PlayStation 4 Console Thread

[Dandy_Sephy]

damp squids

[DocG]

Ducking autocorrect.

This is what I get for tapping away on an iPhone instead of getting a proper computer.

[Vemsie]

[Robo_1]

The guy who runs that account is bloody good.

and this won't happen... Sony and MS will sell roughly the same amount of stuff. And MS will make more per game than Sony. Hell - you never know... MS might end up having cheaper games as a result (lol - I know)... but imagine if the exact same game on the Xbone was 10-20 more cheaper *and* included exclusive content.

I really don't see it changing dramatically... but you never know.

I'm not so sure. If Sony don't go through with this, then they would instantly win the support of pretty much every brick and mortar games retailer out there, as they'll essentially be protecting their biggest earner. The amount of prompting from retailers to go with PS4 over the Bone would be overwhelming. Hell, dedicated games retail might revolt against MS entirely once/if it becomes clear that Sony won't mess with the current second hand model whilst MS will.

[DJ KNIGHT XIII]

[Ferine]

The thing is, this 'no DRM' decision is career defining stuff... it's a really really hard call. The money men will be telling them to go for it, as the internet backlash will blow over if the games are shiny enough.

If it transpires that not having DRM was a bad call then adding it in is just a firmware update away. If having DRM is the bad call then the damage is already done, even if you get rid of it.

Introducing restrictions to a machine that didn't previously have them would obviously be an unpopular move, but at least your platform is established and in people's homes; they might not like it but they're already invested. As such I'd say the potential benefits of forgoing such measures outweigh the relatively minor risks.

Personally I think the actual 'solution' to second-hand games is making digital purchases more attractive, especially in terms of price. There's a lot of unexplored initiatives in the area, from trade-in schemes to deferred rentals; have every game available for digital rental a month or two after release to avoid cannibalising sales. Steam might be the best current example of a digital store front but it still has a lot of room for improvement.

[mushashi]

I think we're kidding ourselves if we think that publishers have not demanded some control over the second-hand games market for this next generation of hardware and online systems. It's a huge market that they're not currently getting a cut of.

Both PS4 and Xbox One will have features related to this. I'd suggest Wii U doesn't have them because it was designed earlier, Nintendo were probably quite resistant to it, and we're actually seeing the result of this (and its currently low market share) with significantly reduced third party support.

Nintendo, for whatever reason, love retail, they'll do anything in their power to keep retail alive, doesn't mean they are suddenly going to either drop their SRP or allow people to trade their digital licenses however.

I don't really think the 3rd party Nintendo situation has much to do with the DRM stuff, Nintendo has just spectacularly failed to convince most publishers to risk money on growing their target market on Nintendo systems, as even diehard Nintendo fans have admitted they will buy or already own a Sony or Microsoft system to play those games anyway so why bother to spend money on that marginal port.

[macosx]

No DRM and Sony clean up. Totally.

[DocG]

If it transpires that not having DRM was a bad call then adding it in is just a firmware update away.

Not really, there's a hardware component -- the system has to be able to see each disc as unique, perhaps via an RFID tag, to make the disc-to-console locking work. It can't be done in pure software. It could be shipped disabled, of course, although that has obvious (though hopefully modest) cost implications.

[Ferine]

Not really, there's a hardware component -- the system has to be able to see each disc as unique, perhaps via an RFID tag, to make the disc-to-console locking work. It can't be done in pure software. It could be shipped disabled, of course, although that has obvious (though hopefully modest) cost implications.

If you buy a Cross-Buy PS3 game like Sly 4 you activate the Vita copy by selecting an option on the game disk. As such I assume each disk can be pressed with a unique ID, so combine that with a console/account ID and a server call registers the combo; you could probably set up an automated phone line for those without 'net access.

A hardware solution might be more elegant, but worst case scenario you could even revert to packing codes in every box.

[mushashi]

Personally I think the actual 'solution' to second-hand games is making digital purchases more attractive, especially in terms of price. There's a lot of unexplored initiatives in the area, from trade-in schemes to deferred rentals; have every game available for digital rental a month or two after release to avoid cannibalising sales. Steam might be the best current example of a digital store front but it still has a lot of room for improvement.

