PlayStation Plus.

[specwarGP2]

I got in the beta too. I dont have PS+ but one of my subaccounts does. I also got a questionnaire a few days earlier asking me about PSN. So maybe thats how I got in.

Hopefully we get some good stuff!!

 

[patsu]

Cloud Save to arrive on March 10 (Tomorrow):
http://forum.beyond3d.com/showpost.php?p=1533034&postcount=155

My Demon's Souls game save is finally safe !

Hey everyone – We’ve got an exciting new feature coming exclusively to PlayStation Plus subscribers. Included in the system software update (v3.60) coming tomorrow to PS3, PlayStation Network’s new online storage for game saves feature gives PlayStation Plus subscribers the capability to back up game save data to the cloud.

…

The new online storage feature allows gamers to store up to 150MB of game save data and a maximum of 1000 data files per PSN account. Users also have the ability to back-up “copy-prohibited save data,” and all previously saved data may be restored once per 24 hour period. When the new feature launches, most PS3 titles will be compatible with online storage for game saves, and moving forward, all new titles will have the capability to offer the storage option.

Other minor features will also be added via system software update (v3.60). For more information please visit http://us.playstation.com/support/systemupdates/ps3/ once the update is live.

 

[nightshade]

*Heads to ebay to buy a 50$ US PSN store code*

Time to renew PSN plus subscription.

 

[Arwin]

Holy $%^, that's awesome! I bet this will sell a few PSN Plus subscriptions ... Not that I would trust the service to be safe from any mistakes early on personally, but this is extremely convenient also for people like patsu with two PS3s they regularly play on, right? For me it sure is (though I don't know if game-saves are locked to a PS3 for this to work, but I hope not).

Look forward to finding out in what ways it is gimped (have to manually upload stuff to the cloud, hardly any games support it yet, etc. ;P) but yeah baby, good stuff.

 

[deathindustrial]

Not too keen about the 24 hour limit on protected saves. That basically means that this service is useless if I want to continue playing Mass Effect 2, Need For Speed Shift, Dragon Age 2, etc. in the bedroom after starting in the front room. It is equally useless for playing at a friends house unless you are always going to wait 24 hours between accessing the file.

Functionally it means this is a backup service only, not a convenience one.

I wonder if the 24 hour limit is a policy one or due to technical limitations of Sony's DRM?

Cheers

 

[Arwin]

Not too keen about the 24 hour limit on protected saves. That basically means that this service is useless if I want to continue playing Mass Effect 2, Need For Speed Shift, Dragon Age 2, etc. in the bedroom after starting in the front room. It is equally useless for playing at a friends house unless you are always going to wait 24 hours between accessing the file.

Functionally it means this is a backup service only, not a convenience one.

I wonder if the 24 hour limit is a policy one or due to technical limitations of Sony's DRM?

Cheers

Isn't the 24 hour limit counting from the last time you 'restored' the save from the cloud? And are we talking about protected saves like Gran Turismo used to have and has since been patched out? Because I think those are on the way out in general anyway.

 

[patsu]

NGP is supposed to allow "resume play" feature based on the same Cloud Save mechanism. Would be strange if we can do it for PS3->NGP and not PS3a->PS3b

 

[deathindustrial]

Isn't the 24 hour limit counting from the last time you 'restored' the save from the cloud? And are we talking about protected saves like Gran Turismo used to have and has since been patched out? Because I think those are on the way out in general anyway.

For those without Plus (me included), here's a vid that shows the storage in action:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=REFbIZhyp2Q

For protected saves you get this warning:

There are limits to how often you can download this saved data from online storage. You can download only after 24 hours have passed since you last uploaded to or downloaded from online storage. You can upload to online storage any time.

So if you want to play a game at your friends or on your second PS3, you need to plan ahead more than 24 hours. For protected saves, this is strictly an expensive backup option. For non-protected saves it is a convenience option only since you can already use USB keys to transfer non-protected saves between machines.

Cheers

 

[Nesh]

So if you want to play a game at your friends or on your second PS3, you need to plan ahead more than 24 hours. For protected saves, this is strictly an expensive backup option. For non-protected saves it is a convenience option only since you can already use USB keys to transfer non-protected saves between machines.

Cheers

But you are going to do that once right? So no biggie.

Btw...have you noticed that in the game section there are two visible game disks than one? What kind of PS3 does he have?

 

[patsu]

Some games show up as 2 disc icons. One for the game, the other for demoes.

The 24 hour limit is a hurdle because some people have multiple PS3s in the same house. I can see why it's an inconvenience. In fact, the title by title copy is a hassle also. Whether it's true or not, I think Sony is just making minimal changes to get by in this patch. The star of 3.60 is the security revamp.

 

[goonergaz]

Some games show up as 2 disc icons. One for the game, the other for demoes.

The 24 hour limit is a hurdle because some people have multiple PS3s in the same house. I can see why it's an inconvenience. In fact, the title by title copy is a hassle also. Whether it's true or not, I think Sony is just making minimal changes to get by in this patch. The star of 3.60 is the security revamp.

Yes, I think LBP2 & Dead Space 2 both have 2 disk icons.

WRT the 24hr thing, I guess as it only affects copy protected saves it's not a big issue (affected 2 games for me). The initial setup is a bit of a pain, but then all the saves are in their own folder so hopefully Sony will give as an update to backup all the online saves each night automagically

edit - thinking about it, could the 24hr copy-protected limit be due to Sony having to edit the files so they are transferable?

