Sony Game Change

A lot of hot air has been puffed out by people regarding the Playstation 4. Will do this, could do that, might do this. One thing that was touted before the “detailed” announcement last week was the cracking down on used games. In the press event, Sony flat out said this would not be done by them, but left the door open for developers. There was a similar rumour about the Microsoft Nextbox which hasn’t been commented on by the Microsuits yet. In related news, Sony Worldwide Studios boss Shuhei Yoshida told The Guardian that every single PlayStation 4 title will be available digitally. "PS4 will be similar to PS Vita in that every game will be available as a digital download, and some will also be available as a disc," he said in an interview last week.

Now I am totally not down with the banning of used games. Heck, I would hardly play any games at all. I buy new games maybe once or twice a year as there is such a dearth of instabuy games and with me being such a picky twat, it just doesn’t happen. The last few ‘new’ new games I bought were Batman Arkham City  and before that, Mass Effect 3. So I would probably skip any console which did allow for the banning of used games. HOWEVER: What if Sony was prepping a Netflix-style online rental streaming type of thing using their Gaikai cloud streaming servers? You pay a few quid a month, and you can play whole back catalogues of games back to the PS1 system. Triple A games wouldn’t be available initially, or you could buy separately, but after a period of time, would be available as part of the package.

This would literally be a game changer.

I wouldn’t care about the availability of used games or whether or not they would be playable on the system. I would have my Battle Arena Toshinden and be damn happy. My Metal Gear Solids. My Infamous. If Sony do something like this, then I would happily sign up. No wait, hang on. They already do. The PlayStation Plus network already gives you free games, full game trials, discounts etc. So if they had their Netflix style streaming it would just sit alongside with that. Microsoft Gold costs £40 a year (approximately) and gives you no games and the ability to use services that you have already paid for, and to play online. Sony’s offering could potentially murder the NextboxLive service if all things were equal.

We wait in hope.