that the real world has actually had an impact on pricing - pricing is quite low per title.
Or you could even come at it from the PC side and note the only model that is really growing there very well is Steam - again no sharing of games, but lower prices.
So I would submit it's you who are out of touch with what modern gamers accept.
Of course it remains to be seen if Sony REALLY understands that for the no-sharing model to work, prices must also come down substantially for each title. They are adopting the DRM protected no-sharing model because it's innately what they desire anyway, but can they unclench the greed fist just a little? Hard to say. All I know is I have a PS3 but am pretty unlikely to get an Orbis, even if it supports Vorbis...
"There is more worth loving than we have strength to love." - Brian Jay Stanley
I'll stick to Steam 75% off sales on PC.
The way to solve the DRM problem is to stop buying the products.
A rented games is an used game right? What will happen with services like redbox,blockbuster or gamefly?
What if I said "Used Bookstores are leeches of the publishing industry"?
What if I were to say, "Thrift stores are leeches of the retail industry"?
Why should software (distributed on physical media) enjoy some special protection from being transferable to another person? Why should I be rendered unable to either transfer the the ability and right to enjoy my gamee, either temporarily (loan / share) or permanently (gift / sell)?
Many comments have already pointed out that PCs have effectively been doing this for years already, but why aren't more nobody questioning if maybe this is the reason that the console gaming industry is doing better than the PC gaming industry is?
Why does the gaming industry fail to acknowledge that just because a game is sold for $30 or $40 used does not mean that the customer would have been otherwise willing to pay $60 if the option of Used was removed?
Why is it that used games and piracy are always blamed for hurting the industry, rather than increases both in game prices (hurting demand) and game escalating budgets (reducing profit)?
Is the popularity of buying used a sign that people would buy more games if they were cheaper, or are these so many more used sales because people can trade-in and swap their existing games to cycle through a larger number of games than they could on the same game budget buying only new games?
Fuck developers. $60 is already a god damned rip off as it is, with no way to get some of that investment back you can take your $60 game and shove it up your ass. I buy maybe 2 games a year for the PC now because of their cost and complete lack of resale value, not to mention the crap production values on AAA titles nowadays. Hint, graphics aren't everything.
You are right, used sales are leaching off of content producers. But, that's a very short sighted view point. What you miss is that when people have cheap and affordable access to your content, they are more likely to get hooked. Think of your local drug dealer. The 1st joint, line, shot, etc is free or offered for a very low price. And why? Because if he can get you hooked you'll come back & pay full price for more. The same here. Some gamers won't care what they have to pay, especially if they can sell it back for a portion of what they paid when they don't like it or tire of it. But others are more cautious and are only willing to shell out the full price when they know they will like it. And still others will only take the cheap/free route. Things like this will not affect the 1st & last group all that much. It's the 2nd group that you'll lose with shortsighted thinking that "used sales are only leaching". Of the 3 groups, that 2nd one is by far the largest, as it's where most of the target audience for games fits into things. And unless you want to only play games like Halo 83, then you might want to support used sales.
It knew what it was getting itself into.
Yes but it's something to talk about on a Friday afternoon when your code's not fucking compiling.
You save $15 and the industry loses $60.
Very well. Here is your Licence to Sue, jointly certified by MAFIAA.
"If you buy the disc, it must be locked to a single PSN account." So I need to buy two disks to play Call of Duty on multiple accounts... say one for me and one for my kid. That model is absolutely ridiculous.
Just because you are wrong and I called you out on it doesn't mean I am a Troll.
Later, Sony. I, for one, will be dropping your future platforms as a source of entertainment. I have truly enjoyed my PS3, PS2 and yes, even my venerated and much-wobbly PS/One. But attempting to control a free-trade aftermarket by locking users into your wonky website as the sole provider of goods is right out. What do we do with those shiny new units when you decide to upgrade your hardware again - toss them in a landfill? Try to make end-tables out of them? I think this is where I get off the planned obsolescence bandwagon. Bye now.
As for Micro$oft: pfffft.
~Just as a thing fails if it lacks a kernel, so too it fails if it lacks a skin. ~ Rumi, Discourses
And y'know - if you SHOUT LOUD ENOUGH maybe someone in JAPAN WILL HEAR US!
