I've only got a PC, but I haven't bought a game in a box in years. I get all my games from Steam or from the developer's website. At the same time, XBox Live looks pretty sweet, and it looks like they've got the tech to bypass the retailers and just put all games up for download.

I know very little about console gaming, but how would online distribution work with pre-owned games? Could Sony be thinking about a move towards more online distribution?

They would only do it for the next console, and probably prevent retro-compatibility. This way, either you keep your PS3 and buy the new PS4, or you sell your PS3, buy the PS4, and buy again your favorite PS3 games online, just like they do now with PS1/2 games.

Somehow, it sounds like abandonware will be entirely unplayable as well, - I like playing vintage games a lot. With games relying on some kind of online thing verifying your license, once the verifying service has its pull plugged, you won't play that game ever again unless you reverse engineer the verifying service. . .

It's another example of how Sony thinks it has the right to treat the sucker consumer as a limitless cash cow. Sony's corporate wet dream, for a long time, has centred upon such things as perpetual copyright (owned by them, naturally), and destroying ALL fair use provisions, so that they can force you to pay again and again and again for the same content you've already paid for. Eventually, they want to rig the market so that any content you pay for, be it a movie, a piece of music or a game, will only be temporarily in your hands, and if you want to access that content again, you have to pony up another exorbitant fee to regain access to the content you already paid for before. In short, they want to rig the media market for all media, in such a way, that the sucker consumer has to pay again and again and again, for content that the consumer has already paid for, so that the CEO and his chums can all retire to a 200 foot gin palace in Monte Carlo harbour, complete with limitless supply of champagne and hookers. Sony's nightmare vision of the future is one in which you never own any instance of content you've paid for, and if you try to own that instance, you fall foul of various duplicitous pieces of "intellectual property" legislation that they've twisted politicians' arms to implement, and you end up enjoying soap on a rope in prison for five years. They really think that they're entitled to treat music, video and game customers as money slaves, to be milked at leisure.

As for abandonware, well, my view is that once a game descends into obsolescence, it should become freeware, especially if you have to keep a legacy piece of hardware around to play it, or have to resort to an emulator because no legacy hardware of the required sort exists.

Calilasseia wrote:As for abandonware, well, my view is that once a game descends into obsolescence, it should become freeware, especially if you have to keep a legacy piece of hardware around to play it, or have to resort to an emulator because no legacy hardware of the required sort exists.

I am in full agreement. Modern DRM-like systems, however, sometimes make this almost impossible. Even games like WarCraft II can be difficult to get running EVEN IF YOU OWN A LEGALLY OBTAINED COPY on modern machines!

Calilasseia wrote:It's another example of how Sony thinks it has the right to treat the sucker consumer as a limitless cash cow. Sony's corporate wet dream, for a long time, has centred upon such things as perpetual copyright (owned by them, naturally), and destroying ALL fair use provisions, so that they can force you to pay again and again and again for the same content you've already paid for. Eventually, they want to rig the market so that any content you pay for, be it a movie, a piece of music or a game, will only be temporarily in your hands, and if you want to access that content again, you have to pony up another exorbitant fee to regain access to the content you already paid for before. In short, they want to rig the media market for all media, in such a way, that the sucker consumer has to pay again and again and again, for content that the consumer has already paid for, so that the CEO and his chums can all retire to a 200 foot gin palace in Monte Carlo harbour, complete with limitless supply of champagne and hookers. Sony's nightmare vision of the future is one in which you never own any instance of content you've paid for, and if you try to own that instance, you fall foul of various duplicitous pieces of "intellectual property" legislation that they've twisted politicians' arms to implement, and you end up enjoying soap on a rope in prison for five years. They really think that they're entitled to treat music, video and game customers as money slaves, to be milked at leisure.

As for abandonware, well, my view is that once a game descends into obsolescence, it should become freeware, especially if you have to keep a legacy piece of hardware around to play it, or have to resort to an emulator because no legacy hardware of the required sort exists.

Sounds a bit paranoid, but considering I played video games in a time where today's situation would be considered an exaggerated horror scenario, you are probably right

Games as an online service for good or ill is basically the future, most people will accept it the 1% moaning about the good old days will simply be ignored

mrjonno wrote:Games as an online service for good or ill is basically the future, most people will accept it the 1% moaning about the good old days will simply be ignored

No. They'll just start pirating everything.

OnkelCannabia wrote:

mrjonno wrote:Games as an online service for good or ill is basically the future, most people will accept it the 1% moaning about the good old days will simply be ignored

No. They'll just start pirating everything.

What they going to pirate there is no product bar a service, they may try hacking service providers but thats going to be a lot more difficult and a lot more traceable?

mrjonno wrote:

OnkelCannabia wrote:

mrjonno wrote:Games as an online service for good or ill is basically the future, most people will accept it the 1% moaning about the good old days will simply be ignored

No. They'll just start pirating everything.

What they going to pirate there is no product bar a service, they may try hacking service providers but thats going to be a lot more difficult and a lot more traceable?

Are you talking about something like games on demand? Streaming complete games like on Gaiku or whatever that service is called? If that's the case, then yeah, pirating will be extremely hard. I actually didn't really think your comment through. The next console generations are most likely already being worked on and the Wii U isn't even released yet. So games are still gonna be sold on regular mediums in the foreseeable future.

Are you talking about something like games on demand? Streaming complete games like on Gaiku or whatever that service is called? If that's the case, then yeah, pirating will be extremely hard. I actually didn't really think your comment through. The next console generations are most likely already being worked on and the Wii U isn't even released yet. So games are still gonna be sold on regular mediums in the foreseeable future.

All games are going to be variation that, even if it requires the PC/Games console to be permanately online so it can detect any cracks and disable them . It's combination of increasing revenue stream from legit users and making piracy harder. People will just accept it as the norm, only have to look at Diablo 3 with a very loud 1% moaning about it being online while still being the fastest selling game in history

mrjonno wrote:

Are you talking about something like games on demand? Streaming complete games like on Gaiku or whatever that service is called? If that's the case, then yeah, pirating will be extremely hard. I actually didn't really think your comment through. The next console generations are most likely already being worked on and the Wii U isn't even released yet. So games are still gonna be sold on regular mediums in the foreseeable future.

All games are going to be variation that, even if it requires the PC/Games console to be permanately online so it can detect any cracks and disable them . It's combination of increasing revenue stream from legit users and making piracy harder. People will just accept it as the norm, only have to look at Diablo 3 with a very loud 1% moaning about it being online while still being the fastest selling game in history

Well that system can certainly make it harder and, at least in theory, make it almost impossible. A lot depends on the execution. Diablo III hasn't been cracked yet, Starcraft II was cracked pretty fast and now even allows for LAN play (only for pirates though ), AC:Brotherhood was cracked and all Steam games a cracked pretty easily. So far, they haven't done the greatest job of keeping gamers out.

Diablo 3 is basically an online game. while in theory you can make a dodgy server somewhere its going to be a lot easier to trace.
It's not about making it impossible to pirate its about making it difficult so 10% who would have pirated it will buy it instead.

All games are going to be on this nature eventually