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- Hacker News
- The amusing thing about all of this is that the tech that Microsoft is using to be the "good guy" in this is the same thing they were savaged for when they announced it for the Xbox One. The ability to take a physical disc and use that as your key, with each disc having a unique code embedded in it. When you would install the game it would then lock that code to your account, proving your ownership of it, and you would no longer need the disc.
To be fair to the critics, they hadn't thought out all the issues around resale and trading games with friends, but had stated they would address that, before just dropping the tech entirely. It seems like they never stopped having the discs support it, so now it's a relatively straightforward thing for them to enable.
by strictnein - Remember your wallet is your vote in all of this, no matter the size of it!by Keyframe
- The whales have votes orders of magnitude larger than mine.by Telaneo
- It's nothing like democracy though, and the concept of paying (or not paying) to vote is antithetical to a democratic process. We should not confuse the two.
- I think I'll vote with my VPN protected piracy.
If I'm not buying a thing, but instead a limited license to a thing, then I don't care about buying that thing anymore and I'll just take it.
I doubt I'll be alone and with Denuvo being regularly defeated on release day, I'm not too worried about availability.
by hightrix - What I don't understand is why Sony is the one being targeted for this when this has been the case with any digital purchase for 20 years?
I don't know of a digital marketplace that works differently.
But instead all of the hate, the boycots, etc are all targeting Sony instead of focusing on actually figuring out how to improve digital purchase rights which extend beyond games (and far beyond Sony).
I know that some online hate it when you compare this situation to PC since there is choice there, but not when it comes to this. Sure you can choose which store you want to not really own things with but its the same result. Steam did this a year ago: https://www.reddit.com/r/Games/comments/1g19n60/steam_now_te...
Where were the boycots then.
by nerdjon - When You rootkit people, it tends to be unforgettable..
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sony_BMG_copy_protection_rootk...
by rolph - Even disc-based games in boxes have mostly required online connectivity to download most game files for a long time.
It doesn't make it right but I feel like the writing has been on the wall for ages.
by spike021 - I think it's because they're a huge player in the space and the PS5 appears to be the dominant player in the console space this generation. This affects so many people in their faces right now, where as the switch to "buying" movies on an online platform was more gradual as it was a new platform offering and not one that had had ownership from day one (arguably since 1994 with the PS1).
So in short, I think it's because they're the big guy making a very visible change to the broader public, instead of a new platform with a new way of doing things (how Steam was).
by jjice - > when you compare this situation to PC since there is choice there, but not when it comes to this
They may not be playing in the same league as Steam, but PC folks do have the choice of GoG and itch, which both sell DRM-free binaries.
by swiftcoder - Valve killed the previously thriving boxed game industry two decades ago and people can't get over how much they love everything about Valve. Sony follows 20 years later (in a world where internet is faster than installing from BluRay and games are outgrowing three layer discs) and people lose their mind.
There's more noise about this than Microsoft's mass layoffs at the game companies they bought up.
by redwall_hp - > Where were the boycots then.
1. steam does not have a monopoly on distribution rights for PC games. if steam were to go bankrupt publishers could honor your keys and even other marketplaces could do it. steam themselves let you bring your own key.
2. steam has been a benevolent marketplace leader, even though DRM itself plays against customers, the rest of the stuff they pushed while leading, like game sharing, play and refund, offline playing, are pro consumer.
3. why would your knee jerk reaction to this is pointing a finger to steam, what's your endgame?
by kobalsky - > What I don't understand is why Sony is the one being targeted for this when this has been the case with any digital purchase for 20 years?
Examples: literally two days ago Sony permanently removed access to over 500 movies for people who had "purchased" them, and only a couple months ago Sony announced their plan to permanently shutter physical media production for Playstation.
I agree with you that it's a systemic issue but it also doesn't surprise me that Sony is seen as the lead boogeyman. I think if you asked the average gamer what their opinion of Valve's business practices was vs. Sony you'd get a very different answer even if the legalese in the TOS is similar.
- Revocable software licenses are a scam.by TheCleric
- This is going to backfire spectacularly.
Between this claim, ramping down disc production, and the possibility of a $999 home console,they are going to have a difficult time.
There are still so few PS5 exclusives. Even fewer with PS5 Pro support. It’s going to take a lot to gain trust and justify a PS6. No clear path to victory here with a hardware update.
by tetrisgm - It will be fine.
