Sony Plans Digital Distribution? 78
Along with Sony's plans to take on Xbox Live, they may be planning a move to counter the Revolution's classic gaming library. GamesIndustry.biz reports that Sony may offer digital downloads of classic PSOne and PS2 titles. From the article: "In Sony's case the challenges may be significantly more difficult, since PlayStation titles were customarily several hundred megabytes in size, and PS2 titles spanned multiple gigabytes - compared to just a few megabytes or less for NES, SNES and N64 titles in the Nintendo back-catalogue. However, as Internet connections speed up downloads of this size will be far more reasonable - already, several Xbox Live demos for the Xbox 360 are over 600Mb in size - and our sources indicated that Sony may also be investigating the possibility of remastering certain PS2 titles to allow them to stream later content over the network while the player is already playing early parts of the game."
anyone else? (Score:2)
Also, is there any word on how much the games would cost? They certainly aren't worth much any more.
Re:anyone else? (Score:4, Interesting)
I doubt any prices will be quoted for months, especially since this all rumour anyway. For my part, I've pretty much played all the PSX and PS2 games I wanted to (a few future PS2 releases aside), but I really hope Nintendo make a lot of their SNES and N64 games available - I've never owned a Nintendo console so would love to catch up on some classics with a Revolution.
Re:anyone else? (Score:2)
My problem is, I don't want to only be able to download part of a game at a time on a console. On a PC, it isn't such an issue... but if I want to take my PS3 next door to download a game, I don't want to have to beat part of it to have all of it. As I don't have broadband, this is an issue for me.
Re:anyone else? (Score:1)
As I don't have broadband
Then you can raid bargain bins and eBay.
Re:anyone else? (Score:2)
To be perfectly honest I think that since you don't have broadband Sony probably wouldn't care about you much with regards to digital distribution. The next gen of consoles is going to see a real divide between people with high-s
Re:anyone else? (Score:2)
I've owned every console from the SNES through Gamecube, but I never got most of the really good games for, particularly, the SNES and some for the N64 too. So recently I've been playing with ZSNES (*gasp*). Yes, when you don't own the games, emulation is illegal, and I know that... I'd be more than happy to pay for the games if they were available. So when Nintendo comes through with this service, I know I'll b
Re:anyone else? (Score:2)
Re:anyone else? (Score:2)
Re:anyone else? (Score:2)
Seriously, I didn't know realy, didn't follow it, considering I actually played it way after release. I'd like to see this
Re:anyone else? (Score:2)
Re:anyone else? (Score:1)
Re:anyone else? (Score:1)
Re:anyone else? (Score:2)
Re:anyone else? (Score:2)
Oh and I've played it on emu before, and was cheap with save state so I could get the super jacket
Re:anyone else? (Score:2)
Nintendo have not named a single game that will be available for download, merely that they will make some old games available. And thus far the assumption I've read has been that they will be charging for them. Free first-party Nintendo classics would be awesome but I seriously doubt that will happen, beyond a possible "Free Super Mario All-Stars" with the Revolution console.
Re:anyone else? (Score:2)
That said, my wife just sold off my N64 and games on Ebay and I have every intention of buying a Revolution just to replay some of my favorites.
Re:anyone else? (Score:2)
Re:anyone else? (Score:2)
Re:anyone else? (Score:1)
As you play the rest of the game is streamed down so in the end you'll have all 4GB.
But would you have to play all the way through the game in order to get all 4 GB? Or could you just start the game, let the demo screen cycle overnight, and end up with all 4 GB? Some people like to download in one building and play in another.
Re:anyone else? (Score:1)
Re:anyone else? (Score:1)
Re:anyone else? (Score:2)
Well, let's think about this. Suppose you want to you want to buy game X. You have the choice of either going to the store, buying a physical disc, and playing that, or downloading the game. Option A has obvious good points such as 1) the physical disc, and 2) it's ready to play as soon as you pop it in your console. Option B is missing the physical disc, and missing the ability to play it now. Well, why not give the abilit
Re:anyone else? (Score:1)
Re:anyone else? (Score:2)
and I think the proper order for you sig should be: "I saw, I came, She conquered"
Re:anyone else? (Score:2)
-
what if sony allowed you to download isos on your own, via bittorrent or whatever you choose, from where ever you choose to find the isos, and then charge you a slight fee to give you the ability to run it on the ps3? THATS how they could limit piracy. people already have shown that they are willing to download a 1-8~9 gig game if they can get it free or cheaper than normal. thats what the people want. not to trek to thirty different stores because your f
I notice Sony expected to announce PS3 Wednesday (Score:1)
Given that, I'm not that interested in all these rumors. And I'm not going to line up for 24 hours to get a DS Lite in Bright White either.
So, downloading PS or PS2 games over the Net
Re:streaming games? (Score:2)
Re:streaming games? (Score:2)
If it works for SOE . . (Score:1)
I say bring it on. Let's just hope they can price it right.
