Sony patent against used games

Not the best PR move on Sony's part, but I see it as inevitable.

It only effects me to the degree it could keep new game prices higher for longer, but I just won't buy them until they hit a price point I'm comfortable with. It certainly won't stop me from enjoying them altogether--I'd only be hurting myself.

If it comes to past I wonder how many PS 4 sales that will cost them, I know first hand of one.

patents and rumors have popped up every generation. Didn't happen then, ain't gonna happen now, for precisely the reasons suggested above by ya'll.

Sony won't be the first to jump with the risks involved.

Apple got hit up worse from some douche that went on CNBC and spread doom and gloom, while first leveraging the crap out of it, before buying it back low a few months back. Volatility is the name of the game.

Wasn't this 'no used games' thing a Ps3 rumor as well?

I'd be OK with it, as long as the pricing structure changes to follow the prices on iOS.

It would be interesting to see what happens if this goes through. While some gamers will hate it and right away choose not to get the new Playstation, I wonder if developers would love it and make developing for the PS a priority.

Posted this in the other thread, but this won't happen. At least, not in the way people fear.

Patents are filed all the time these days by tech companies who have absolutely no intention of actually making/implementing the thing that is patented. It's a safeguard and a potential source of revenue. These days, a large patent portfolio is like an investment portfolio. They're almost always filed as future investments, not as intended products for market. The reason Sony won't implement this is because retailers like Gamestop bring Sony more revenue than "lost revenue" from used games cost them. If Sony did this, they'd be shooting themselves in the foot.

Then again, Sony did release the PSP Go, which also was an attempt to circumvent retailers and used sales, and we all know how that worked out...

Whether this happens as per the "patent" does not matter because developers and game companies are always looking for ways to combat the used game market, so it will happen sooner or later. They just need to figure out the technology to use that will make it as user friendly as possible.

I doubt a few years ago that anyone would of thought that game companies would implement the "game pass" so this is just another evolution in gaming.

Regardless, I hardly buy used games and the kids buy even less. They have enough friends to trade games with and for any of the big name games that they want, they just save their money to get.

Say goodbye to "trading" games with friends if anything is ever implemented to deter the used market.

Rumor is both console manufactures ruled out Digital only, because of the inability to get games to people. ISP are not up to snuff, and there's increasing moving away from no caps, or even high caps, to pay/use models. Thats not good news for streamers and downloaders.

The sort of copy protection on used games seen here will not be implemented as long as the console manufactures rely on physical sale of media. Dev's might be on their side, but it totally screws stores that rely on resale of used media, and people picking up accessories while they shop for new media.

There is no way for them to know if the game is used, previously owned, or new, unless they bring back the whole DRM fiasco, or go with a DivX type system. We all know how the latter turned out.

It's very simple --- the chip on the disc is a one use only. Once the system it's first played on gives the chip an ID number, that's it. It can't be used by any system now other than that one. Now, that's not to say that they couldn't put a limit on the chip and allow it to say, store up to five system tags or something like that. Sort of like they did with PSN downloads. (Until they dropped it to two system uses, anyway.)

That being said, if they do go this route with PS4, I'm buying an Xbox.

It would be the height of idiocy for them to do something like that. On the most basic level, think about how many of us have had to replace our systems.

I said it in the rumors thread and I'll say it again. Why would Sony bother with such a limiting system when the move to digital copies is doing the job for them? No used copy of a download to worry about, and no bad PR to boot.

Maybe they decided to patent the system to sell it to some other company, or some other reason we know nothing about. Either way there is absolutely no possibility of this being in the next PlayStation because the gain would be small, yet the damage to their reputation would be huge.

So, what if my ps4 broke and had to get a new one. All of my games won't work?

Can't see them implement this.

This sounds like something Nintendo would do, not Sony. I highly doubt we'll get something like this. So far any sort of "lock out" has been for online play and that's been by the publisher. I'm sure they'd love Sony to do this but eh I just can't see it happening.

You must not have read my entire post.

if you spent a fortune on games. and you lost your system more than 2 or 3 times and you have to re buy all of those games again. people will be outraged and buy an xbox. anyways i dont think sony would go that route.

1. Spent a fortune on games
2. Lost system and had to replace 2 or 3 times
3. Had to rebuy the "fortune on games"

How is this a bad thing for Sony? Sounds like a calculated risk to me.

until someone sues Sony. then its a bad move on Sonys side.

There's no ground for a lawsuit there. Sony would be acting within their legal rights. The only risk they run is souring their consumer base. And as I and others have said, carrying over digital downloads may not even be up to Sony at all. It may be completely up to the rights holders (publishers). All depends on how the licensing agreements were worked out. Judging by the license transfer problems with Vita, my guess is that we won't see 100% PS3-to-PS4 digital license transfers. It may be high, but I don't think we'll see 100%.

last month i decided to backup my launch 60gb Ps3. took 6 hours to backup 250gb worth of game updates/music/photos/videos/themes...etc
last weekend my ps3 died. so i decided to restore the backed-up date onto my new slim ps3. well the restoring process took about 14 minutes
well, this is what happened, i had to manually install the firmware update from my PC onto a usb drive then to my ps3
then my purchased themes were corrupt. all of them
my purchased videos didnt transfer and i was asked by the PS store to reBUY all of them again. are you kidding me. and certain videos dont even exist on the ps store anymore
my ps1/ps2 game save date didnt transfer... why? my FF7 save data not to mention now the cheap slim ps3 doesnt play ps2 game.
i had to re download tons of dlc and updates back from the store Again. i mean who really enjoy browsing the outdated sluggish and slow PS store. not to mention the download speed are horribly slow. it was a pain the first time. and i realized that after downloading tons of crap from the store, it will give out an error code related to the cache, which will only go away by restarting the system.
my trophies took forever to sync with the server. my game save data feature (PS+) skipped out on few saves for some reason and only transfered 80% of them to the new PS3. i had to do some of them manually.
i was shocked to see some pictures and couple mp3 made it into the new ps3 alive.
my point is.. good job SONY. YOU SUCK. stop being stupid. make things easier. not harder for your loyal fans. i never owned an xbox but im sure it cant get any worse then this.

I had to back up my 300 GB drive when I transferred to a 500 GB drive on a new system a few months ago (traded in my launch system for a super slim). None of that stuff happened to me, and I used the PS+ cloud saves as well. I got back 100% of the six years of stuff I stored. You had a crazy string of bad luck for some reason. I do agree that the new store is sluggish though.