PS3 Gamercard?

[pipo]

Bring it on...

http://www.games-digest.com/2007/08/gamercard-spott.html

During a playable demo of Unreal Tournament III at the Edinburgh Interactive Festival, we spotted something very interesting on the game’s menu system. It’s called Gamercard and it doesn’t seem too unlikely a possibility that this will turn out to be a unique player identity system, not entirely dissimilar to the Xbox 360’s Gamertag system that manages player stats and achievements.

We quizzed Epic’s Mark Rein about and he did little to dispel our assumptions saying quickly “Oops, you shouldn’t have seen thatâ€.

 

[Gabe323]

This will be a nice feature for the PS3 folks.

Nice to see Sony playing catch-up! Hah. I kid

 

[Shifty Geezer]

As long as they don't force it onto you. XB360 really annoys me with that. You can't just play games - you have to have an account that registers achievements.

 

[Rainbow Man]

What? So if you plug in a newly purchased 360 and load up a game disc..it won't start the game?

You MUST make an account first?

Weird.
Peace.

 

[pipo]

An account can be local though.

 

[Qroach]

As long as they don't force it onto you. XB360 really annoys me with that. You can't just play games - you have to have an account that registers achievements.

Actually no you don't. You need a local account on your Xbox that it stores your save games under. You can play a game without saving or entering this information.

Also, you are however forced to do this on PS3 before playing a game the first time, so I don't see the point you're making

 

[Shifty Geezer]

Actually no you don't. You need a local account on your Xbox that it stores your save games under. You can play a game without saving or entering this information.

Of the multiplayer XB360 games I've played, from disc titles to Live! Arcade titles, you need a player account on the XB360 and you need to log in this account on the game to be able to play any multiplayer. That is, Mr. X owns the XB360 and has his account. To play four player MUA, Me, Matey and Blokey all needed to create accounts on the XB360, and log into those accounts. There wasn't the option to just play MUA without (that we found, anyway!). Then in wanting to view an Arcade game, Mr. X was logged in, but I had to log in to join him. I don't recall the exact specifics as it was a while ago now, but the end result was we didn't bother. It was just intended as a quick demo of the game at the end of the evening.

In these games achievements are unlocked and that is what I understand of these accounts. Every game has achievements, and you need an account logged in to register them. But it seemed to me that you had to have an account. You couldn't just plug in four controls, boot up a four-player game, and all play. Perhaps we missed something? Although if we did, it certainly wasn't an obvious something.

 

[Qroach]

Of the multiplayer XB360 games I've played, from disc titles to Live! Arcade titles, you need a player account on the XB360 and you need to log in this account on the game to be able to play any multiplayer. That is, Mr. X owns the XB360 and has his account. To play four player MUA, Me, Matey and Blokey all needed to create accounts on the XB360, and log into those accounts. There wasn't the option to just play MUA without (that we found, anyway!). Then in wanting to view an Arcade game, Mr. X was logged in, but I had to log in to join him. I don't recall the exact specifics as it was a while ago now, but the end result was we didn't bother. It was just intended as a quick demo of the game at the end of the evening.

In these games achievements are unlocked and that is what I understand of these accounts. Every game has achievements, and you need an account logged in to register them. But it seemed to me that you had to have an account. You couldn't just plug in four controls, boot up a four-player game, and all play. Perhaps we missed something? Although if we did, it certainly wasn't an obvious something.

Oh I see what you mean. You are correct, you need an account on that xbox for each player in order to play a multi-player game. It will track information/stats per player.

Is this different then PS3?

 

[archangelmorph]

Oh I see what you mean. You are correct, you need an account on that xbox for each player in order to play a multi-player game. It will track information/stats per player.

Is this different then PS3?

In a sense this could be a good thing..

Halo did this on the Xbox and to be honest it worked pretty well.. it mean't that regular players could setup and customise their own characters (colours etc..) and the game could track their play sessions, awarding trophies etc (which was one of the multiplayer strengths of the original timesplitters games).. I see the Gamertag as an evolution of Halo's system to be fair, providing the user account data across every game instead of just game-specific play sessions..

Plus if you had players who weren't as frequent, it didn't take too long whip up a set of generic accounts (anon1, anon2, anon3 etc..) which anyone could take control of..

 

[infinity4]

360ish achievements would be good, though that would stress me so much when you see a game that isn't 100% achieved!

 

[patsu]

Every community has a user profile. This is probably it (and part of MyPage ?):
http://i70.photobucket.com/albums/i120/Supaman_225/HOME029.jpg

 

[Gradthrawn]

Is this different then PS3?

Not really, you create a local account on the PS3 when you first start it up. This is how it knows where to save your games (in case other users are added).