Re:If it works for SOE . . (Score:2)
I do, along with everyone else who is living in rural parts of America. The best internet connection I can get, without spending the money for satellite, is about 84kbps. That is several days worth of downloading, when I can drive to Wal Mart and back in a few hours, and be ready to play. Not to mention that I would much rather have a hard copy of the software anyways.
Possibly already too late... (Score:5, Insightful)
If this was meant to be a serious feature, it would have been mentioned and covered long before now. But since Microsoft has proven its self with Xbox Live, and Nintendo has been talking about the access to their back library for some time, it sounds like Sony is getting a bit worried.
First, a week or two ago, someone brings up a story about a possible Revolution like controller scheme. Now were hearing about downloadable games. It just reeks of damage control marketing to me.
It also does not help that Sony does not have all that much in teh way of classic, evergreen titles to draw on. Most of their monster hits have recent iterations available, and those iterations are often in the vein of Gran Turismo, where the new ones are just going to be better then the old ones. I am sure they have some titles that qualify, though. You cannot get into Sony's current position without having any enduring hits.
END COMMUNICATION
Re:Possibly already too late... (Score:2)
I suspect the PS3 is going to be a disaster... trying to please everyone is one of the surest ways of pleasing nobody at all. You do have to give them credit for one thing, though... they're fighting a great war of words.
Words are cheap, though, so they should be using even more of them. They could get some great press by offer
Re:Possibly already too late... (Score:1)
As far as winning a war of words in concerned, they're doing it by firing very few shots, allowing others to speculate wildly. The critics will say they were lying if any of the speculation turns out to be wrong, without ever mentioning who was making the claim.
In some respects, Sony is playing this ver
Re:Possibly already too late... (Score:2)
Re:Possibly already too late... (Score:2)
sony has so many franchises that no matter what genre you are interested in, you will find that sony has the bases covered.
nintendo has mario, so therefore people associate the "kiddy" image of mario games with nintendo.
microsoft has the master chief, so people as
Re:Possibly already too late... (Score:2)
This is probably the most insightful thing said in this thread. Yes, Nintendo and Microsoft have icons in Mario and the Master Chief respectivel
Re:Possibly already too late... (Score:2)
"no one has produced anything solid yet here except for microsoft, and even their launch was mediocre at best. Not only could no one buy a 360, those that did found only a few games available"
I would argue this is another area where Sony is in deep trouble. Sony has yet to produce anything like a working model of the PS3, and the word on the rumor boards is that their engineers are panicking because they have no idea how to fit everything Sony has promised into the shell that Sony's been showing under gl
How interesting is sony's back catalog anyway? (Score:5, Insightful)
By the time the PS3 comes out the second hand ps2 games will go down in price as well, I wonder if it won't be cheaper to buy all the ps1 & 2 games you want second hand than through their online service.
Nintendo's catalog is much more interesting in that respect, the originals are often hard to find and expensive, heck even microsoft's offerings on marketplace are more interesting, where else can you get those classic arcade games, legally?
Not very (Score:3, Insightful)
You're right though about Nintendo and Microsoft. Nintendo has at least three generations to go through (NES, SNES, N64) not counting the Gameboy line and Microsoft has
Bandwidth not the only problem (Score:5, Interesting)
Re:Bandwidth not the only problem (Score:2, Informative)
Re:Sony Has All The Parts Except One (Score:1)
On the other hand, Apple has been doing really well with the exception of the stupid hype over the iPod leather case and boombox. Maybe backwards?
I can't really comment on the Cell, the idea is nice with them bot
Re:Sony Has All The Parts Except One (Score:1)
The other one you're forgetting is the CD. That one went nowhere! Or maybe the 3-1/2" floppy diskette. Nobody ever used those! Hi8, what a failure! S/PDIF...pfffft. That's really only the tip of the iceberg, since they've been involved in working
Re:Sony Has All The Parts Except One (Score:1)
CD was co-made with Phillips, and Sony's 3-1/2" was, ironically, only a success due to leveraging Apple. ["Things changed dramatically in 1984 when Apple Computer selected the format for their new Macintosh computers, thereby forcing it to become the standard in the United States." - Wiki [wikipedia.org]]
I don't know about Hi8, but S/PDIF is a system
Re:Sony Has All The Parts Except One (Score:2)
as for formats, so what? for every failure, sony has a even larger success. cd, dvd, beta [yes, it was a success... just not in consumers homes], floppy disks...etc. blu-ray so far seems to be the better alternative.
Re:There are possibilities ... (Score:1)
PS1 games ... yeah, but... (Score:3, Informative)
Dave
Re:PS1 games ... yeah, but... (Score:2)
Same thing with PS2 games. For example, the most recent Onimusha game used about 1.3GB for its game data, the rest was huge high-bitrate MPEG2 movies. I'd even bet that a
Neat potential... (Score:3, Insightful)
Sony would no doubt impliment some kind of DRM to make sure the burned copy is only played on the PS3 that downloaded it, though. Not that I would blame them entirely, but I wouldn't mind it so much if you could actually transfer it to another machine. (Suppose your PS3 goes tits up as Sony hardware tends to do...)
