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Sony Computer Entertainment has applied for a patent that would eliminate the used game market, via a system that includes a physical tag inside game boxes to check who’s allowed to play it.
Sony’s system would see a “permission tag” provided alongside game releases, with the console then checking the disk ID with this tag to see whether or not the user is allowed to play the game, based around unspecified “terms of use” attached to the sale. It’d work as a self-contained system, with no internet connection required.
So Sony could, for example, only allow a game to be copied to the HD of one machine, or could perhaps create some sort of buddy system where you’re allowed to loan it to someone for a period of time. Or, if Sony wants to initiate self destruct and take out the entire games industry with it, it could only let games be played on one single machine, killing the used games market in one shot. [FreePatentsOnline via [CVG]
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If Sony implement this I’ll be hopping on the Xbox bandwagon. What a stupid idea
arent M$ doing something similar?
if so both can fuck right off.
Still early, but sounds pretty awful. They already have different codes for DLCs depending on your region(may be because of the language difference), but this is unnecessary.
Microsoft are doing the same thing.
Oh that sucks :/ I was annoyed when they launched that Playstation Pass thing with Resistance 3 and now this!
The Playstation Pass didn’t affect anyone really…
well thats just great…what are we going to do know…were screwed
lets build a campfire and sing some songs..
..& the Play Station Network goes offline worldwide after being hit by a million botnets!
Or bottles.
Buy a PC like me and hope that steam would do something amazing
What if I have a Playstation upstairs and downstairs! I couldn’t use my own game on both machines?
If Sony do this I will defo not be buying this time round! also if M$ do this it will be a tough decision on witch console to have for the next 6 – 8 years.
They will be giving a massive favour to the PC gaming if this goes ahead!
If you have the same account on both machines, you should be fine.
You would think so, but as the article says this doesn’t need online to work but some clever technics within the case.
I doubt this will ever come to see the light though.
No, but it can still register the game with an account, and it could transfer when internet access is found.
Like the idea, possibly it would stop on-line piracy(I would hope they would implement the list of codes to be updates or checked by some sort of database). It would take under a second and it wouldn’t piss any one off.(apart from pirates
)
Until your internet is down and you want to play your legitimately purchased game and you can’t because your console can’t verify with the servers. Meanwhile people are playing the same game on an offline, cracked console with no hassle.
DRM only hurts legitimate buyers, pirates circumvent it
True.
Am all for it if it allows a full, no disk in drive to play, install of a game. They need the 1 disk 1 machine rule to allow that.
Attacking resales though is madness, im sure court cases would ensue and eventually Sony would lose.
Patent doesn’t refer to installation so its safe to assume that it would be unchanged. What it would effect however is how the device read the disk.
What they’re aiming for is that a single game works on a single machine without the need for an activation server. (Achieved through extensive faffing about)
Sell your Sony shares now and be sure to tell Sony why.
The won’t prevent the sale of pre-owned games since it would be illegal (in the EU at least).
It’s far more likely that the permission tag will be used as an anti-piracy measure (DVD – easy to copy, proprietary tag – not so much)
This is depressing
in a first world way…though I’d accept this if Sony could make sure big game titles *cough* Skryim *cough* to work well from the word go…
Skyrim’s issues are more down to Bethesda being fucking useless, than Sony being Sony.
Yeah but I’m still annoyed by it
I can pretty much guarantee if this happened video game sales would not even slightly increase just less people playing Sony’s games.
Can imagine this being all kinds of illegal in the EU…
That is fucking stupid, all that will end up happening is less games purchased. How many franchises have people gotten into from first buying a pre-own.. for me its COD, Gears, Halo, GTA, Fable, Skyrim, Rainbow Six, Battlefield.. All first games were pre-own that led me to buy the second (for Skyrim it was oblivion.. maybe i should have put elder Scrolls?)
This would just leave COD and Fifa as forever markets and destroy new games ever launching a second.. stupid
the question there is, how much of the money you paid for those titles actually reached the people who actually MADE the games? buying resales is almost as bad as piracy when it comes down to supporting the developers.
Don’t know about the others, but COD keep breaking all those records after records, like no ones business
How is it exactly? If they produce one copy of a game, someone buys that copy, enjoys it, then choose to re-sell it and lose their ability to play that game, why shouldn’t someone else be able to buy the experience off them?
If you buy a game, pirate it, then re-sell it and continue to play, THAT is as bad as piracy. But when companies have been known to charge £15-20 price differences between console/computer games, and have gotten into the godawful habit of locking certain game content to specific versions, what more do they expect?