~Just as a thing fails if it lacks a kernel, so too it fails if it lacks a skin. ~ Rumi, Discourses
Sony already gave me a thousand reasons to not buy anything from them, so: not big news (at least for me)
Yeah, only that's WHY you can't play used games. To boot up any game you need to be signed in to PSN. While this doesn't necessarily imply that you need to stay connected during play, you almost certainly will do. It will, I'm sure, be spun as a feature, since you save "TO THE NANOBUZZWORD CLOUD". So, next time hackers take down PSN, everybody will find their PS4 completely non-functional, except possible as a BluRay+1 player. And they'll probably try to tie THOSE to PSN accounts so you can't trade sell or lend them. (The MPAA wants to outlaw used and borrowed movies just as bad as game developers want to outlaw used and borrowed games, and publishers want to outlaw used and borrowed books).
That's an awful lot of stuff you came up with there...unfortunately, none of that has been confirmed. And I'm not concerned about the used game market, as I said in the first post of mine. I understand a lot of people are, but as I also mentioned, if you wait for a few years, you can find those titles for more than 50% off.
Yeah, only that's WHY you can't play used games. To boot up any game you need to be signed in to PSN. While this doesn't necessarily imply that you need to stay connected during play, you almost certainly will do. It will, I'm sure, be spun as a feature, since you save "TO THE NANOBUZZWORD CLOUD". So, next time hackers take down PSN, everybody will find their PS4 completely non-functional, except possible as a BluRay+1 player. And they'll probably try to tie THOSE to PSN accounts so you can't trade sell or lend them. (The MPAA wants to outlaw used and borrowed movies just as bad as game developers want to outlaw used and borrowed games, and publishers want to outlaw used and borrowed books).
Hmm, I don't see why online activation of a game or movie couldn't be a one-shot thing, enabling offline playing afterwards, on that system.
We're looking at a transition from owning a hard-copy to renting an experience. And I'd like the option to pay a low price for maybe 6 months of rent for a game. If you pay full price for a game, it has to have some kind of replayability or at least be 15+ hours long. But not all naratives or game-types profit from forced replayability and introduction of a rent-based system could pave the way for those games.
It is legally required to allow first sale. It is an anti-trust violation to interfere with secondary markets. What these publishers are atempting to do is a form of price fixing.
I don't really have a problem with this. It's not like it's going to affect game prices that much, I can go to a local store and find $20 games that are "brand new". Of course, I may have to wait a year or two, but that doesn't mean I have to buy $60 games. Most of the stores where I live who sell recently released "used" games only take off $5 or MAYBE $10. So, as someone who doesn't sell games, this doesn't bother me in the least.
Actually this doesn't bother me much either, since this is such a shitty anti-user business practice I'll save a ton of money by not buying their system, games or accessories next round. Seriously, if they implement this I don't care what comes out for the system, I'm not buying it.
If you do sell games, then your issue would be with the business who buys them from you, not Sony.
I Disagree. If they are determined to take away my "right of first sale" and charge the same price for it then my issue is with Sony. It's their right to offer a lesser product for the same price, but it's guaranteed to lose sales.
I love Steam because I don't have to hassle with selling my used games. It does not bother me in the least because I never pay over $15 for a game. They frequently have great sales and you can build an awesome library with very little money.
A console that would work the same way would be a great thing. Of course, Sony needs to work on their security... and their game prices!
I get the impression that this war against used games is actually against Gamestop specifically. We don't have Gamestop in my country so I can't speak from experience or any kind of authority, but everything I've heard and read about them strongly suggests that their business model is based upon not simply selling used games, but doing everything they can to actively obstruct new game sales in order to further the used game market. Most used markets don't have a single player with as much influence, and don't act with such hostility toward the industry who's work supports them.
Guess Sony will have to start accepting used games for credit to puchase new ones. That's ONE way they can keep the used games off the market, buy them back for a small credit and destroy the disks.
