Sony has confirmed what we were all assuming – they’re bringing out a network pass program called PSN Pass. You’ll remember we brought you news about this brand new service yesterday evening – although at that stage it was mostly guess work on our half.
We were half right.
[drop2]It looks like PSN Pass is per game, and thus works like similar services from EA and other publishers – games will come with a code you enter to unlock multiplayer modes, meaning second hand copies will require a seperate purchase to activate such features.“We are always evaluating new programs for our online offering, and starting with Resistance 3 this September, we will be instituting a network pass program for PS3 games with online capabilities,” say Sony.
“This program will be game-specific. Games that are a part of this program will include a single-use registration code that grants the account holder redeeming the code full online access for that title. This is an important initiative as it allows us to accelerate our commitment to enhancing premium online services across our first party game portfolio.”
Resistance 3 is the first game to official go under the PSN Pass moniker, although obviously it’s hardly the first game from the publisher that needs a code to use certain features of a game – some PSP games like ModNation Racers had this last year.
So, go on – what do you think? Is this a serious knock to the second hand market?
bigdon23
I cant be arsed with gaming at the moment, and its all because of this silly dev tax. unless its a special game like fc3 or gta, then its preowned all the way from now on.
it wouldnt be so bad if the quality standard was high, but its not. and with various companys taking their servers offline, how can they warrent such taxation
uber-BARBIE
Well this sucks if its guna be everywhere. i play online games with people my age around the 40 mark. when my step son whos 13 wants to play the game online this will mean he we have to play on my account which im not fond of because of maturity reasons,bad language ect. if this code alllows all users on my ps3 to access online then not a problem. But this wont be the case. why cant people just leave shit how it is. makes me mad
fattyuk
If he’s 13 it doesn matter who’s account he plays on for the maturity or language of the game?
Just because he’s on you’re account ain’t gonna automatically put the violence into GTA or the shooting into cod?
zb100
Sorry that you don’t appear to know your own console Fatty however believe it or not, you can lock your console for every user account to different ages – ie as a parent you can set up accounts for your children, parental lock these accounts at a certain age and let your kids play safe in the knowledge that Sony do actually respect things such as certification and all legit games come with age certification & they therefore won’t be able to play these. It should be a major selling factor.
That said, most parents don’t know/care about this and either don’t bother/don’t password protect their own accounts/continue to supply certificate 18 games to their kids on completely unlocked consoles. Perhaps this was the point you were trying to make? If so, I’m completely in agreement – I’m sickened every time I’m stood in a queue at the shop, with 10 year bobby & Titchmarsh worshipping child neglecting parent still buying them these games…
fattyuk
Oh I know that and fully get ya.
But if he dont want his 13yr olds playing his 18+ games on his account, then just don’t let them have the disk.
zb100
Kids will be kids though. How many certificate 18 VHS cassettes (showing my age!) or DVDs did you manage to get your little mitts on? Tons in my case. With regards to the PS3 though, you can actually lock the tool he’s playing them on thus making it completely redundant. Personally, I think that’s a genius move. If the child wants to play it on occasion round at his/her mates’ house, that’s one thing but to actually think that as a parent you can continuously monitor every single action your kid does – well… It’s actually just not going to happen, no matter how well intentioned the parent is!
Toby M [Dexter17]
Absolutely terrible. Massive hit for the preowned market, and as a person who regularly trades in games, this could see me buying fewer titles with the prospect that I won’t get much money back.
cc_star
Sony were one of the first companies to introduce online pass, interesting to see they’re now making it part of their proposition
If this filters through to lower trade-in values & then if that means less trade-ins then new sales will dip further
Anyone’s who’s ever been in a gaming retailer which accepts trade-ins will know that 90%+ of trade-ins = another new sale.
It’s unquantifiable how many sales will be lost if people become reluctant to trade-in (or buy trade-ins)
Personally I much prefer Activison’s approach of stating they’re not interested in passes but will instead concentrate on making titles people won’t want to trade-in through both the compelling upfront experience and a well supported long tail of multiplayer, its a much more positive way to fight the practice. Even the ancient CoD4, almost 4 years old has retained a much higher trade-in value than the overwhelming majority of titles. The future will obviously mean more DLC, which people can either get included in a subscription or on a individual basis, but the long life of their multiplayer makes trading in much rarer. Odd how other companies are so keen on copying CoD, but don’t copy this practice.
fattyuk
“Anyone’s who’s ever been in a gaming retailer which accepts trade-ins will know that 90%+ of trade-ins = another new sale”
But if the new sale is a pre owned game, only the retailer makes cash.
cc_star
Yeah, that is an ‘if’ and its a relevant one. You’re right, but a sizeable amount is still new purchases.
It makes the world go around
Imagine buying a new car without being able to sell you’re old one, sure you might also be buying another used one (far more likely than in the case of buying blockbuster games) but along the line the used car market fuels new sales. That is a bad analogy because car sellers make money out of used cars too through either their dealer networks or through parts & servicing, but the general idea of having to sell something to fund the purchase of a new replacement is a sound one.
zb100
Here here Mr CC-star. Good quality (non-day 1) DLC can also make a major difference to this. See Criterion’s Burnout Paradise as a shining example of this paragon.
cc_star
Yes, brilliant…. and everyone loved them for it & it greatly added to the ‘long-tail’ of the game. It’s a shame EA didn’t continue that proposition for further testing
zb100
I’m rather hoping that Criterion are building enough of a rainy day fund providing titles such as NFS Hot Pursuit that they can then provide their own titles entirely unsupported.
