"Sony Patent Could Stop Used Games on Playstation 4"

[Malacite]

Another interesting update from TRD;

[Firewind]

Re: "Sony Patent Could Stop Used Games on Playstation 4"

Seems pretty sensationalist at the moment given that it is just a patent and we don't know what it is actually going to be used for. For all we know it will be an even more obnoxious form of DRM than Origin or Steam. Retailers already charge a massive markup on new games anyway, it's just the profit margin on used games is higher.

Problem is is that with digital distribution, Sony might have already made those RF tags redundant with the ability to get most new games off PSN anyway. Plus RFID does NOT go down well in the EU at all, I'm not sure if they will be able to use it here given just how abusable the system is by unscrupulous people. Sony has a track record for not caring about user privacy after all.

[Malacite]

Re: "Sony Patent Could Stop Used Games on Playstation 4"

To be fair, as Red points out in the video, Jack Tretton has openly stated that he's against this. However, he's not running the entire show so who knows...


I'm honestly torn. On the one hand, I don't like how it hoses consumers. On the other (and as someone who wants to get into game design) I can also see how publishers & developers have all the incentive in the world to support this. I'd be perfectly OK with it too if they'd just bring down the cost of the average game from $60 to 45~50 to offset things.

[Icemage]

Re: "Sony Patent Could Stop Used Games on Playstation 4"

Tretton doesn't get to call the shots on this, but there is something to be said for Sony filing all kinds of crazy patents all the time that they never use. For what it's worth, I don't think Shuhei Yoshida or even Krazy Kaz Hirai are myopic enough to try something like this either.

I don't think this is the right direction at all for the market to go in, however. Physical copies should be feature-complete, not this sort of "add magic techno-water and NOW you can use what you bought". If that means used games, then it means used games.

The real problem is that many games cost more to make than they can sell for net on the open market. There's nothing wrong with AAA games, but I do think too much of the industry is going for AAA games because of misplaced greed, and it's really hurting everyone, from developers to publishers to retailers to consumers. We need more Minecraft and less Call of Duty.


Icemage

[Firewind]

Re: "Sony Patent Could Stop Used Games on Playstation 4"

Sony and Nintendo are pretty notorious for sitting on patents and then going for the throats of anyone that doesn't pay to use the patent. That is the main reason why I'm questioning why they are actually sitting on the patent when really they don't actually need to use this for used games.

[Malacite]

Re: "Sony Patent Could Stop Used Games on Playstation 4"

Tretton doesn't get to call the shots on this, but there is something to be said for Sony filing all kinds of crazy patents all the time that they never use. For what it's worth, I don't think Shuhei Yoshida or even Krazy Kaz Hirai are myopic enough to try something like this either.

I don't think this is the right direction at all for the market to go in, however. Physical copies should be feature-complete, not this sort of "add magic techno-water and NOW you can use what you bought". If that means used games, then it means used games.

The real problem is that many games cost more to make than they can sell for net on the open market. There's nothing wrong with AAA games, but I do think too much of the industry is going for AAA games because of misplaced greed, and it's really hurting everyone, from developers to publishers to retailers to consumers. We need more Minecraft and less Call of Duty.


Icemage

Or The Walking Dead, which I nabbed for $10 on sale off XBLA ^_^ (the retail disc costs more but that's OK given the associated costs - it's when the online version ISN'T cheaper I take issue). I think part of the problem too is the design of games - time and again I'm seeing the same tired old tropes and problems that used to NOT be an issue back in the SNES days. Chief among them, and a major beef of mine, true non-linear games. I really do miss it when in some older games (especially RPGs) where the decisions you made while playing would change everything; Not just how you play the game (classes/skills) but what you encounter too. I'm so beyond sick of playing games where the only impact of my decisions is I get the exact same scenario but with slightly different flavor or maybe a different character - whatever happened to playing an entirely different level or multiple endings?

