Sony: all new PS3 titles will require PSN Pass for online play Sony has officially extended its tax on gamers who buy secondhand PlayStation titles, confirming that all future Sony games with network functionality will be mediated through an online pass system. The company told Destructoid that the PSN Pass system will be incorporated into all upcoming Sony Computer Entertainment PS3 …
people, you need to understand that you can't compare the 2nd hand games market to the 2nd hand car/furniture/electronics market. The reason being, with the 2nd hand car, you get a warn out item that have been used and can no longer compete with the new car. With the 2nd hand game/movie/music market, the item that you get 2nd hand can match the new item in every way except the price (* reminder, you are interested in the data and not the physical item).
and what makes the comparison of the 2 different market to be even more unfair is: you finish with cheap game, you never finish with the expensive car. There is always some use for the car, you never _finish_ with the car. On the other hand, you do _finish_ games. So while the car will stay with you for years, the game will be sold 2nd hand just two days after you have bought it!
to be honest, the only thing that I can see in the 2nd hand game world that can be compared to the 2nd hand car world is: the console! The games are cheap and have a point at which you no longer need it (you finished the game). The console on the other hand is expansive and no never finish with, there is always some new game to play on it!
The way I see it guys. If you buy the game with no intention of selling it on this won't affect you. Infact the ONLY way it will affect you is if you buy a second hand game. Personally I tend not todo such things so Sony can do what they like. It's not as if your paying to use the PSN to begin with or in any sort of legal binding with Sony that states "They must provide the service free forever'.
The solution is simple. To avoid this charge, don't buy second hand games. You and I both know that eventually Microsoft, Nintendo etc will all adopt the same stance (if they have not already).
2nd hand PC gaming is dying a death because the licences are locked online through kit like Steam, and there's NO way to get a new code/whatever for yourself. So you can't buy the game 2nd hand, ever. This online pass malarkey still sucks ass compared to previous consoles and games, but it's better than them going the PC route.
And haven't the X-box publishers been doing this for yonks?
only affect S0NY published Games, (like say Resistance 3, or in this case Uncharted 3 etc...), or indeed ALL FORTHCOMING TITLES FROM SCEx (J,A,E), including any and all Shovelware?
This could be the final Nail for me, PC Gaming is a FREAKING JOKE!, I can not properly spew my utter detest towards the entire FPS genre. Tiresome, boring, unimaginative, and just about everythings been done a million times over.
Whats left Racing Sims? That's fine I guess, but what to do when I want to play something from NIS (e.g. JRPGs) , supposing I wanted to try something more "Casual" what are my choices in the J'n'R Shpere on the PC? My Magic 8-Ball says no.....
So hopefully all this will do is to drive the Retailers to force quicker Price reductions, Cause there IS NO WAY IN HELL I'M PAYING 60€+ for the king of crap that's in my current line-up.
The only exception to that rule would have been Gran Turismo 5, A Game that convinced me to get a PS3, and a very expensive Wheel. I still need the even MORE EXPENSIVE Playseat though.
I Have sympathy with both sides, here.
Gamers are demanding more from their triple A games, forcing development costs to balloon - we've gone from 30 people teams running on a 18-24 month development cycle in the PS2/Gamecube era, up to 100+ Teams on 2-3 development cycles.
Yet the game titles have not gone up in price - most games have been selling at the £30-£40 new range since the SNES and Mega Drive days. They can't really push the new prices up any higher, without alienating the consumers.
Gamestop/Game/Gamestation have a very obvious 3 part business strategy, which massively compounds this problem;
- Push Pre-orders, to get as many full price day one sales as possible
- Give good trade in prices to new games to get back as many copies as possible while they're still in demand
- push the 2nd hand copies on buyers, as all profit goes to them, as opposed to publishers and developers getting a cut.
Only step one in that strategy benefits anyone but the retailer. some game stores see the same copy of an individual title a half dozen times in the launch months.
I'm in the fortunate position of being a 20-something with disposable income, and care enough about the games industry and developers to buy new whenever possible. I cannot begrudge any pocket money saving kid, hard pressed parent, or hard up adult for saving a bundle on a second hand copy, which they're told is functionally identical to a new one - it'll be fun to see how Game's 2nd hand slogan - "Everything's the same but the price" - fairs against this new direction.
Many of you are making analogies to to the second hand car or house market. While I take on board the general point, we are dealing with a mostly digital product, here - as long as the disk is not scratched, there is no degradation in the product you get; If you buy a car, you get it with an empty odometer, in pristine condition, with no scratches, dings, or crumbs in the drivers seat. New House, you get to specify the furnishings and fittings you want.
The only market I can think of with a like-for-like compassion is the 2nd Hand DVD market, and even then the studios can make a good portion of their production costs back in the cinema, beforehand.
I may not like it, but I can understand where Sony is coming from - they get to make some money from second hand sales, turning the online component into a service instead of a freebie (It would be more interesting and harder to justify if 1st Party Microsoft games started doing this, as they're already charging for Xbox live - as many have pointed out, 3rd party publishers, like EA, have been doing this with their games for a while on all platforms)
Until Digital Distribution really kicks off - to iTunes Levels - and we can cut the real bad guys in all this - Game & Co. - out of the equation, I don't see a nice way around this.
This is why these passes are introduced.
They are artificially introducing "dings","dents" and "scratches" to an electronic pristine product in order to make the product less attractive to buyers.
As mentioned this will result in less money flow all round.
To those that mention your single player game is not impacted , its worth bearing in mind that many games have only a token single player experience and are really designed to be played online. FPS's,Fighter's,Racers etc
I really don't have a problem with this and don't understand what the f*** people are complaining about, unless you buy a game where the online part of it is the be all and end all of the game play then it isn't worth paying full price to start with in the first place. It will kill off the second game market though. And lets face it, the game shops has only a very limited timeline left anyway. The days of buying games on a phyisical media is numbered. The next gen game machines (As is already happening on the PC side of things) will be through game stores... And the biggest thing that worries me is that you will buy for a full priced game on the respective console makers games stores at full retail price or RRP, which is still currently probably about a 30% mark up than you will pay in the shops! Thats from my console experience by the way... PC games are cheaper. It's a challenging environment for all concerned, the games developers are strangled by licensing costs from the hardware makers to start with and having wars between them doesn't help. What was PSN store selling FIFA 12 for... £55? I got it for £20 less and 2 days before it was released!?! I will pay a lot of money for some good games, but they need to be good, but you can't tell with reviews or even a demo. I kicked as in Bad Company 2, but I hate FPS games and would never have touched it until I got a try at it without having an online license.Ah well, I'm sure that twat Jobs had the answer to it all and held it back.
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