I've just stumbled upon this rather shocking Yahoo! article online. Yup, this is about what's gonna happen when the new game consoles by Sony and Microsoft come out.
Yeah, this is all baseless rumors at this point, baseless rumors that I've heard a few times before. I still don't see this as being a currently beneficial position for microsoft or sony to take, so I doubt it actually happens.
lol, no I wouldn't be surprised one bit if this is what happens.
In fact I'm almost sure it will inevitably be so. Whether it be the next generation or if not the one after that.
That's okay though. I won't be buying any of it. Sony and Microsoft aren't gonna tell me what I can and can't do. I've seen enough problems and signs of future problems from the current generation of videogames.
We've all be complaining about certain aspects of this for a couple years now. So to me it seems almost painfully obvious this route in the future is very likely.
Aye these rumours have been knocking about for a while, I wouldn't bet on it not happening but it feels like the removal of one of the core USPs of a console, being able to swap games around manually and shop around for the best price of a game in various on and offline shops was an important consumer choice factor. I don't like buying things on the PS3's store because i feel the prices are inflated for the bigger games, and the smaller ones are more suited to my Android.
If they pursue this business model they will also be competing against set top boxes and smart TVs, particularly during the middle of their lifespans as more Smart TVs are sold and internet speeds increase. I already play games in my living room on my iPad streamed through the Apple TV unit onto the Toshiba Telly and if that sort of thing was to become commonplace the idea of shelling out £50 (whatever that is in $) per game along with an expensive console base unit becomes pointless when everyones mobile phone can do it cheaper.
Computers have arguably been like that for ages already, half my games are from the Mac App store, Blizzard have their own system and Steam is popular. The only reason it hasn't caused any flapping was because it has been gradual.
I'm very interested to se how the console makers approach this with their revenue model/marketing and whether they see each other as the biggest competitor, or Apple/Google.
It's not surprising, given that some companies are already doing this type of crap.
I honestly don't see the point in doing any of this. I can understand why, but in the end it's a loss of profits because people don't like having less options or feeling forced to pay more to get the whole experience. Not everyone who plays games as a hobby or whatever can fork out $50+ dollars to buy a new game that in some cases they won't even know they like or in worse cases ends up disappointing them big time. Not to mention that this type of stuff that is supposed to stop piracy is ironically more reason to resort to piracy for some folks.
If this comes to pass, I guess I'll be done buying those new games/consoles too. There's plenty of games out there now that can hold me over for probably the rest of my lifetime, and I still enjoy playing my old games like Sonic 3 and Knuckles or PSO and the like to this day.
_________________ The Local Video Gaming Lunatic
Recent stuff I'm into:
Watching: A Certain Scientific Railgun (ep.14, stalled), Hoshi no Kirby (ep. 71, stalled), Nazo No Kanojo X (ep. 8), Acchi Kocchi (ep. 8)
Reading: nothing
Heh, seeing that neither company is really profiting from their game systems as is, I don't think they are in a position to be forcing their beliefs on their consumers. Especially not Sony, given how much money they've lost over the past few years with disappointments after disappointments with both their consoles and their polices. There's even rumors that Sony won't even be able to stay in the gaming console business at this rate within a few years. That company has fallen from grace more than any other.
Then again, this is all a rumor either way so, meh.
Search Forum
Member List
Chat
Control Panel
Private Messages
Register
Log in