What is at the crux of the industry's problem with 2nd hand? same as piracy, it's retarding the sales of new games (which is the main and often sole source of income) as far as they are practically concerned, when GameStop and GAME's own figures show that they are coinng more profit from 2nd hand than they are new games, it is not hard to argue something has gone terribly wrong with the current retail system.

Shops will argue they have no choice but to do 2nd hand games and agressively promote them as the margins and profits allow them to make a tidy profit and stay afloat.

Publishers are equally entitled to argue that if the situation doesn't rebalance more in their favour, the whole economics of console gaming becomes unsustainable. When you even have Nintendo claiming you need to sell Millions, you know the shit has hit the fan on that one.

Even if you say they should incentivise digital sales with lower pricing, I imagine most people are imagining STEAM-sale sort of pricing, which fixes what? nothing, as you shift more units but end up with the same revenue result, growing the revenue is thing that matters, you could sell 10 units at £2 Million each and make a tidy profit afterall. You can look at the amount of money publshers get from the PC versus console and clearly see who the MVP is, and it isn't the cutting-their-own-throats-to-get-you-to-buy-it PC version. Some console games don't even get a PC version, which tells you something about how valuable the PC market is to publishers.

[Flub]

Ultimately an awful lot of people have gotten very used to being able to offset the price of new games by trading in the old ones. Since I don't see game prices coming down (And most likely sneaking up again) breaking the 2nd hand system doesn't seem like a great way to keep customers happy. I'm not entirely sure why Microsoft have gone down this route and I hope Sony don't.

[mushashi]

Yes, but the rumours would suggest they are working out the details for how physical disc license transfer will work, you can still sell them but the built-in residual value is looking like it will drop a fair whack, much like GameStop/GAME's profit margins on that transaction, which is currently close to 50% profit versus a mere 20% on new games.

[Ferine]

"[M]aking digital purchases more attractive, especially in terms of price" doesn't necessarily mean deeply discounting game prices. Not that sales are a bad idea, especially when games have been out for a while, but simple things like variable launch pricing, pre-order discounts or digital rentals — of which the creator gets a cut — add flexibility for consumers. Targeted offers also make a lot of sense, like giving an existing player of a multiplayer game a 20% off voucher to give to someone else, an arrangement which would be a total headache to make work at retail.

Digital delivery is a godsend for publishers. Not only do they get a larger cut of the pie, they don't have to deal with the expensive processes of manufacture and shipping, or buying back stock from retailers if a game isn't as successful as they predicted. The tail on sales will inevitably be better, too, because you never run out of 'new' copies; I suspect a large part of the reason for game sales being front loaded is that after a week or two pre-owned copies are front and centre.

[mushashi]

The current retail setup incentivises the retailer to push 2nd hand over brand new, I would too if the margins were 150% better

The system is broken, whatever the solution, the biggest fiends are likely to have to get used to fewer eighths going forward for their money.

[Ferine]

I don't really blame brick and mortar stores for doing what they do, I suppose I just see the death of games retail as an inevitability. It's really just a question of when the sword's going to drop.

[SharkEnergy]

The twitter campaign is great in theory....but to the not so hardcore gamers it reads like a campaign against ps4 rather than against xbone due to the lack of explanayion what #ps4nodrm means

[Cthulhu Steev]

The twitter campaign is great in theory....but to the not so hardcore gamers it reads like a campaign against ps4 rather than against xbone due to the lack of explanayion what #ps4nodrm means

I think it could at worst look like it's a campaign against something Sony has already announced as policy, same result though, so no bad thing. I guess it gives people a few years of ammo to say in their 'Sony backtracking, lol' or 'Sony lies' narrative, but that's a small price to pay if it means we get no DRM on PS4.

[mr_woo]

What is at the crux of the industry's problem with 2nd hand? same as piracy, it's retarding the sales of new games (which is the main and often sole source of income) as far as they are practically concerned, when GameStop and GAME's own figures show that they are coinng more profit from 2nd hand than they are new games, it is not hard to argue something has gone terribly wrong with the current retail system.

Shops will argue they have no choice but to do 2nd hand games and agressively promote them as the margins and profits allow them to make a tidy profit and stay afloat.

