Topic: if they do this on the PS3 then they have lost their minds

[Sir_Stabbalot]

Didn't the Dreamcast PSO have something like this?

[vudu]

Quote
Originally posted by: Guitar Smasher
And really, what's the point?  PS3 will use Blu-Ray.  I don't know about you, but I don't have a Blu-Ray burner.  I'm not to knowledgeable about this pirating business, but wouldn't that be required?

Most pirating on the PS2 and Xbox is done through hard drives, not burned discs.

[KDR_11k]

They have measures like that in MMOs where they don't let you transfer your key, pure fraud IMO. These are technical measures to circumvent consumer rights, try writing your congressmen that there NEEDS to be a law to prevent companies from circumventing consumer rights under the guise of "anti-piracy" measures which you're not allowed to bypass under the DMCA and therefore get your rights taken away. Those rights are meant to prevent abuse, not for companies to freely ignore them. Perhaps a class action lawsuit would be warranted as well (and for christ's sake, DON'T SETTLE! Set a legal precedent to stop this abuse!).

[Arbok]

Quote
Originally posted by: Pale
EB and Gamestop would just mark their used games 2 dollars below that and people would still buy them.

No they wouldn't, at least I wouldn't. If it's a choice between buying a new game for $50 or a used one for $40, I will go with the used one. If it's a choice between buying a new game for $30 and a used one for $28, I will take the new one which I know will work and doesn't have the chance of having any scratches or other problems.

[Pale]

I understand you would all be upset about this, but this all boils down to the same reasons to argue against mp3s and pirating music, which I'm not even going to begin to try and tackle.

But I'm honestly curious what all of your opinions are of the fact that it DOES take money away from publishers and developers (when the game is still in print).  Are you all just of the popular opinion that these people already have all the money they need so why not rip them off a bit?

I was always careful to imply that the stupid people will allow themselves to get ripped off by places like EB and Gamestop when it comes to buying used games.  I understand most (if not all) of the people that are into video games enough to post on forumsm about them will look for the good deals and not allow themselves to be ripped off.  That doesn't change the fact that you are still robbing the owners of the IP of financial gain.  To make an extreme example...  Eternal Darkness didn't sell very well.  It's probable that this had something to do witht he fact that SK is now deving for the X-Box.  What if twice as many people actually played ED in it's prime than actually sold it, because every person that beat it sold it on the used market?  What happens if all those people who bought it used, sold it again?  Wow, maybe it would actually have been a successful game if all those people went out and bought it for real.

Obviously I am playing devil's advocate a bit here, but so many people ignore the other side in situations like this.  Who cares about them if it makes our life easier and cheaper right?

[Don'tHate742]

I originally had something in this post, but then Ian posted....making mine obsolete.


Look Below....

[Ian Sane]

"But I'm honestly curious what all of your opinions are of the fact that it DOES take money away from publishers and developers (when the game is still in print). Are you all just of the popular opinion that these people already have all the money they need so why not rip them off a bit?"

It doesn't take away money because for that physical copy the publisher/developer has already been paid.  Bob bought the game and at that point that physical copy is his.  He owns that disc and can do whatever he wants with it.  That's what a sale is.  So later he sells it to EB.  Now the disc is there's.  They sell it to me.  Now it's mine.  It's no different then buying something from a thrift store or a garage sale.

Plus where it does it stop?  If you make it so that you can't sell used games then why not make it so I can't sell ANYTHING used?  Mattel doesn't get paid for that used He-Man figure I bought at Value Village.  Just because this is electronic doesn't make it different.  Both required R&D and manufacturing expenses.  It's just that the music industry has made people feel like crooks over anything involving electronic IP and toy makers, furniture manufacturers, car companies, etc haven't.

Plus if used game sales are eating significantly into your game's sales it means your game SUCKS so tough sh!t.  People keep better gamers longer.  The games where a week after release you see used copies next to new ones are crap.  Make great games and people will want to buy your game on the first day (ie: when there are no used copies available yet) and won't return them the next day.

[Arbok]

Quote
Originally posted by: Pale
Wow, maybe it would actually have been a successful game if all those people went out and bought it for real.

The problem is that there can be a huge difference in price between used and new. For example, I bought Def Jam Vendetta used at a EB for $7. Fun game, but would I have been willing to slap down the full price for it? No. So I wouldn't have been effecting EA's bottomline by doing that. Also... didn't your mom ever teach you that recycling was good for the environment?

[couchmonkey]

Yeah, I like buying used games, and yeah, I'll buy them while the games are still in print, although I try to support games that I believe are going to sell poorly by buying a new copy.  In the end, though, if I don't buy the used copy, the next person will.

I generally agree with Ian's summary of why used games (and anything else) are okay.  If people aren't buying new games, maybe the games aren't good enough, or maybe the market is saturated?  That's the cost of doing business.  

