Abused by the retailers or the gamers ?
There are DRMs targeting piracy, and there are DRMs beyond. And DRM technologies are not perfect.
Business Approach Comparison Sony PS4 and Microsoft Xbox
- Thread starter BRiT
- Start date
Abused by the retailers or the gamers ?
There are DRMs targeting piracy, and there are DRMs beyond. And DRM technologies are not perfect.
If by "we" you include me then I have to disagree
I want products with at least some foresight and future path. My huge problem with Sony's business plan and the PS4 is that they completely missed the ball on so many different future aspects such as:- They decided to skip cloud, in an age where cloud is becoming more and more ubiquitous daily on competing products. Gaikai alone doesn't cut it. Compared to their direct competition they are severely lacking here, and even compared to their indirect competition they are behind.
- They decided to not fully embrace digital content, in an age that is fast becoming all digital. Compared to their direct and indirect competition they are less flexible here.
- They decided to ignore the mass market experience. In an age where the mass market have lots of disposable income, why are they ignoring this market and handing it over to their competition?
- They decided to ignore the hands free experience. With voice control becoming more and more important as well as alternate control methods, they have decide to leave that all optional which is great for the competition but puzzling for Sony.
- They decided to ignore device independence. With the competition going with vm's means they have a future path for all their digital content on whatever devices they may offer. What is Sony going to do in a few years time when people want to keep playing their digital content on something new?
The list can go on but I have to head out to e3...but I think all of the above business decisions, which many core gamers will insist are irrelevant, will hurt them very badly in the future. To me Sony are still playing the 1990's playbook and they will pay the price for it in a few years time not just because they will fall so behind the technological and r&d curve, but because their product will seem antiquated in it's design. They will be faced with having to suddenly catch up to the competition which at that point will have had many years of software, technology, infrastructure, and ui experience all built up, what are they going to do then? To me the whole situation reads very badly for the future of Sony in this space, I don't understand what they are thinking but then again I'm not a Sony stockholder so I guess I don't need to care a whole lot. But it's still very puzzling to me that a company as large as this can so lack the foresight needed to continue in this space.
PS4's E3 was a play to the oh so vocal "gamer" crowd who want things the way they always were... even though at the same time they dont really want them that way. People who argue for using game discs are the same ones who argue for netflix on their console netflix. Games are not played as many times as movies are yet they gave up their blu ray/dvd/cd collections EASILY.
XB1 has sharing of downloaded games. PS4 doesn't. I bet more games will be downloaded than sold at reatil into the future...
XB1 has sharing of downloaded games. PS4 doesn't. I bet more games will be downloaded than sold at reatil into the future...
Gradthrawn
Veteran
I'm sure you have a link outlining SCE's plans for downloadable titles to support that statement right?
Please read my whole post instead of isolating your attention to only one sentence because it completely misses where I am coming from that wayIf by "we" you include me then I have to disagree
- They decided to skip cloud, in an age where cloud is becoming more and more ubiquitous daily on competing products. Gaikai alone doesn't cut it. Compared to their direct competition they are severely lacking here, and even compared to their indirect competition they are behind.
- They decided to not fully embrace digital content, in an age that is fast becoming all digital. Compared to their direct and indirect competition they are less flexible here.
- They decided to ignore the mass market experience. In an age where the mass market have lots of disposable income, why are they ignoring this market and handing it over to their competition?
- They decided to ignore the hands free experience. With voice control becoming more and more important as well as alternate control methods, they have decide to leave that all optional which is great for the competition but puzzling for Sony.
- They decided to ignore device independence. With the competition going with vm's means they have a future path for all their digital content on whatever devices they may offer. What is Sony going to do in a few years time when people want to keep playing their digital content on something new?
The list can go on but I have to head out to e3...but I think all of the above business decisions, which many core gamers will insist are irrelevant, will hurt them very badly in the future. To me Sony are still playing the 1990's playbook and they will pay the price for it in a few years time not just because they will fall so behind the technological and r&d curve, but because their product will seem antiquated in it's design. They will be faced with having to suddenly catch up to the competition which at that point will have had many years of software, technology, infrastructure, and ui experience all built up, what are they going to do then? To me the whole situation reads very badly for the future of Sony in this space, I don't understand what they are thinking but then again I'm not a Sony stockholder so I guess I don't need to care a whole lot. But it's still very puzzling to me that a company as large as this can so lack the foresight needed to continue in this space.
I think Sony has led in that department. All Vita games are available on the PSN on release day. Having an option of physical media without limitations in not a negative, you want a DD version? Buy it then, don't force my discs to be DD delivery mechanism.
Perhaps I've missed this, but why not have a F2P exemption to the online paywall?
Either Microsoft or Sony first-party games could have a F2P component that could have some amount put towards the subscription fee to LIVE or PSN for something the player purchases.
If infrastructure is maintained by the platform, such as Azure, why not work out deals for a slice of item purchases or exclusive content in third-party games that has the marketing bonus of perceived additional value in reducing the gamer's monthly bill?
That seems like a nice synergy for participation in games and encouraging buy-in for the subscriptions. It might show a more significant embrace of F2P at a platform level than has been shown so far.
Isn't that worse from the standpoint of trying to get additional buyers?
Either Microsoft or Sony first-party games could have a F2P component that could have some amount put towards the subscription fee to LIVE or PSN for something the player purchases.
