SCEA has a new PlayStation Network initiative designed to get users to buy downloadable games, allowing PlayStation 3 owners to purchase discounted digital releases on the same day they're released to retail.
Starting October 2, the "PSN Day 1 Digital" program will offer a selection of downloadable PS3 games day-and-date with the release of their physical counterparts. PlayStation Plus members (annual subscriptions are $50) will receive a 10 percent discount for several titles during their first week of availability.
One of the primary hindrances that has kept many console owners from purchasing full digital game releases online is that they are typically priced identically to physical copies, even though they lack perks like the game's packaging and resellability.
Sony is the first console maker to adopt this stance of discounting day-one digital releases -- Microsoft has previously said that it's against offering day-one digital releases on Xbox Live, while Nintendo does not reduce pricing for the downloadable eShop versions of its retail 3DS games.
The initial titles announced so far for the PSN Day 1 Digital program include NBA 2K13, Dishonored, Doom 3: BFG Edition, and Need for Speed: Most Wanted. Resident Evil 6, 007: Legends, Assassin's Creed III, and Medal of Honor: Warfighter are also part of the program, but PS Plus subscribers will not receive a discount on those games.
This seems like a further 'whatever it takes' to get people off free PSN and into a recurring PS Plus subscription. Their download servers are already creaky - I'm not sure they'd really want a lot of people downloading 20GB games if they weren't getting something else out of it.
You save money by not manufacturing an actual game, but most of these titles aren't Sony's - it would be interesting to see what they make on each physical sale (licensing fee) vs digital sale (standard 30%?) to see how much Sony gains or loses on each digital vs physical sale.
From a consumer perspective, I want more than a 10% discount if there's no physical media, especially if I'm a PS Plus member. By cutting out manufacturing and transportation costs, it would be great if developers could have the freedom to set their own price other than the MSRP. I'm curious if the downloaded titles will run if my PS Plus account is expired.
Usually the way it works is that things you get for free from PSN+ go away when PSN+ goes away, things you got for a discount keep working fine.
A bigger concern is that the digital version only works on two devices, where a disc version will work on any device I bring the disc to. My Rock Band discs have been in probably a dozen consoles; how would the community around that game have ever worked with device limits?
Well the wii u is supposed to be able to use an external hdd and if i could put all my psn and full digital games on an external hdd that would free up a great amount of my hdd.
Not everyone had jacked in a 2.5" sata 500+gb hdd and with everything on playstation being bigger game installs and dlc would be on the internal drive but psn games and full digital games should be storable on an external drive.
The best thing would be a netflix streaming of digital games and instant dlc activation for games no downloading required.
If we go there and something disrupts the internet it would be fade to black which would also need back up servers so people wouldn't precieve any disruption.
If both 360 and wii u do dvr i couldn't imagine ps3 wouldn't allow for it.
While i have and enjoy plus my biggest problem is it's a prefered shopper club with a side of cloud storage.
even after a full year the plus content is like netflix if you stop it goes away which shouldn't happen AFTER whichever game hit a year old.
With all the free games you'd be encourged to stay with plus so all your free games would hit a year and be yours.
The cloud storage was pathetic @ 150mb but it's up to 1 gb now which is better...with sony taking away 3 systems if you're in plus you should get the full 5 back though anyone who created a psn account before 11-17-11 should have been grandfauthered imo.
If plus is to be worth it sony needs to do things like dedicated servers for ALL GAMES which means online is still free but the free version throws all games in a blender while plus members playing borderlands 2 only have borderlands 2 on the servers without cod,me3 or fall of cybertron also on the same servers.
Price is a barrier for SONY. What's more, this is a real example of what happened in our living room.
My family, all gamers, happened to be watching me browse the Playstation Store, hard to miss since I run it on a 70 inch screen from a projector. I happened upon the Assassins Creed III pre-orders and my jaw just fell when I saw the price. Everyone noticing my reaction turned to look, a short pause and the room filled with laughter.
We just can't take SONY's online pricing seriously. Really? £120 quid for a gold digital edition? It was a funny moment and one that we still joke about whenever the PS store is mentioned.
Any discount offered might bring prices down closer to the realm of reality but they have a long way to go especially when Amazon will gift back release day savings on a physical product that is already offered at a much more reasonable price.
You save money by not manufacturing an actual game, but most of these titles aren't Sony's - it would be interesting to see what they make on each physical sale (licensing fee) vs digital sale (standard 30%?) to see how much Sony gains or loses on each digital vs physical sale.
A bigger concern is that the digital version only works on two devices, where a disc version will work on any device I bring the disc to. My Rock Band discs have been in probably a dozen consoles; how would the community around that game have ever worked with device limits?
Not everyone had jacked in a 2.5" sata 500+gb hdd and with everything on playstation being bigger game installs and dlc would be on the internal drive but psn games and full digital games should be storable on an external drive.
The best thing would be a netflix streaming of digital games and instant dlc activation for games no downloading required.
If we go there and something disrupts the internet it would be fade to black which would also need back up servers so people wouldn't precieve any disruption.
If both 360 and wii u do dvr i couldn't imagine ps3 wouldn't allow for it.
While i have and enjoy plus my biggest problem is it's a prefered shopper club with a side of cloud storage.
even after a full year the plus content is like netflix if you stop it goes away which shouldn't happen AFTER whichever game hit a year old.
With all the free games you'd be encourged to stay with plus so all your free games would hit a year and be yours.
The cloud storage was pathetic @ 150mb but it's up to 1 gb now which is better...with sony taking away 3 systems if you're in plus you should get the full 5 back though anyone who created a psn account before 11-17-11 should have been grandfauthered imo.
If plus is to be worth it sony needs to do things like dedicated servers for ALL GAMES which means online is still free but the free version throws all games in a blender while plus members playing borderlands 2 only have borderlands 2 on the servers without cod,me3 or fall of cybertron also on the same servers.
My family, all gamers, happened to be watching me browse the Playstation Store, hard to miss since I run it on a 70 inch screen from a projector. I happened upon the Assassins Creed III pre-orders and my jaw just fell when I saw the price. Everyone noticing my reaction turned to look, a short pause and the room filled with laughter.
We just can't take SONY's online pricing seriously. Really? £120 quid for a gold digital edition? It was a funny moment and one that we still joke about whenever the PS store is mentioned.
Any discount offered might bring prices down closer to the realm of reality but they have a long way to go especially when Amazon will gift back release day savings on a physical product that is already offered at a much more reasonable price.