PS4 Will Allow Used Game DRM On Third Party Titles [E3 2013]
In light of Sony’s big used game announcement last night, it seems there were some asterisks involved. In an interview with Jack Tretton, GameTrailers petered out some information for the big dog, himself. It seems that, even though all first party PS4 games will be available for trade-in and sharing, they’re not going to stop the developers from implementing their own solutions. I’m not personally sure what this means, but I can’t imagine it won’t require some form of programming or hardware support on Sony’s end. I’m not going to come out and say Sony’s being a bad guy, they may simply be making the decision based on the idea that devs might be less inclined to put their games on the PS4 if they don’t support used game DRM. But what that does mean is Sony’s stand for the used game market was duplicitous at best.
It might also be noteworthy to mention that they brought up having to subscribe to PS+ to play online. Tretton brought up a decent point, that anyone who is going to be picking up a PS4 will likely already be subscribed to PS+, but it falls fairly well in line with Sony’s latest tactic to raise the price of their products. The best and most recent example is the PSV, which had a base price of $250, which was impressive for the tech, until you learned that it NEEDED a proprietary memory card to save your game, a memory card that, at its minimum, cost 20 dollars for 4 Gigabytes (5 dollars a gigabyte) and at its maximum capacity of a measly 32 gigabytes, it would set you back a Benjamin (3 dollars a gig). While PS+ isn’t necessary to play games, and I’m assuming neither will the PSEye, if you’re looking to get full functionality out of your PS4, you’ll be spending an extra $120 on launch day, and that’s before the cost of any games, which are going to set you back another $60, with even some unreliable rumors saying that they may be $100 a pop.
I don’t intend to rain on everyone’s celebration of the PS4’s moral victory, but a grain of salt can keep your head clear. I’m personally still looking forward to the PS4 and will be getting one on launch day, I just like to know exactly how much money I’m going to end up having to spend. Keep it tuned for more information, and a cynical eye from yours truly, about all of the E3 news coming your way.
