UNSCleric.com

I remember about a year ago, there was some talk about the new Blu-Ray format being used to control and stop the rental and used game business.  It went away when Sony partially denied it I believe, but now again, the news is coming up.

Here’s the full story.

According to the article,

“Sony is preparing to make it illegal for consumers to sell used PS3 games. The plan would involve Sony adopting a licensing system whereby gamers would agree that they are purchasing a license to play a game, rather than the game itself.

If true, such a move would be a massive boost for publishers and developers which do not profit from the lucrative and damaging retail trade in used games. In fact, many publishers are furious that they have to spend support money on consumers who have not actually contributed a dime to the company’s coffers. 

Sony, which is refusing to comment on the story, does have a patent on technology which would tie a piece of software to an individual piece of hardware. But technology and desire are not the only parts of the puzzle. Whether the company would be prepared to take on retail, consumer goodwill and, most likely, the U.S courts, is another matter.”

I talked about this a bit in my new article.  Hopefully this new story is not a preview of the dark future that lies ahead for the home entertainment medium.  Unfortunately, if the Blu-Ray format, which the PS3 is a trojan horse for, dominates the market and HD-DVD, we will see this followed through on as soon as they can get away with it.

This entry was posted on Thursday, May 25th, 2006 at 6:04 am and is filed under Playstation 3 News. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.