PS3 Games - Rumour it registers to your console

[Melbosa]

Don't think Sony is this stupid, but interesting read.



Source: http://www.joystiq.com/entry/1234000420067137/

PlayStation 3 won?t play used games?



Posted Nov 8, 2005, 4:45 PM ET by James Ransom-Wiley

Related entries: Culture, PlayStation 3



PlayStation 3 - The latest rumor, generated from several patent sites, claims that Sony has secured a patent for a disk technology that prevents the use of used, as well as pirated, software. From the registered patent description:



   ?A device and method for protection of legitimate software against used software and counterfeit software in recording media? A specific title code is read, and if this title code has been registered, the main unit shifts to a normal operation. If the code has not been registered, verification software is initiated? If matching does not occur, the disk is processed as illegitimate software? Since only titles for which legitimate software has actually been purchased and which have been initially registered in the machine table can be used, resale (so-called used software purchase) after purchase by an end-user becomes practically impossible.?



Does Sony plan to employ this technology in the PlayStation 3? Not likely. If so, PS3 owners would not be able to rent (used) games or borrow their friends? games?or even purchase used games! Sure, the technology could be used for Blu-Ray movies, but for games? It just won?t go down like that? right?



[Thanks to everyone that sent this in!]

[Wraith]

that would crush the game industry shutting down all the Blockbusters and Hollywood videos, As for me it wouldn't affect me but think of all the jobs that would be lost!!!

[Shayne]

While you'd think it would shut down blockbusters and rogers, etc.  Concider that a game like GTA Rogers brought in 10-20 copies PER STORE, with 250 stores thats 2500 - 5000 copies (just canada Rogers).  Add in all the blockbusters in north america.  Thats a ton of cash they'd just shrug off.



If this was actually the case, id never buy a PS3.  Trying before buying is a great selling feature for consoles.

[Mr. Analog]

This is pure garbage and even if true would be relativly easy to circumvent via mods anyway.



If anything Sony benefits from game compatibility through mindshare alone.

[Shayne]

...ya, cuz like Beta and Minidisc were so popular and all.



Besides, its far to early to say anything about the PS3.  We havent seen a completed console, we havent seen screens of any game (beyond those trailers that were not actual gameplay).



This coming E3 should prove to be exciting though PS3 and Revolution revealed in playable format.  Xbox360 second generation software.  (is their anything in the PC market to be excited for beyond a dozen new MMORPGs and the WoW Expansion)

[Melbosa]

If anything Sony benefits from game compatibility through mindshare alone.

I might be reading this wrong, so my response may be flawed.



Sony's products and concepts IMO are some of the worst for compatibility.  First there is their development practices and technology:  which are usually different from main stream, not easy to use, not easy to work with, and hard to bring costs down.



Then there is their works with our technology but not yours history.  Beta Max, MiniDisc - as Shayne points out - weren't the easiest or cheapest to use.



I think that the days of Sony being able to rely on their market in the East as being their bread and butter are coming to an end.  Look at the response WoW has had, being a Westerner product.  Yes the market is still hard to break into, especially on the island, but I think those walls are coming down fast.



So for Sony's sake and future PS3 owners, I think the concept shown at the top of the thread is a very, very, very bad idea.  But not like Sony hasn't gone the proprietory root before.

[Shayne]

Should we bring up the recent Rootkit thing?  Sony has from the very beginning been a very closed company when dealing with its technology and IP.  You cant blame them, for a long time they made excelllent stuff.



However over the years this has seriously faded.  Their TVs are not that great and grossly overpriced, iPod owns portable music, Sony is laughable when it comes to highend audio compoents or speakers.  They deeply rely on their entertainment division.



I would be curious to knpw in their last quarter how much the entertainment division made in comparison to their traditional side.  If i had to guess, i would say that they are losing money on one side, and rolling in it on the other.



Sony also suffers from lack of solid 1st party development and IP.  The biggest selling games on the PS2 come from an american company, and a japanese company, each of which Sony has no part of.



The PS3 is gonna be huge if they stay the course.  Im liking the idea of a Blu-Ray machine in my living room, i like the idea of a new GTA, and perhaps a Grand Turismo (though they take FOREVER to come out).  I just think with the removal of features, these intelectual property things, that perhaps Sony is going down a path that while the Japan market might not mind, the American market will totally reject.

[Thorin]

that would crush the game industry shutting down all the Blockbusters and Hollywood videos, As for me it wouldn't affect me but think of all the jobs that would be lost!!!

I don't think the stores would have any problems.  They'd simply continue renting out XBox, XBox 360, GameCube, Nintendo Revolution, Gameboy Advance, and GameBoy DS games.  The companies that make games for these platforms would see an increase in revenue, as the video stores would be stocking up on their games.



If Sony makes their PS3 not work with rented games, then Sony will lose out on sales of the PS3.  Game console purchases are definitely influenced by geeks who spend their time figuring out which one is better than which other one.  As opposed to, say, the purchase of a couch or a coffee table.

