During its pre-E3 press conference Sony took a few shots at Microsoft and the Xbox One with announcement that its PlayStation 4 will play used games and won’t have online requirements.
The PlayStation 4, like the PlayStation 3, will let gamers buy, sell and lend their disc-based games as they see fit with no restrictions placed on them by Sony, retailers or publishers. Unlike the Xbox One, the PlayStation 4 won’t put obstacles in the way of gamers who want to share their games with friends.
Sony put together a short video to show just how easy it is to share PlayStation 4 games with your friends.
For Microsoft such a video would include restrictions based on the whims of the publisher of the game and Microsoft’s own rules. On the Xbox One gamers can only share games that publishers approve, and they can only share games with friends who were on their Xbox Live Friends list for at least 30 days.
Gamers can only lend each Xbox One game once, ever, so once they lend it to a single friend nobody else can borrow it. Sony’s policies will let gamers share games as often as they want.
Sony will also let gamers sell back their games without hoping the publisher will allow it. Publishers won’t get a cut of the profits from this model, but it’s a more pro-consumer stance than Microsoft’s.
The PlayStation 4 will also work even when the gamer doesn’t have an Internet connection. Disc-based PlayStation 4 games will work at any time. The console won’t ping Sony’s servers every 24 hours like the Xbox One, so gamers are free to game in areas without Internet connectivity, as long as they have disc-based games.
Sony didn’t announce how it will handle downloaded titles, though it went through great pains to say that disc-based games will work at all times. Downloadable games may require authentication, however.
No comments:
Post a Comment