PC game graphics are tied lockstep to console limitations. Look at Skyrim. Instead of a huge leap in graphics quality like we saw from Morrowind to Oblivion, we end up with about a 1.25-generation improvement from Oblivion to Skyrim. Why? Because of console hardware capability. And it's not just graphics. Skyrim has exactly the same size of real estate as Oblivion has. Bethesda put in some mountains for you to have to walk around in Skyrim, so it'd seem bigger. How much do you want to bet the world size is dictated by console memory capacity?
So, even if the PS4 sucks rocks, at least games will start to take advantage of a little more of the hardware that PC gamers invest in.
PC hardware = maybe a cheap high end systems.
How hard will be to hack it to run any x86 based OS?
The only problem with this not effecting you is that it very well might. Those stores that you go to six months after release to get a game for $20 are unlikely to survive very long when their biggest revenue producer (i.e. used-game sales) vanishes.
Why should I get excited about buying a crippled AMD PC that can't play used games? I hope these rumours aren't true, otherwise I see no reason at all to buy a console this generation. Not that the competition is doing much better, as the xbox 720 is rumoured not to play used games at all. I guess this means I'll be back to PC for gaming, after a long exodus. I hope PC games have improved in the meantime.
That $10 I don't get anymore for turning in the old games no longer goes towards buying new ones.
That's OK. The $40 that someone was going to pay to GameStop for your used copy will.
Somehow I don't find it surprising that the same site has reported from 'reliable sources' that both the 'PS4' and '720' will take issue with used games. Are we attempting a self-fulfilling prophecy here? There seems to be a lot of excitement to proudly proclaim "I fucking called it!" if either one of these consoles employs a CD key or account-lock game ownership mechanic.
Furthermore, what is their problem with backwards compatibility? There were two big things that prevented me from buying a PS3; the price tag for the longest time, and its removal of PS2 backward compatibility. Certainly it can't be difficult to copy-paste the old code from the PS1/PS2/PS3 and launch the proper interpreter depending on disc era?
Potatoes are friggin' magical. Can you power an alarm clock with a carrot? No, sir!
I'm thinking that not being able to play used games like in the past will only push piracy.
You don't seem to understand the nature of the problem here.
From the perspective of the developers, people who actually MAKE the games, used games ALREADY ARE LIKE PIRACY. It can not get any worse. There is no difference between someone buying a game used and someone else pirating it.
Used games trade is a conspiracy of the people who SELL games to cut the developers from the profit of the sale and take it all for themselves. Being happy about being able to buy used games is very short sighted. You must understand that you need the developers, not the sales men, to get money so they can make more games. If developers die off the salesmen will just go rip off someone else and there will be no games at all.
It is obvious that there is a fundamental problem here with the current system of selling "licensed copies" of digital works for outrageous prices. People will never accept the fact that someone is charging them money for the copy they know is free to make. This needs to change. Maybe to a model where developers are somehow paid to create something which is then freely copied... It need to be fair to both sides to have a chance of working.
As for games being expensive, "proper" games take several dozen of man-years minimum to create and nobody can afford to do that for free. It is just not going to happen. How many open source/free games have you seen so far that would be of quality comparable to commercial titles? Even if you somehow got enough open source developers together to contribute the amount of work required, there would be too many of them to create something consistent... open source developers do only the fun part of the job.
End of rant.
Sony's incompetent executives seem to be stuck in 90s - they're dinosaurs, just like all this RIAA crap-management folks. The only thing that would push them back to reality (or burn them down) is strong competition from NEW technologies (not just cheaper knockoffs like Xbox).
I would like to see speedy chips like Tegra3 built directly into TVs (by Samsung and others) and Android running these chips. I would like to see well ironed out gaming API for such devices, maybe even some standard gaming engine (or two) with some kind of 'tech 5'-like algorithms/tools that would enable easy game development across whole spectrum of devices and screen sizes. With easy to use and effective authoring tools (why not use kinect-like device paired with some camera to quickly generate objects and content for a game?).
I would also see it as open as development tools for Android are today and as easy to buy games as Android Market is today. I would like to see Sony crap-executives feeling heat from actual competition, not from other dinosaurs like Microsoft.
You see, all hardware puzzles to above vision are already in place. That is needed is some will, work and innovation (and Sony/M$ not trying to take it down with some kind of crap-lawsuits).