[Mr. Analog]

-Sony was the first to provide backwards console compatibility

-Sony's response to Asian piracy was dropping game prices

-Sony's SDK was a mess 5 years ago, but has since been cleaned up



IMHO, Microsoft and Sony are equally large, evil corporations. But I find it impossible to believe that Sony would shoot itself in the foot this far before the PS3. I find it easily believable that gaming industry buzz likes "competition" and is trying to rile up X-Box vs PS3 fervor all over the 'net to catch more eyeballs.



The original filed patent reads as thus:

A device and method for protection of legitimate software against used software and counterfeit software in recording media. The device includes a disk is set in a main unit. A specific title code is read, and if this title code has been registered, the main unit shifts to a normal operation. If the code has not been registered, verification software is initiated, PG detection is performed, and when a PG pattern and verification data match, the code is registered in the COCT. If matching does not occur, the disk is processed as illegitimate software.

http://patft.uspto.gov/netacgi/nph-Parser?Sect1=PTO2&Sect2=HITOFF&u=/netahtml/search-adv.htm&r=1&p=1&f=G&l=50&d=ptxt&S1=(Kutaragi.INZZ.+AND+Sony.ASNM.)&OS=in/Kutaragi+AND+an/Sony&RS=(IN/Kutaragi+AND+AN/Sony



To me this reads that if you register your software to your hardware everything runs fine. It could be used to destroy the used games market or it could be used for distributed OS discs or it could be used for some model that Sony does not yet have. Registration codes aren't all the foreign to most of us here (I hope), I am a bit surprized that Sony would try to patent the process though.

[Shayne]

Sony was the only company that COULD provide backwards compatibility.

[Cova]

I wouldn't be suprised at all if Sony tries to pull something like this off.  Take a glance at what their EULA allows them to do on the CD's that have been generating all this rootkit press lately...



http://www.eff.org/deeplinks/archives/004145.php



Things like "If your house gets burgled, you have to delete all your music from your laptop when you get home." and "Sony-BMG can install and use backdoors in the copy protection software or media player to "enforce their rights" against you, at any time, without notice."



And you think they don't want to invent ways of enforcing that level of control on their movies and games as well?  And if they can patent it and charge royalties for every other music/movie/game company who wants to use a similar technology, thats just bonus $ for them.

[Mr. Analog]

Right, right, I forgot Microsoft never hides things either... donk



I won't even get into the horrible XBox Live! EULA, nah, can't resist!

9. RIGHT TO MONITOR AND DISCLOSE



Microsoft has no obligation to monitor your use of the Service or retain the content of any user session. However, Microsoft Parties and third-party game operators reserve the right at all times and without notice to delete any content and to monitor, review, retain and/or disclose any content or other information in Microsoft?s possession, however obtained, about or related to you, your use of the Service or otherwise as Microsoft deems necessary or useful to satisfy any applicable law, regulation, legal process or governmental request.

Microsoft and Sony are equally evil, get over it.

[Shayne]

Remember the EULA isnt the law.  The law supercedes it.

[Cova]

1. Shayne is right in that most EULAs are themselves illegal.  Most of them have you giving up rights that whatever company can't take from you just because you read (or didn't read) some text before hitting the "next" button.  You can feel fairly safe in knowing that Sony's EULA on those CD's wouldn't stand up in court at all, it's just there to instill FUD.



2. I never claimed MS doesn't hide things.  In fact, no-one had even mentioned MS in this thread till now.  Lets try and stay on topic here - Sony is evil.  Yes there are thousands of other evil people and companies out there, and I could care less how evil they are in relation to Sony for the purposes of this thread.  However, I'll correct your interpretation of MS's EULA while I'm here anyways, to put and end to this line of thinking in this thread - I'm assuming here that the bold and underline in the MS EULA quote was added by Mr. A.  That underlined section that you're trying to make bad-sounding by double-emphasising is NOT designed to give MS the right to do anything they want to obtain information (the statement would never stand up in court if they wanted it to read that way either) - it is designed to simplify their statement about what they can do with information they do have.  Somewhere else, burried in legalese, should be a bunch of stuff about how and where-from they collect information.  That underlined part just refers to all those various ways, or even other information they have about you from other products/services, or stuff they didn't think of while writing that EULA.  Anyways, that whole section is just saying they can do whatever they want with information they already have about you - information "in Microsoft?s possession" - and they don't care how it got into their possesion for this part of the EULA.

[Mr. Analog]

Aha, you've fallen into my clever trap Cova!



This article is bunk in the first place because someone is interpreting a patent filed by Sony. It means dick all until they do something with it. And even then it would have to be for the unfortunate side effect of "foiling" piracy that the used / rental market would die.



What they did with the root kit was pure evil and whoever made that choice should burn in New Jersey for it (Hell's too nice), this is just crap journalism (as was my original reaction).



It was my fault for drawing a comparison against Microsoft I didn't intend for all you XBox owners to spaz , oops, they are the only other large evil vendor of software / hardware that I could think of off the top of my head that applies in the same industry where this would be an issue.