The biggest concern about the next-gen consoles from Sony and Microsoft is whether they will be always-on with accompanying DRM and whether they will support used games. While we're still waiting on Sony to clarify the always-on DRM part, we at least have confirmation that the PlayStation 4 will still support used games. You could almost hear a unanimous “sigh” from gamers all across the interwebs.
Eurogamer managed to grab a quote from Sony Worldwide Studios boss Shuhei Yoshida, who confirmed that the PlayStation 4 will support used games, saying...
Yes. That's the general expectation by consumers," .... "They purchase physical form, they want to use it everywhere, right? So that's my expectation."“So, used games can play on PS4. How is that?"
How is it? I think it's sweet. I can hear the chorus of “hallelujah’s” going off in the distance, which means there's a lot of excitement in the air, or I died and went to gaming heaven. But I'm still at a desk, so I'm thinking there's just a lot of excitement...but I could be wrong.
Anyway, Tom Bramwell wasn't settled with a single answer from Yoshida and decided to poke around like a real investigative journalist, asking some of the frontsman for Sony what was up with the patent to block used games. You know what he was told? The patent was basically a restrictive device to limit media content to a single device, but it was NOT for any Sony game console.
What does that really mean? Well, speculation might presume that we're looking at a patent switch-a-ruse by Sony and the company was using some competitive market psychology to trick their competitors. Perhaps as a way to indicate to Microsoft that they would go through with blocking used games, but actually had no intentions of doing so, only to get Microsoft to pursue the same anti-consumer route and then find that the road leads to a cliff beyond a sharp turn. If Microsoft really does go through with an always-on DRM setup for games and an anti-used game mechanism built into the console, then it's game over for Microsoft.
Your move Microsoft...your move...