If infrastructure is maintained by the platform, such as Azure, why not work out deals for a slice of item purchases or exclusive content in third-party games that has the marketing bonus of perceived additional value in reducing the gamer's monthly bill?
That seems like a nice synergy for participation in games and encouraging buy-in for the subscriptions. It might show a more significant embrace of F2P at a platform level than has been shown so far.
Isn't that worse from the standpoint of trying to get additional buyers?
Johnny Awesome
Veteran
As I said many many posts ago, I don't think a lot of people give MS enough credit for what they are trying to do.
On the surface, as a hardcore gamer (if you ignore the fact that all the Xbox One footage looked just as good as the PS4 footage) it seems like you are getting a more powerful console for $100 cheaper if you buy a PS4.
To us married guys with two kids, with interests outside of gaming and major time constraints, we would gladly pay an extra $100 for the whole package. Voice commands, one device so that even little kids can use it easily, Kinect family fun, etc... Smart Glass and No disc swapping? Count me in.
Who cares about DRM? We already expect that from our use of phones and tablets. Want to play a game at a friend's house? Shared library.
Sony has done a fantastic job at making a console that teenagers on the Internet will love. Cheaper. More hardcore focus. No DRM.
MS are after a much wider audience.
Note: It's always been amusing to me that the average gamer is going to buy 12 games (tie ratio) over the life of the console, buy peripherals, and possibly a Live or PSN+ subscription and yet is still worried about $100 price difference at launch. Pretty silly really.
On the surface, as a hardcore gamer (if you ignore the fact that all the Xbox One footage looked just as good as the PS4 footage) it seems like you are getting a more powerful console for $100 cheaper if you buy a PS4.
To us married guys with two kids, with interests outside of gaming and major time constraints, we would gladly pay an extra $100 for the whole package. Voice commands, one device so that even little kids can use it easily, Kinect family fun, etc... Smart Glass and No disc swapping? Count me in.
Who cares about DRM? We already expect that from our use of phones and tablets. Want to play a game at a friend's house? Shared library.
Sony has done a fantastic job at making a console that teenagers on the Internet will love. Cheaper. More hardcore focus. No DRM.
MS are after a much wider audience.
Note: It's always been amusing to me that the average gamer is going to buy 12 games (tie ratio) over the life of the console, buy peripherals, and possibly a Live or PSN+ subscription and yet is still worried about $100 price difference at launch. Pretty silly really.
No. But as of their entire conference so far they have made no mention of having that capability. They focused on disc sharing, not library sharing. Of course that could change at any time in the future.
Gradthrawn
Veteran
Just checking. Your original statement was quite definitive with zero ambiguity.
Yoshida just confirmed on twitter that you only need 1 PSN+ account for all account on the same system to play online. I don't see how digital games will be any different.
The Xbox One sharing thing apparently gives the other family profiles access to your entire games library from any console.
You can do something similar already with PS3.
I have 2 PS3's and no matter which PS3 purchases something from PSN, the other can download it too even if its on the other side of the planet as long as it has access to the same account it was purchased on
The XB1 ofcourse provides the extra convenience that this sharing can be applied to disk based games as well and you dont need to wait for the game to be downloaded in order to play it (or thats what I understood).
At the same time it establishes that for every purchase you make disk or digital, you are no longer owning the game. Instead you are paying for a right to use said product albeit with other limitations that didnt exist before.This feature requires that the other console that will access the title, has access to the personal account/family accounts under which it was bought or first used. Most people arent going to give to their friends the ability to access their personal accounts. If you will be present at a friend's house to play your game, why not bring the game disk anyways? It doesnt make much difference. And if you want to lend a game to your friend it comes with DRM check ups and limited lending. The digital sharing feature is mostly valuable between family members or very very close friends. In general people you can trust your personal account with. Then again most families dont own the same console twice or thrice like us. Eventually everything's going to be digital because we will be left with no other choice.
So taking all these into consideration I question how much of a game changer this type of sharing is.
A very powerful use of sharing would have been the ability to play a co-op with a friend without both players having to own the game. Just like some handheld games.
Sony most likely will still enable multiple consoles to share a digital purchase as long as they share the same account like they always did.
But Sony also introduced another approach on "sharing". The ability to let others spectate and access remotely the game you are playing
I doubt you travel very often hundred or thousands of miles away so you can play together locally. Thats why they invented online multiplayer
With family in other cities, the style of sharing on XBone would be perfect, if that's how it really works.
Twitch broadcasting for XBone games looked nifty. I presume people can spectate from any device with a twitch app. Or XBone while they're doing whatever else with snap/split screen.
Twitch broadcasting for XBone games looked nifty. I presume people can spectate from any device with a twitch app. Or XBone while they're doing whatever else with snap/split screen.
I doubt you travel very often hundred or thousands of miles away so you can play together locally. Thats why they invented online multiplayer
No, but when I do I really don't need extra crap to take with me.
But this is irrelevant to the DRM that MS wants to impose. PSN already provides the creation of sub accounts. In addition once a game is downloaded to a PS3 other accounts can access it because they are tied to the console instead of the account unless a developer decides otherwise. I know because my sister plays some of the games I purchased digitally on her account/profile even when my console is not connected to the internet anymore . The only DRM check up that Sony does is registering how many consoles have downloaded it. It used to let up to 5 consoles in the past. Cant remember if they reduced the number.
Then of course you admit its a feature rarely to be used regardless
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