The lights are on
Sony revealed its next-gen plans a week ago, with the announcement of the PlayStation 4. At the event, the company took a step to alleviate players' fears that used-game sales would be blocked. Microsoft may be going a different route.
MCV India spoke with Eidos' life president Ian Livingstone about the possibility of a digital-only gaming landscape. First, he addressed the plain fact that broadband Internet hasn't yet reached an install base high enough to justify getting rid of disc-based media wholesale. Then things got interesting.
“With the next Xbox, you supposedly have to have an internet connection, and the discs are watermarked, whereby once played on one console it won’t play on another," Livingston said. "So I think the generation after that will be digital-only.”
If true, that could change the way console players look at games. Would games be playable on a set number of systems before they stopped working? Would used gaming be a thing of the past? Would it be suicide for Microsoft to try and take on this approach unilaterally? It certainly isn't the first time we've heard rumblings about this watermarking strategy.
Microsoft supposedly is hosting an event this spring where the company will be talking about its next-gen plans. This isn't the kind of subject that executives like to discuss when they're unveiling a new console, but if Livingstone's right you can expect to see executives squirming and dodging the subject in interviews within a few months.
[Source: MCV India, via GameSpot]
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Being a big Xbox 360 fan (though I have PS3 as well), I buy most if not all of my games new. BUT, if Microsoft did this, they just lost a lot of gamers.
Safe to assume a stock price drop?
But yeah, wouldn't the lack of a large install base of broadband connections also serve as a means to not let this come to fruition? Though, I suppose one doesn't need particularly quick internet for verification. Not exactly a competitive strategy if Sony still allows the usage of used games.
Well ill be getting a PS4 then I buy mostly new games but what about going back and playing games I didn't play when they first came out? I just picked up Riddick:AODA which came out in 09' and couldn't find a new copy anywhere and this happens often to me. I also enjoy taking my games over to friends houses and playing some local MP and this plan from Microsoft looks like it will put an end to that as well...
Key word is "supposedly." We'll see when MS announces the next Xbox. I just can't see them doing this with all the negative feedback they've got and will continue to get.