Ok, I’ll break this down for you and simplify the maths, you buy a brand new PS3 game for £40, the shop gets £10, the goverment get £10 in tax, the developers ger £10 and Sony gets £10. Great, everyone is happy.
If you buy a used game, you pay £35, the shop gets £25 and the government get £10. The people who make and distuibute and publish the game get nothing, the people who program and produced the console which they make a loss on get nothing, a shop that has done nothing except have a shelf gets more than if they sold the new game, thats why its so tough to actually find new games in shops now. Especially with everyone demanding servers for online play, the cost money to run and set up, but if people playing the game haven’t paid for the game, extending the play time of each copy, thats a loss for the developers.
Please remember, you don’t own the code, you didn’t develop the “experience” and so you have no right to sell it. Its harming the developers, especially of smaller games, where people will wait a year to get a copy second hand rather than buy a new one.
Gaming is like any other hobby, its expensive, if you can’t afford new games, you don’t need games.
I have every right to sell it. I have bought a license for personal use of the code, and as such have a right to re-sell this license unless explicitly stated otherwise in the terms of service, which it isn’t.
As for server load; the point is that server load should be no more then it would otherwise have been, again, assuming that the person who has sold the game on is not still playing a pirated version of the game. The developers are not gaining another customer to cope with without earning any extra money, they are losing one customer in exchange for another.
I personally am okay with the current use of single-use codes that are account-bound for multiplayer content. I think the prices charged at present are somewhat unreasonable, but the concept as a whole is fine by me. But it’s completely devoid of logic to think that locking people out of the pre-owned market entirely will do anything other then damage sales. I’m fine buying a disc and paying another £5 or so to activate online features that came with the original. But I’m not fine with paying £15-£20 for a game that’s 3-4 years old, if I know it would be less than half that pre-owned, or free if I pirated it.
As many others have said, restrictions like this do nothing to hinder piracy, they just restrict legitimate users.
So you have never sold anything on out of principal? You;ve never sold a car or traded one in? A DVD? A piece of furniture? Your house must just be full of stuff that you don’t use but refuse to sell because you don’t want the original designer/manufacturer to lose out on any money. Or do you sell them and send a cheque to the people that produced the item originally? Or maybe once you are done with everything you take it to the dump and add to our increasing landfill sites destroying our environment?
i brought a Second hand Lens last year should i send Canon some money? or tell the guy that sold it to send canon some money?
That company paid people to “Build” a game they then replicated and sold it. do you think the people that “built” it get more money for each copy.. NO! That developer still gets the same pay per contract no matter how many copies are sold. Only the board members get money from sales after profits. most games even the crap ones break even and if they are that crap chances are they will be cheap new or wont even sell second hand. So to say the company need the money to produce more games is wrong.. The games industry is the biggest entertainment industry in the world. it makes more than TV and Film, i dont think they will starve some how.. Also under your ideas.. Ebay must be as bad as piratebay.. maybe its the word bay??
ok.. but lets say i never purchased game1 second hand, then i would never have pre-ordered 2, 3 and 4. (COD and Halo fit this for me)
Also people dont have endless cash amounts. So where a person might buy 10 games a year (4 at full price 6 at trade) do you think that this person is suddenly going to buy 10 at full price? i dont, then games dont spread as much and the popularity of the title does not reach as many people and thats when the little studios starts to lose money.. trading in a game is like that title being social networked.. it helps spread the name and brand so that next time that person will consider pre-order at full price or even special edition etc..
And with piracy eliminated (allegedly) and with the restrictions does anyone think the £40 priced game will be any cheaper?
What bullsh1t do you think the PR department will use to get around THAT one?
Do this and you are finished
It’s probably just another defensive patent to add to the collection, because if they don’t patent it someone else will. Remember what happened with rumble controllers? There’s never any point getting stressed over a patent application, as companies are pretty much forced to patent anything they might think of due to the patent system.
a fair and reasoned point.. i hope you`re right..
There was a similar patent application before the PS3 was released too. That one didn’t come to much either.
You can not take away the CONSUMERS RIGHTS to sell it’s completely wrong and stupid.
Every other market has a used market. Every other product pretty much has a resale value.
If either Microsoft,Sony or both does this they will surely regret it
basically suicide and ill be a PC gamer
Yeah, try re-selling a PC game then, see how far that gets you.