 

[Shifty Geezer]

But do you need a local account for each player in a multiplayer game? In RFoM or Warhawk, can people just grab controllers and play, or do they need to log onto an account? And also, when you have a primary user account set up on PS3, do you need to log into each for games? On XB360 (AFAIK) with one account and one user, he still has to press the XB button and log in for each game. A game can't be played without logging in a user.

 

[Rainbow Man]

Me + friend tried out GoW on my 360 around when that gamw eas new.

It was somewhat frustrating to ind out that to start a 2-player coop game I had to first make a dummy user so that my friedn could join in on the action.

It was better in the good ol days methinks when we just had to pick up a joypad and GO.

These new consoles have become so cmputer-like it messes with the accessability and useability in some ways.
Peace.

 

[xmu]

It was somewhat frustrating to ind out that to start a 2-player coop game I had to first make a dummy user so that my friedn could join in on the action.

Well, that's not nearly as frustrating as the fact that I had a single player game saved somewhere near the end, then started the co-op and voila - out the window goes the single player save.

 

[Titanio]

I'm not sure about Resistance, but in the Warhawk beta a friend was able to join me without registering on the system. He just showed up online with my username and some number after it, or something, IIRC.

 

[archangelmorph]

I'm not sure about Resistance, but in the Warhawk beta a friend was able to join me without registering on the system. He just showed up online with my username and some number after it, or something, IIRC.

Attack of the clones!!

 

[scooby_dooby]

Of the multiplayer XB360 games I've played, from disc titles to Live! Arcade titles, you need a player account on the XB360 and you need to log in this account on the game to be able to play any multiplayer. That is, Mr. X owns the XB360 and has his account. To play four player MUA, Me, Matey and Blokey all needed to create accounts on the XB360, and log into those accounts. There wasn't the option to just play MUA without (that we found, anyway!). Then in wanting to view an Arcade game, Mr. X was logged in, but I had to log in to join him. I don't recall the exact specifics as it was a while ago now, but the end result was we didn't bother. It was just intended as a quick demo of the game at the end of the evening.

In these games achievements are unlocked and that is what I understand of these accounts. Every game has achievements, and you need an account logged in to register them. But it seemed to me that you had to have an account. You couldn't just plug in four controls, boot up a four-player game, and all play. Perhaps we missed something? Although if we did, it certainly wasn't an obvious something.

Halo 3 allowed 1 guest / account. So my buddy can play on my account as: skinbaby (1)

Some games require signing in for co-op (gears) this is not a big headache for me, as I already have european and japanese accounts set-up, for downloading things from other regions marketplace. So, if someone wants to play co-op, they just one of the dummy accounts.

I do agree though, the requirement to be 'signed in' it can certainly be frustrating in the wrong circumstances.

 

[Gradthrawn]

But do you need a local account for each player in a multiplayer game? In RFoM or Warhawk, can people just grab controllers and play, or do they need to log onto an account? And also, when you have a primary user account set up on PS3, do you need to log into each for games? On XB360 (AFAIK) with one account and one user, he still has to press the XB button and log in for each game. A game can't be played without logging in a user.

Ah, my apologies. Didn't realize that is what you were referring to. In Resistance, for example, all that is needed is the primary local user account. A 2nd player can jump right into Co-op (which is a lot of fun, IMO, if you haven't tried it yet). The same thing goes for other local co-op games like Ultimate Alliance, Ridge Racer, flOw, etc. I have yet to try any co-op on my 360 though, despite having multiple controllers with Gears ready to go. Didn't know you needed local profiles for local co-op players.

Oh, per the recent Warhawk Q&A, a guest PSN account is created for local split-screen Warhawk players automatically when playing online.

Can multiple PSN accounts be logged-in at the same time during split-screen gameplay?
No. When you engage split-screen, the Warhawk real-time creates a temporary guest account and adds a little circle with a number inside it for which player you are. For example, if you jumped in on my PS3 for split-screen action, I’d be “TheGoatAssâ€￾ and you would be “(2)TheGoatAss.â€￾

 

[Shifty Geezer]

Some games require signing in for co-op (gears) this is not a big headache for me, as I already have european and japanese accounts set-up, for downloading things from other regions marketplace. So, if someone wants to play co-op, they just one of the dummy accounts.

For online I can understand the need for accounts, if just for banning people . It's the 'offline', or single machine multiplayer, where I think accounts should be optional. If someone wants to record Achievements let them log on an account. Otherwise let people just play the game.

New features can be great, but the core experience of the console should always be root simplicity IMO. No matter what else is there in your multi-function box, you should put in a disc, play the game. I can perhaps excuse selecting the game from an option, to save users from having to remove a game disc to use the machine for other functions and stop it booting straight to game. Add controllers and add players (preferably with Jump In, though I can appreciate that's a per-game option) should be that simple, as it's always been. Go to a save point and choose which save slot to use, and manage saves manually. I can't see any good reason to tamper with that formula.

Which is going a bit off-topic!