Another reason not to buy Sony Play Stations

[thewayne]

"Sometime in 2000, Sony patented a process that would 'verify a disc as legitimate, register the disc to that particular game console, then wipe out verification data so the disc would be rendered unreadable in other PlayStations'."

So drop $50 on a game and be unable to take it to a party or friend's house without hauling your console? That sucks. Makes me glad that I can't play thumb-twitchers.

http://games.slashdot.org/article.pl?sid=06/07/12/193225

Comments

[zentraedi-shep.livejournal.com]

This is a totally untrue myth... I played my games on several differnt PS, and how should renting PS games work, if this was true?

[apostate-96.livejournal.com]

Actually, if you read it carefully you'd see they said that Sony patented the technology, but haven't introduced it into their products. Yet.

[deborak]

As the article said, they may have developed the code, but have not implemented it, so where's the offense? BTW, if you're dropping $50 on a game, you don't know where to shop, LOL.

[thewayne.livejournal.com]

I don't spend $50 on a game as I don't play console games. I just grabbed a retail price out of the air.

[apostate-96.livejournal.com]

I can see why they'd allow one of their R&D people to develop something like that, especially with the worry about piracy and maintaining intellectual properties. I also think they're very smart for not having implemented it. I can see several disastrous possibilities in that regard, not the least of which is what happens if your old PS/PS2/PS3 dies and you get a new one? Then you'd have to buy the games all over again. Plus it'd hurt the rental and used game markets. I would be very surprised if the end result of that wouldn't be giving their competition a helluvan advantage. I've never seen Sony be that stupid in terms of how they conduct their business.

It is interesting as an idea, though.

[thewayne.livejournal.com]

Considering the somewhat recent root kit fiasco and the announced pricing on the PS/3, Sony seems to be digging itself ever deeper into a hole. If they implemented this, I think it would utterly destroy PS/3 sales. And if somehow it succeeded, it would destroy the rental market.

[apostate-96.livejournal.com]

I agree; it'd be fatal to the PS franchise to go in that direction. Plus, it wouldn't be fatal to the rental market....just to their corner of it. It would do a helluva lot for sales of Xbox360 and the new GameCube/Nintendo systems coming out that wouldn't have the same stupidly draconian setup to contend with.

Actually, after the root kit fiasco, I'm a little surprised they haven't come out and formally said they have the patent for this and just aren't going to use it. Leaving this kind of question bouncing around is not helping them any.

[kylejcrb.livejournal.com]

The $600 price tag for the PS3 is already a huge potential for disaster, which would probably be the end of Sony, considering their games division is the only thing making money.