It's also why a lot of products suck.  When LED Christmas lights were first put out on the market, the claim is that they had thousands of hours of life. Basically, you'd never need to buy a bulb again.  The following year, my sister's company started selling some LED Christmas lights which were under one of the popular Christmas light brands, and the bulbs were burning out right there in the store after a few hundred hours of use.  Now, I shouldn't go blaming the corporation, it may be that the lights were never as good as advertised, but I can't help but wonder if the corporation purposely bought and crippled the technology, knowing that it would go out of business if someone was selling Christmas lights that could last for years and years without new bulbs.

[Pale]

I agree that it is not something that could ever be illegal.  I also agree that if Sony did this I would be somewhat frustrated too.  I'm just trying to point out that in some ways it isn't fair to the publishers/developers.  In the same way you liken it to a thrift store, I could liken it to ticket scalping.  Its one thing for the true previous owner to sell a game on ebay.  It's another thing for retail outlets to make millions of dollars every year by buying used games for cheap and marking them up extreme amounts.  It does cut down on sales of the new games that people make money for.  It promotes using stores as rental places, which, as I said before, defeats the purpose of charging Blockbuster more for the games they are going to rent out.

I don't promote the idea of silly protection on the games themselves.  What I think is a good idea is for all of the big companies to stop giving stores that thrive in the used game market as many new games to sell.  If they want to sell their used games let them.  There are plenty of other outlets that you can sell your new games through.

I will never EVER buy a in print used game from one of those stores.  I will however, buy one from ebay if I find a good deal.  Pure owner to owner swapping is a lot different than having a middle man mark things up.

[Galford]

This ariticle has to be a joke.  

I hope Sony does realize one of the reasons the PS2 didn't die an early death,
was the large library of PSX titles that could be played during that first critical year of
the PS2's life.

Does this would kill one the maint features of the PS3 and piss of a lot of
developers/publishers at the same time.

[Don'tHate742]

Is that a question?

[foolish03]

Can you provide a link mantidor???    

[mantidor]

it was an online forum and I dont remember where so I cant yeah not the best source of info, I know! , anyway, I afterwards found out that the patent in fact, is real, but its old and this 2003 thing was just a revision. It makes sense with sony's strategy though, they have been craving to have full control of a mainstream media format since the mini disk (or even the Beta max), if Blue Ray is succesful, expect sony to pull this ugly trick. And then expect to see it biting them in the ass.  

[Avinash_Tyagi]

gamespot checked on this in their rumor control section, the verdict:

They don't know.



gamespot.com

Bogus or not bogus?: Sony has the technology, but it's too early to tell if it will use it.

[KDR_11k]

Sony puts viruses on their music CDs, at least their MPAA/RIAA parts will want this feature in the Bluray format. And so Sony hoses another promising format...

[Spak-Spang]

Viruses on their music CDs?  What!?!

The Bluray No used games format block makes sense.  Used games and renting games have been eatting into profits.  My question is how does this effect game rentals?

I guess I don't completely understand what Sony is trying to do.

[mantidor]

I think they are just trying to commit suicide. A format blooms if and only if its easy to pirate, theres overwhelming evidence of such thing and zero evidence proving the opposite.

[Avinash_Tyagi]

Perhaps the current fiasco Sony is having with its CD market might actually turn out to be good for them, it might keep them from implementing this with the PS3.

[vudu]

Quote
A format blooms if and only if its easy to pirate, theres overwhelming evidence of such thing and zero evidence proving the opposite.

Also porn.  You forgot porn.  A format only succeeds if there is a ready supply of porn.

[Avinash_Tyagi]

Well the two go hand in hand

[KDR_11k]

Viruses on their music CDs? What!?!

Stevey posted a link to that already, I'll give you the Register version. Apparently they have stopped producing it after a severe backlash including lawsuits but they don't apologize. Sony never apologizes, not for the Disk Read Errors, not for the PSP's [] button, not for this virus.

Basically they put a "DRM Driver" into the system that acts exactly like a rootkit (a kind of virus that compromises system functions to hide itself), it conceals everything with a $sys$ name from the Windows API and prevents reading of CD audio data from some CDs and if you delete the rootkit those parts of the API will fail completely. There already are worms that use the $sys$ name to hide themselves from your anti-virus software. To me this rootkit qualifies as a virus and illegal computer intrusion (250k$ fine, 15 years of jailtime).

[UncleBob]

I would like to propose an idea to put this "No used games" thing to use.

Remember, this is pure speculation.

What if the majority of games do not use this tech.  Spongebob's Big Adventure or World Poker Tour 200X are just fine and dandy used or new.
But the Big releases...  Grand Theft Auto 5: Rape Yo Mama - no used games here...  Socom 3 - ditto.

Would that be enough to hurt Sony?

[KDR_11k]

Definitely. People will still try to sell them used and get pissed off because they can't sell 'em or stores will buy them and the buyers can't use their new game and get pissed off.

[UncleBob]

But we're still talking about the gotta-have games... is some lame copy protection enough to stop people from buying the games?