Take Front Mission 3 for example, which was perhaps the sneakiest of all because it forced you to make a decision right at the very beginning of the game that decided which story path you followed. I want real, meaningful choices in games again and not just the illusion of it. I constantly hear the cost of development being cited as the main problem, but that's complete bullshit. Just look at what it cost to make Pacman relevant to its time period - accounting for inflation, it was the equivalent of a current gen AAA game (I don't have the exact figure on hand sorry). Games, like movies, will always have high development costs - it's how the developers have chosen to allocate that money in recent years (looking at YOU Square-Enix...)


Activision is still by far the worst offender though. Yah, Black Ops 2 actually did make some decent changes, but it's still the exact same engine they've been using since MW2 and the overall formula isn't that different. And yet each successive game outsells the previous. That's why I view CoD as a cancer on the industry, because it's being rewarded for something that really should be punished and scorned.

[Icemage]

Re: "Sony Patent Could Stop Used Games on Playstation 4"

Chief among them, and a major beef of mine, true non-linear games. I really do miss it when in some older games (especially RPGs) where the decisions you made while playing would change everything; Not just how you play the game (classes/skills) but what you encounter too. I'm so beyond sick of playing games where the only impact of my decisions is I get the exact same scenario but with slightly different flavor or maybe a different character - whatever happened to playing an entirely different level or multiple endings?

Take Front Mission 3 for example, which was perhaps the sneakiest of all because it forced you to make a decision right at the very beginning of the game that decided which story path you followed. I want real, meaningful choices in games again and not just the illusion of it. I constantly hear the cost of development being cited as the main problem, but that's complete bullshit. Just look at what it cost to make Pacman relevant to its time period - accounting for inflation, it was the equivalent of a current gen AAA game (I don't have the exact figure on hand sorry). Games, like movies, will always have high development costs - it's how the developers have chosen to allocate that money in recent years (looking at YOU Square-Enix...)

Sorry, but unless you're familiar with the costs behind game development, you have no idea what you're talking about. The move to 3D environments and realistic graphics makes multiple endings a lot more expensive and difficult to do.

Consider: Adding alternate endings to Castlevania: Symphony of the Night involved some 16-bit animated cutscenes, some new sprites, a boss battle, and a bit of extra voiceover work. Compare and contrast to the amount of effort that was required for the multiple endings in Heavy Rain.

Doing "open world roaming" like in old FF games wasn't hard because all you had to do was add some sprites (or in the case of FF7+ some crude 3D models). Those don't take anywhere near as much time / money / resources as what a single character takes to build these days with thousands of polygons, let alone a full environment.

The "compromise" position is when you get barely-differentiated palette-swapped stuff like what Mass Effect 3 served up this year. Even that cost likely more to make than any of those old endings to multiple-branch games.

Another example: What if Super Meat Boy or Limbo had multiple endings based on how many times you died? That wouldn't have cost much to add either, because the endings themselves don't cost much to develop due to the nature of the game and its assets.

Yah, Black Ops 2 actually did make some decent changes, but it's still the exact same engine they've been using since MW2 and the overall formula isn't that different. And yet each successive game outsells the previous. That's why I view CoD as a cancer on the industry, because it's being rewarded for something that really should be punished and scorned.

I'd take your criticism as being more convincing if you didn't buy and play every Call of Duty game like the rest of the sheeple.

For what it's worth, Activision's approach does suck. Despite the tons of games they published this year, if you look at the top rated games of 2012 on Metacritic not a single Activision game makes it to the first page - in fact, the first ATVI title is Modern Warfare 3 Collection at 85% on page 2, and Blops 2 is on the third page at 83%.