Publishers are equally entitled to argue that if the situation doesn't rebalance more in their favour, the whole economics of console gaming becomes unsustainable. When you even have Nintendo claiming you need to sell Millions, you know the shit has hit the fan on that one.

Even if you say they should incentivise digital sales with lower pricing, I imagine most people are imagining STEAM-sale sort of pricing, which fixes what? nothing, as you shift more units but end up with the same revenue result, growing the revenue is thing that matters, you could sell 10 units at £2 Million each and make a tidy profit afterall. You can look at the amount of money publshers get from the PC versus console and clearly see who the MVP is, and it isn't the cutting-their-own-throats-to-get-you-to-buy-it PC version. Some console games don't even get a PC version, which tells you something about how valuable the PC market is to publishers.

Well this isn't exactly true. Even some of the indie developers on GAF can tell you that selling their games at cheap prices in the steam sales earns them a LOT of profit even when it's at a cutdown price. Steam sales can also drive sales when prices revert to normal and it's been found that sales of the product can even remain the same at least for a time. You're underestimating how much profit a publisher can make from a Steam sale or how well they can do from it.

http://www.gamasutra.com/view/news/174587/Steam_sales_How_deep_discounts_really_affect_your_games.php

Pricing is very important. For example take a look at Russia. One of the biggest piracy rates going but Valve managed to get products released at a price suitable for that market and a lot of folk are doing VERY well from it, Russias a very big market for them. Publishers tend to underestimate the PC market. Look at Ubisoft for example, they released Far Cry 3 at the same time as the console versions and at release within the first few months they said they made something like over one million sales and they probably get more revenue per copy sold from that than a console at retail. The other thing is that games on PC have a much longer shelf life as sales can drive sales of older games.

Consoles are obviously a VERY lucrative market and will of course always be bigger than PC but there's still a lot of money to be made their.

[Dudley]

Especially as it means you can do ad-hoc bundles. Steam is forever doing old school "Compilations" where you get multiple games for a discount, even if that's "Hey, buy everything that's ever had the Fallout name on it for 75% off!"

[rubberducker]

what i don't really understand is why xbox and sony(?) would bet so much on DRM - atleast on Shop Bought Content.

why not bring in these rules for Digital Downloads Only - as customer expectations are different with digital - and crucially they won't feel like anything has been taken away.

Lets face it, despite the forum protests, everything will be download only sooner, rather than later.

[scottcr]

As games get bigger and need upwards of 50gb... It's going to take a while before it will be download only.

[Stanley]

As games get bigger and need upwards of 50gb... It's going to take a while before it will be download only.

pre-load, and play as you download.

[DocG]

Streaming can only take you so far. If you're on 1 Mb ADSL, a 50 GB game would take around 60 hours to download -- longer than most game's play time, so clearly streaming isn't feasible. There's also capped Internet tariffs to consider. Discs will be with us for a while yet.

[scottcr]

Capped limits and traffic shaping is only going to get worse if everyone starts downloading massive game. Just speak to ISPs about the impact of iPlayer on their infrastructure and that's mainly low res video.

[Spacehost]

Capped limits and traffic shaping is only going to get worse if everyone starts downloading massive game. Just speak to ISPs about the impact of iPlayer on their infrastructure and that's mainly low res video.

I think the proportion of people downloading games vs. using iPlayer is pretty miniscule, even in terms of bandwidth used.

[Vemsie]

Amazing.

[DocG]

The half-Kaz-mouth-half-Carrey-mouth is creepy as all fuck.

[MansizeRooster]

I wonder if it's technically do-able for them to read PS1/2/3 disc serial numbers, and let you play your disc-bought game for free over GaiKai.

Of course it makes 0 business sense so it won't happen, I'm just wondering if it's do-able.

[Spacehost]

I wonder if it's technically do-able for them to read PS1/2/3 disc serial numbers, and let you play your disc-bought game for free over GaiKai.

Of course it makes 0 business sense so it won't happen, I'm just wondering if it's do-able.

I honestly think that's how it's going to work (at least to start with). Either you pay to get a copy of an old game and tie it to your account if you don't have the disc, or you put a disc in and it runs the usual antipiracy check a pulls the stream down.