Do on-line and Used check-ins mark the end of gaming?

[mike_intellivision]

disolitude said:
This idea is overly dramatic and simply inaccurate.

Few things:

1. This has been the case for multiplayer games for the last 10 years. When SegaNet went down, so did most of the online MP games supported by the Dreamcast. Considering that more than 50% of gaming today is done with MP in mind, servers shutting down can indicate the end of that game as we like to play it. Even Halo 2 on XBL had a similar fate few years ago.

2. We don't know how this "online check once every 24 hours" works and what it applies to. People are still able to play single player games offline on Steam once its installed and authenticated on the internet. There is no reason to think Microsoft won't have a similar approach.

3. Even if the game is 100% dependant on servers and verification even for single player, Microsoft/Sony and anyone else implementing this DRM is looking for a major lawsuit if the game is shut down completely when the servers aren't available. At worst, if they are shutting down support for a game when it comes to server authentication, they are able to remove the limitation and allow the game to be played without authentication.

4. This type of a DRM and business model is designed for an ecosystem and long term gaming in mind. Thnk 4 generations down the road. There is no reason to think these games won't be playable on whatever x86 hardware is being used...X86 is the final frontier in computing so I doubt Microsoft and Sony will be changing platforms from here.

Essentially the only way a game library will become completely unplayable is if an ecosystem completely fails or a company goes out of business and can't support its ecosystem anymore.

1.  In other words, all games are now MMOs -- at the whim of the publisher.  As for the Sega example, I can only think of two games that were totally on-line in the Dreamcast era -- PSO and Speed Devils On-Line. (Ironically, SegaNet did not control the Unreal servers -- those stayed up after the deactivation).

2. True. But from what has been said so far -- including by the person who is supposed to be speaking from Microsoft -- there is a required daily on-line check.  How that works, I do not know.   Could this be a DiVx type system?

3. This sounds great -- except the requirement will be embedded in the hardware. So unless you are connected and get that final patch, you might be SOL. (If you can think of another way for this to work, please suggest it).

4. I am not sure what you mean by this. So the PS7 will have B/C with the PS4, 5 and 6?  Or you will have to rebuy games over-and-over again?  Given the track record of companies, which do you think it will be?

 

On reason I got out of PC gaming is that I can take and put any game made for a console in and know it will work. We seem to be making console gaming more like PC gaming. And while PC gaming may have these things, most people buy PCs for other functions besides gaming. The consoles main function is (supposed to be) gaming.  And if you can't game with it after a while, it is really not yours.