Gaming as a whole is a shadow of what it used to be, specifically because it has been tailored to the masses who have no real opinion on any of this other then they want to play what their friends play.
by ActorNightly - I like the graphics horsepower of my PS5, but a lot of the games I play, I'm just not sure I would notice the difference between it and my old PS4. Resolution is the biggest thing, since I didn't have a PS4 Pro and it'd be limited to 1080p on my TV.by RajT88
- Yeah I've already decided there won't be any new Sony consoles in my household. Games are so big now I can't possibly download all my games at once so if the store goes down I lose all those games permanently and $70+ for AAA games that are really hit and miss in the "fun" category is no longer worth it to me. The PS5 was also pretty darn expensive when it came out and I can't say I've played too many PS5 exclusive games since I bought it. Most of the PS5 catalog has been indie games available on Steam or ported PS4 games... and with Sony reportedly releasing a new console next year they are clearly high on their own supply.
Never thought I'd have this opinion, but the gaming industry as is needs to crash/burn and rebuild itself. So many downright wild anti-consumer things happening in the last 10 years and studios have completely lost sight of how to keep themselves out of bankruptcy.
- 13 years ago when Microsoft wanted to introduce per-user locks for bought XBone games Sony released this video: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=kWSIFh8ICaA
Fans were eating it up and it won them the console market lead. Times sure have changed.
by ginko - IMO the better thing is to force these companies to dump this mindset that digital information is a finite resource. Sony's logic doesn't even make sense to begin with. If person A buys a game, that game does not suddenly become unavailable for person B to also buy. I mean, even copyright recognizes that it is possible for a rightsholder to own all rights to the master copy of a good but other people can own separate copies of the work without infringing on the rights of the rightsholder. Sony is just taking the maximalist view here because they want to keep the power of being able to control who and what has access to whatever they sell, for any arbitrary reason whatsoever.by ethin
- > IMO the better thing is to force these companies to dump this mindset
IMO this is a strictly idealistic view in a world where only a very small vocal minority actually seems to care. The vast majority of people will continue to reward these companies with their wallets, so they have no incentive to change course.
- I wonder if anyone will ever have the guts to enter the gaming console market using open source as a base. Linux support for GPUs has never been better than what it is today. I've spent the last 4 or 5 years gaming exclusively on Linux just to highlight how good it has gotten, and no I don't have to run around doing command line incantations. Linux has improved a lot, heck, even AI you have a drastically better experience working with AI on Linux than on Windows (which hearing this 10 years ago would have confused me given how many issues I had with my GPUs on Linux for YEARS).
All someone has to do is assemble a reasonable desktop that runs Linux, gives you access to GOG and Steam, and you've already got more games than most game consoles, the issue right now I suppose would be moreso hardware costs.
You would also want to make sure your Desktop Environment is fine tuned with a controller in mind.
If you can read games from discs, you'd be getting the attention of many people. The facts are that most people have always bought digital over discs but when you take that away, and it becomes clear that they could lose their games forever, everyone wants CDs back.
- Is this not the Steam Machine? Provides a console-like experience with its controller and SteamOS.
- Like the Steam Machine? Or do you mean open hardware too?by cautiouscat
- > I wonder if anyone will ever have the guts to enter the gaming console market using open source as a base.
It's definitely possible, but I suspect that Valve (or some other major player) must first prove the concept to be viable for a business.
e.g. The Steam Deck wasn't the first PC gaming handheld made, but it was the one that proved there was a viable market, which led to a bunch of competitors following Valve's lead.
The Steam Machine, unfortunately, botched the execution due to high pricing. If pricing had been good, I'm guessing that it too could have been the proof-of-concept needed to jump start the market.
by __aru - Steam says hi: https://store.steampowered.com/hardware/
Though one could argue that Linux GPU support is as good as it is because of Steam.
- You're literally describing the steam machine/steam deck. Also, bazzite is an immuable distro based on silverblue that does pretty much exactly what you described.
I know there's some issues with big picture mode and Nvidia, but that's an Nvidia driver problem, not a limitation of the platform.
by sicktriple - > Sony would like you to know that any reasonable gamer would know that purchasing a game is just licensing a game, not owning it.
In that case, any reasonable company would have no trouble being honest and not using the words “buy” and “purchase” with respect to game access.
by dspillett - I know I am in the overwhelming minority and that most people will just continue to buy Sony's stuff anyway, but I decided a few years ago when all the ownership crap came up that I am just not buying stuff that I don't own. Sony's PS4 went to my local electronics recycler and I haven't bought a Sony product since. I can't realistically do it with everything, there are some products I have to buy rather I get to own them or not. But I am not putting up with it where I can and gaming is optional -- plus GOG has served me really well since.by bluejay2387
- I'm keeping my ps4 as long as the hardware still runs because at least I can still buy discs for it. I have a nice collection of high-replay-value single player games. I know discs are just physical licenses at this point in time, not actual software on disc like the old school days.
But even with all this nonsense from Sony I don't think they'll cross the rubicon of terminating licenses that come on physical discs for their older consoles. If they do, I hear you can jailbreak ps4s :)
by satellites