Icemage

[Malacite]

Re: "Sony Patent Could Stop Used Games on Playstation 4"

That's part of an arrangement I made with my brother actually, as it's the only thing he plays regularly online and since all the goddamned video stores closed down around here we can't rent anything anymore so we split on them 50/50, or I get it for him as an X-mas gift and casually play it when I'm desperate lol. And as I've said before, I do enjoy the premise CoD offers - fast-paced arcade shooter with cool perks & kill streaks. I just haven't been thrilled with the constant latency issues and lack of any real effort to try and write a decent campaign. BO2's was a step in the right direction, but still written like a bad Tom Clancy novel (and don't even get me started on how horrible Strike Force was).

So no, don't lump me in with the sheep. I don't just blindly buy it every year because I'm a raving fanboy or it's the cool thing to do - I played maybe 2 matches total lol, and got all the campaign achievements just to pad my gamerscore and then traded that PoS in (my bro hated it overall, more than MW3 so he said I could trade it in and keep the store credit - glad it's gone. Though Zombies was kinda fun with 4 people.)


Starcraft 2 is probably the only really credible IP they have, but it doesn't get the following or ratings it deserves because it's not very accessible. It's definitely *the* standard for competitive online gaming, but at the price of alienating too many casuals (top level SC2 play is ridiculously APM intensive but also thrilling to watch).

EDIT: As a side note I just want to reiterate how utterly pissed off I am that I can't rent games anymore. Like, at all. Since Blockbuster when out of business, Rogers got spooked and immediately pulled all movies & games from their stores, so now they just have the little kiosks with their normal services (TV, Cell Phones & Internet) - sons of bitches. I still haven't played the new transformers that came out in August that I really wanted to because I can't be throwing out $71+ for every f'ing game I want to try.

[Etra]

Re: "Sony Patent Could Stop Used Games on Playstation 4"

EDIT: As a side note I just want to reiterate how utterly pissed off I am that I can't rent games anymore. Like, at all. Since Blockbuster when out of business, Rogers got spooked and immediately pulled all movies & games from their stores, so now they just have the little kiosks with their normal services (TV, Cell Phones & Internet) - sons of bitches. I still haven't played the new transformers that came out in August that I really wanted to because I can't be throwing out $71+ for every f'ing game I want to try.

Redbox?

[Firewind]

Re: "Sony Patent Could Stop Used Games on Playstation 4"

LoveFilm does offer a game rental service is you get that in Canada (they're owned by Amazon so may be called something else there).

Also you don't need to play the latest 6 hour FPS, just watch the cutscenes on Youtube and save the retardedly low price you pay for videogames in the Americas.

[Armando]

Re: "Sony Patent Could Stop Used Games on Playstation 4"

Consider: Adding alternate endings to Castlevania: Symphony of the Night involved some 16-bit animated cutscenes, some new sprites, a boss battle, and a bit of extra voiceover work. Compare and contrast to the amount of effort that was required for the multiple endings in Heavy Rain.

Not to mention you need to iron it all the details of every ending very early in the development process if you're going to have voice acting and/or prerendered cutscenes. You can't just make it up as the game develops like Nintendo usually does.

[Malacite]

Re: "Sony Patent Could Stop Used Games on Playstation 4"

Redbox?

There's like ONE, it's a goddamn mile away from me, and the selection is shit (mostly movies). Expensive too...


I tried gameaccess but I didn't like it :/

[cidbahamut]

Re: "Sony Patent Could Stop Used Games on Playstation 4"

There's like ONE, it's a goddamn mile away from me, and the selection is shit (mostly movies). Expensive too...


I tried gameaccess but I didn't like it :/

I walk a mile to work and back every day. Cry some more.

[Balfree]

Re: "Sony Patent Could Stop Used Games on Playstation 4"

me too!

also on a steep incline or i have the choice of nearly 400 steps on 20 or so flights of stairs

buns of steel get

ahaha no.

[Firewind]

Re: "Sony Patent Could Stop Used Games on Playstation 4"

I walk a mile to work and back every day. Cry some more.

Same here, and I live in an area with similar geography to San Francisco so I'm always walking up a steep incline to get anywhere.

The laziness of some people astounds me.