 

[rabidrabbit]

I signed up for the PSN+ the day it became available in EU, I think it was the beginning of august 2010.
Did the EU PSN+ come with the 3 months free extra?
How much free PSN+ time should I get from the Welcome Back program?

I checked and my subscribtion seems to end sometime in september.
Shouldn't it last at least until sometime november if it originally came with 3 months free + whatever the welcome back included

 

[deathindustrial]

I recently broke down and bought 3 months of PS+ solely so I could copy two locked saves between our PS3s in the front room and the bedroom (Driver: SF to the front room + Mass Effect 2 to the bedroom). The 24 hour delay is garbage and potentially made worse by the auto-upload function which will keep tickling that 24 hour timer if you enabled it (meaning you can never access the save on another machine). I don't care why that limitation (policy or technical reason) is there but Sony needs to remove it.

On a more pathetic front, after getting stuck in tedious update land during the install Mass Effect 2 in the bedroom I decided to turn on automated updates for that PS3. When I attempted to do this I was told that I already had automatic updates enabled on my other PS3 and that I can only have one PS3 do automated updates at a time. I realize only one machine can be logged into PSN at a time but that can be trivially solved by setting up polling (if another machine is logged in, sleep for a while and try again).

So far my PS+ experience has been:

1. cloud save for protected games is lame (have to plan 24 hours ahead, can't use auto cloud save if you want to play the game on another machine)

2. "free" game rentals available start with the time you purchase PS+ so currently I have 3 utter crap minis (how can a game company screw up a simple breakout clone in 2011?), Sega Genesis's "Duck Hunt" pack in "Altered Beast" and some ancient PSX Resident Evil versions.

3. can't have both my PS3s auto-update despite paying Sony $6 a month

Not only is the value not there, I am left feeling like Sony extorted $18 out of me just so I could play the games I paid good money for on my other PS3. PS+ is flat out a total rip off.

Cheers

 

[patsu]

Yeah, I found out about the one PS3 limitation last week when I tried to auto sync my home PS3. >8^/

Sony should fix this, but before that they should address the clock issue first. The auto-sync PS3s should be put on auto clock sync first. Right now, when my PS3 clock drifts too far from the server, the software will ask me to resync it to some Internet server manually.

Once they can guarantee a universal clock, then multiple PS3 sync should "just work". Just work.

EDIT: For PS+'s free content, I think you'll need to be patient. When the thing was first launched, our selection was zero and the early free games were meh too. Now I am quite happy to get "Plants vs Zombies" for free. Does the auto-update automatically download the free games for me ? I missed out on all of them except for PvZ.

The freebies benefit is not really for short term 3-month subscription though. The longer you subscribe, the more freebies you'll collect.

The discounts for "From Dust" and other games are nice -- after they implement discount for new games too.

I think they will have to fix the multiple Playstation sync when/before Vita launches. Otherwise, game resume between Vita and PS3 will be problematic. We should post to Shuhei's twitter account and press him for an answer. ;-)

 

[Brad Grenz]

EDIT: For PS+'s free content, I think you'll need to be patient. When the thing was first launched, our selection was zero and the early free games were meh too. Now I am quite happy to get "Plants vs Zombies" for free. Does the auto-update automatically download the free games for me ? I missed out on all of them except for PvZ.

No, you have to go to the store each week and manually download the free games. I just go in and queue up everything to make sure it's on my history so I can redownload later, even after the free period ends. The stuff also stays available for a couple of weeks in most cases. Right now they have all the PS1 Resident Evil games up for free, in addition to PvZ.

 

[Sigfried1977]

Would also be much appreciated if Sony was finally starting to give a shit about stores outside of the US and Japan. The PS+ offerings in the German store are absolutely laughable compared to all the stuff the US store is offering. Where are the free Resident Evil games? Where are the full game trials? There is basically one page worth of discounted stuff (predominantly made up of themes and avatar icons - splendid!) and that's pretty much it.

 

[KongRudi]

Not all games have this 24 hours waiting period of transferring between systems, so it's not a limitation of the cloudsave-system. :-/
Sony has left it up to the developer if they want to tick of the option in the SDK to limit the gamesaves in the clouds to only be able to be used on one system or multiple systems in that timeframe.

 

[patsu]

No, you have to go to the store each week and manually download the free games. I just go in and queue up everything to make sure it's on my history so I can redownload later, even after the free period ends. The stuff also stays available for a couple of weeks in most cases. Right now they have all the PS1 Resident Evil games up for free, in addition to PvZ.

I am confused. Is it the same game ? The official PS3 blog says 50% off for PS+ members for RE: Code Veronica HD and RE4 HD:

Resident Evil: Code Veronica X HD Hits PSN Tuesday, 50% Off for Plus Members:
http://blog.us.playstation.com/2011...-hd-hits-psn-tuesday-50-off-for-plus-members/

As we mentioned last week, we’ve got even more RE deals for PlayStation fans to help celebrate Resident Evil’s 15th anniversary. For PlayStation Plus members, we’re offering the same 50-percent-off promotion for Resident Evil Code Veronica X HD that you enjoyed for Resident Evil 4 HD last week.

Are you in EU or US ?

 

[deathindustrial]

The "free" RE games are not HD variants - they are the original PSX versions.

 

[-tkf-]

Looking pretty good for tomorrow

http://blog.us.playstation.com/2012...cade-game-far-cry-2-final-fantasy-v-and-more/