No, it doesn't have to be. Maybe once YOU grow up, you'll understand that there are options. Not every game has to be some 300+ person endeavor that involves millions of dollars in voice actors alone. The indie market is making a big comeback, with some very low budget games making some big headlines.
Why not? It's the price the market will bare. If it wasn't. they wouldn't be making a profit.
See above.
See above.
Nope.
This is already happening.
They are good at manipulating people to spend vast amounts of money for little return, yes. Something that you seemed to be against in the beginning of your comment, but as I pointed out, it's working out based on what the market will bare.
I don't see why the companies should listen to your advice so far.
Change is certain; progress is not obligatory.
That's what people said about Windows XP with 'windows activation'. Yet, many of those people today are not running on pre-activation versions of Windows or alternative operating systems. We'll see.
Change is certain; progress is not obligatory.
I'm okay with this.
Change is certain; progress is not obligatory.
Completely different scenario. With games you are (and always have been) allowed to share between friends and even siblings, or to sell them or gift them used. Windows was never the case (legally).
Looks like this next generation of consoles is going to get horribly over looked, and probably die a good bit from bad business moves. I know I would never buy a console with that kind of restriction on it.
*Glances at Steam games list* Yeah.. I don't believe you. See, I remember a similar argument about Steam. Didn't stop it there either. It became one of the most dominant distribution platform despite the lack of rentals.
Change is certain; progress is not obligatory.
What I have issue with and thus would not consider is Paying several hundred dollars for a system + accessories to be locked into buying $60 games, that I can't loan and/ or re-sell. I've been a gamer since the Atari 2600 days, have all 3 current systems, a number of legacy systems and have more games already that I probably should, but there is no franchise on any system that will compel me to agree to the terms of what they are [rumored to be] proposing.
My point wasn't really referring to what you do exactly right now, more over that people are buying games for $60 on steam that they can't loan or re-sell. If people can accept it on Steam, it's very possible they'd accept it on other platforms too. There will be people unhappy and protest to the cause, but I don't believe this will be a show stopper some how. I expect that even those who protest to the idea will end up using the platforms for one reason or another.
Change is certain; progress is not obligatory.
Draconian DRM is discussion worthy, but isn't anybody interested in discussing the rumoured hw? Going x64 sounds like the beancounters did a mutiny (cue images of Monty Python film). Especially when they had a unique and strong architecture they could simply enhance, speed up, and fix the warts on. Easy compatibility too that way.
I Disagree. If they are determined to take away my "right of first sale" and charge the same price for it then my issue is with Sony. It's their right to offer a lesser product for the same price, but it's guaranteed to lose sales.
The way I'm understanding it, Sony isn't taking anything away from YOU. You can still sell your game to anyone who wishes to purchase it, for whatever amount they wish to give you. They just have to understand that not only will they pay for the physical media, they will also have to pay to unlock game content as well. So if used game stores offer you less money to sell your games, your problem is with the game stores, not Sony.
I somehow doubt Amazon is going out of business anytime soon... http://www.amazon.com/UNCHARTED-Among-Thieves-Edition-Playstation-3/dp/B002I0F5I2/ref=sr_1_1?ie=UTF8&qid=1333237439&sr=8-1
I Disagree. If they are determined to take away my "right of first sale" and charge the same price for it then my issue is with Sony. It's their right to offer a lesser product for the same price, but it's guaranteed to lose sales.
The way I'm understanding it, Sony isn't taking anything away from YOU. You can still sell your game to anyone who wishes to purchase it, for whatever amount they wish to give you. They just have to understand that not only will they pay for the physical media, they will also have to pay to unlock game content as well. So if used game stores offer you less money to sell your games, your problem is with the game stores, not Sony.
But they ARE taking something from me, they are taking resale value away from the item I purchased so I DO have an issue with them selling me a lesser product for full price.
So you're saying people should not be allowed to sell on a particular class of product, just because the developers/publishers can't manage to run a sensible business model without unfairly restricting the rights of their customers?
But they ARE taking something from me, they are taking resale value away from the item I purchased so I DO have an issue with them selling me a lesser product for full price.
They are not taking resale value away from you. You are still free to negotiate whatever price you can get for your games. If you can convince someone to buy the game from you for $55, Sony is not stopping that.