I’m also guessing that if anybody is going to make a mainstream premium digital download channel work, it’ll be these guys. Fingers crossed, they manage to finance a top new IP at an extremely competitive cost (less the retailers and distribution cut, I’m figuring around the 15-20GBP mark & that’s still making a healthy profit) heavily supported by top notch free & premium DLC.
Sad Panda
It’s the golden goose all over again, kill off the preowned Market and game stores will close, people who trade towards buying new games will buy fewer, new game sales will fall and more devs will go out of business.
Do these people not realise we are in a global economic recession, people are counting pennies and if you take away trades, people will be forced to wait for price drops before they buy.
It’s pure greed, maybe if the game lasted more than 6 hours, had some replayability and was supported with reasonably priced extra, not already on the disk, content people would hang onto games longer, buy more content and the devs would make more money.
BIGAL-1992
It’s a bit of a lose-lose situation really. No attempt to stem the pre-owned market and the games industry will lose out on possible sales. Stem the flow of the pre-owned market and the retailers lose out on the possible sales.
fattyuk
Sad panda think of the bigger picture! When it all goes to digital sales, which it will do shops will be closing down anyway.Look at the music industry and how big digital content is….. And thats when music shops really did hit the fan!
As for the recession and all that, all these people who make these games for us are also in the same boat.
zb100
At 57.99GBP for a new digital copy of the latest Red Faction title, I really DON’T see digital sales making a massive in-road any time particularly soon.
fattyuk
But I bet its selling!
And it’s only been 4months since psn have had new full retail games on there.
zb100
At the price on the PSN as a purely digital copy? Really?
I’d be very, very interested to see how that figure compares against in-store retail figures.
Incidentally, I don’t completely disagree – I made the move from vinyl (audio) pretty much directly to MP3 for purely storage reasons (that and MiniDisc never took off, another Sony invention)!
iAvernus
I buy new, or I don’t buy. People not buying a game cuz they don’t support this move by the industry, are stupid. So you rather buy used games, and NOT support the industry you’re suppose to be passionate over, than buy a new game or pass?
Flame me of you want, but you know it’s true when I say buying used games is NOT supporting the industry.
bigdon23
I bought burnout preowned, but then bought every content pack they released, hows that not supporting the industry?
if games wernt so disposable (low quality tat with a yearly update-ish) then preowned wouldnt be as big in scale.
its criminal what the publishers are doing, first they pay shit wages to the devs that put all the effort into a game, then they get top prices at retail and still want more greedy bastards!!! (mods edit as you wish) and then if they are ea shut the servers down less than a year later
I fully support the devs just not the fat cat publishers, more indie less fat cat publishers!!!
mcduff1979
Have to add my tiny portion here… all games or movies that we purchase new , we never actually own. As a consumer we buy a legal copy of somebody else’s intellectual property. Therefore in my opinion it seems fair that developers get something off a 2nd hand trade seeing as its their property after all. As for PSN pass I’m all for this I have no complaints paying specially if it keeps my fave companies alive ea,Sony, naughty dog, media molecule etc.
hazelam
that’s not entirely accurate.
we own that copy, and what’s on it.
we don’t own the rights to it, but we do own that particular copy.
and we are entitled to transfer ownership of all of it, contents included, to another personso long as it’s cdone legally
so we can’t copy the contents and sell the copy, but we can sell that disc, including its contents.
and it’s not fair that they get a cut from 2nd hand sales, because like i said, it’s no longer their property, once they sold it, it becomes the property of whoever bought it, they own the copyright, sure, but transferring ownership by reselling does not violate copyright, so they have no right to a cut.
Starman
If running MP servers are so costly why don’t more developers focus on making the single player game bigger & better and just leave out MP altogether? Most games are dead online after a few months anyway.
zb100
You’d think & I personally agree with this line of logic having grown up with it being gaming being a single-player affair.
That said, the market has shifted and people do like to game multi-player.
I suppose (COMPLETELY SHOOTING MYSELF IN THE FOOT FROM AN EARLIER DEBATE) that’s why Naughty Dog are focusing on a new strain of multi-player rather than just regurgitating what has gone before. (Props to CrawFail for putting up with drunken me.) I personally do much prefer the single-player though.
Paranoimia
Because if a game doesn’t have MP these days, a lot of people bitch & whine about it. Sad but true.
Give me a good single-player game over any multi-player any day. Especially since 99% of multi-player boils down to pretty much the same thing.
zb100
well said. Portal 2’s co-op being an exception.
heedbaw
Wouldn’t be so bad if they didn’t throw in the fluff.
“This is an important initiative as it allows us to accelerate our commitment to enhancing premium online services across our first party game portfolio.” What? Don’t you mean this is a way to squeeze more money out of the market to fatten your wallets.
Someone suggested another tax on the poor, which is pretty much what it looks like to me as well.
I also think the argument that they would go bust if they didn’t get any money from the 2nd hand marketis a nonsense too. A lot of them are still going strong and the 2nd hand game market has been about for as long as the games. Apart from that, if they are producing a game they’re not just throwing money at someone to make the game regardless. Unlikely that they would even start production if they calculate that it’s not going to make them money, and I’m pretty sure that server upkeep would be factored into those calculations for games with online multiplayer.
DJ Judas
It’s fine, PC games have effectively had this for a long time, unless people want to go through the extensive work-arounds to play online.
What makes it acceptable is that the new game prices, unless it’s by one of the larger, more arrogant publishers, is much cheaper than the console counterpart.
Lower new game prices and there will be less of an outcry.