This has potential. As it stands now as great as net-delivered content is, I'm not real comfortable paying for something unless I get to keep a physical media copy as well. Nintendo's online content delivery service might be crippled if it's limited to storing inside the Revolution hardware, though if you can transfer it to a memory card it won't be so bad.
How many times have I jumped tracks here? I'll shut up now.
Why would I? (Score:2)
I'm not too fussy about how original a game is, and I think that taking a good game and improving it slightly is fine. It does mean that I won't want the older version when there's a newer version, though. So when PS2 came out, most PlayStation games lost their appeal to me because they had better replacements. When PS3 comes out, the situation is likely to be much the same.
So this service isn't of much interest,
A potential problem (Score:3, Interesting)
I may sound like a broken record here, but think about DRM. An online download could easily require authentication and even automated patching to play each time (especially on a closed hardware platform). Steam, anyone? This esentially means that whether you can play a game or not is entirely up to the mercy of whoever flips the switch somewhere out there.
This will never happen, you say. What about the following:
1. Can Sony find a reason why you shouldn't be allowed play the game? Forced obsoletion for instance? Yes.
2. Does Sony even need a reason to prevent you from playing? No.
3. Can Sony break the game with a patch that you'll be forced to install? Yes.
4. Can Sony be trusted to implement fair and reliable DRM? Hell, yeah! Right!
That's why this technology is dangerous as it is cool.
Sony's Multiple Divisions (Score:2)
I really really doubt that Sony would intentionally break a game you've already downloaded unless it was free with a time limit. With this much cutthroat competition that would be like digging their own graves.
The drm in all their other hardware is due to the pushing of music/movie studios. I'm sure sony's hardware division wouldn't give a rats ass about drm in blu-
Re:Sony's Multiple Divisions (Score:2)
"Different middle management" != "Different company"
SCEA still unabashedly puts "SONY" logos on everything they make, so it ultimately doesn't matter whether or not it's the same decision makers, Sony is Sony is Sony. If they insist on trying to milk the Sony name to make more sales, then they deserve to fall as the Sony name falls.
You might have a point to make if
Gratz on oversimplifying (Score:2)
Re:Gratz on oversimplifying (Score:1)
It's on them to try to sell their product. If they have to rely on corporate apologists such as yourself in order to coax back their sales, then they're doomed to (and deserve) their fate.
If anything, by applying the "SONY" brand to all their products, they want me to associate the products and actions of one with the entire group. That's exactly what I'm doing.
Re:Gratz on oversimplifying (Score:2)
I'm not a corporate apologist, I don't give a shit about what happens either way. I just thought you'd like to know that if you base any predictions on your logic you'll be wrong
Re:A potential problem (Score:2)
I don't like Sony Music. I have some respect for SCEA (not a lot, but some).
That said, Sony Music's DRM tactics were based on a non-trusted platform. The PS3 is a trusted platform -- they can already control (they hope) the operation of it, what can run on it, etc.
As such, DRM is not nearly the problem it would normally be, simply use keying that's tied to the hardware and be d
What? No ANALOG distributions? (Score:1)
But seriously, since when does "Digital" mean "download"?.
All my CD-ROM games are already "Digital" and have been for ohhhh....ten or fifteen years?
Same with my game cartridges....all ones and zeros there also.
and, by the way in case you think I'm joking about the Analog distribution method...
I *am* old enough to remember programs & games distributed on audio cassette (I had a Radio Shack/Tandy MC-10 which used a cassette interface f
Re:What? No ANALOG distributions? (Score:2)
Re:What? No ANALOG distributions? (Score:1)
The "correct" signal on an analog tape can have any value, so any
Re:What? No ANALOG distributions? (Score:2)
Re:What? No ANALOG distributions? (Score:2)
Ah but there is a flaw in your logic as well. Digital, in the true sense of a word is just a method of storing 1s and 0s, tape can easily be as digital of a format as anything else. Now if you think digital even implies random access, you'd
Something makes me think that... (Score:1)
Re:Something makes me think that... (Score:1)
GOOD GOD!!!
Here the only real limit is if you maybee pass a hundred gigs in a week. And then ITS would look at what sources/destnations, before they distrubed you with a phone call.
Pray for BitTorrent (Score:2)
Not to say this isn't a bad idea, but its borderline "too early" for this, at least in the states where DSL saturation is nowhere near what it is in Japan.
At least the revolution
No Nostalgia, No Sale (Score:2)
Re:No Nostalgia, No Sale (Score:1)
Which subsequently leads them to a store to pick up the new Blu-Ray version of Metal Gear Solid 6: Snake's Walker. Or so Sony's thinking goes.
Re:No Nostalgia, No Sale (Score:1)
No it's not. When they re-released Zelda 1 on GBA I couldn't bare to play the bloody thing. LttP is it's better version. PS1 and PS2 have more games than the NES/SNES/N64 combines
I'd like it (Score:1)
Yippie! I won! (Score:2)