http://www.gamespot.com/news/next-playstation-to-lock-out-used-games-6368582

Perhaps I'm overreacting, but in my mind, having to connect to PSN to boot any of your games sure sounds like always-on DRM to me. If any of this is true, I will doing my damnedest to boycott Sony once the PS4 is out.

Except, there's already been talk of Microsoft doing something similar to try and block used games. I guess you could go Nintendo, but they could do the same.

My best guess is that there is some sort of collaboration going on between all of the console developers. They realize that if any one of them block used games that it could hurt them badly. However, if *all* of them conspire to block used games simultaneously, well, users will have no other options.

Mark my words, if used game blocking occurs on the next generation of new consoles, it will be *all* of the consoles, not just one.

I still don't think it will happen myself. There's too much business to be lost to those that still don't have high speed internet connectivity, which is far more prevalent of an issue than many people realize.

There have been similar rumors about the Xbox 720 locking out used games. We'll just have to wait and see if there's anything to those speculations.

I wonder when someone will next make a console worth owning? The PS3 at launch was certainly worth owning, but not worth paying the asking price for. Then Sony made it less and less worth owning, by removing backwards compatibility and removing the possibility of installing 3rd party software on it. Generally, Sony have been on this path for a long time, so it should hardly come as a surprise, but I certainly won't be buying a PS4 on launch, regardless of price (which I assume will be extravagant).

Sony actually fucking sucks. It's just one thing after another, I think they have new shitty news at least once a month.

Things that have irritated me:
-Removing BC from PS3
-Patching Linux support out of PS3s
-PSP UMDs
-PSN does not sell all PSP games available on UMD (I'm sure there is some legal reason why this is acceptable, but I'm sorry, Sony should have required all games published on UMD to also be available digitally)
-Vita PSP UMD passport program region-specific and also complete garbage
-Vita memory card DRM thing (I don't know much about it because I stopped caring about Sony around this time)
-Proprietary memory for handhelds
-PSP 3000 screen scan line issue, good God, did not one employee see a game in motion on this thing in the prototype phase?
-The hacking, of course

However, if you use custom firmware on their products most of their ridiculous issues are resolved. They spend far too much time and money on things that annoy me. It's getting to the point where I think they are spending money on market research to see what annoys me personally and then implementing it as fast as possible.

EDIT: Added more bullshit to the list.

It's supposedly also not going to be backwards compatible with PS3 games.

I don't have a PS3 now and probably never will. I won't be buying either the PS4 or the 720 if they decide to go this route. Hopefully, game developers will continue to support the 360 with ports/multi-platform releases of 720 games. I'd like to be able to see Halo 5 & 6, but not at the cost of buying a new console for 'em.

Can't say I'm surprised about them going after the used market. Probably hits the console market even harder though. Not to mention it would eliminate the option of renting out games as well. That seems highly unlikely. Generally they don't make a new console and then just give you the option to stick with the old one.

You can bet that Sony and Microsoft will push for having the new installments of their major franchises released only on their latest consoles.

Yeah console exclusives have been a thing ever since the absolute very beginning. Hell in the early days, almost EVERY game was exclusive to a particular console.

However, an internet connection requirement to start games or used game lockout are going to really mess up the industry in a serious way. Video game crash of 2014 baby!

This excactly. The move was to be expected and doesn't surprise me. But I think that this will kill the consoles as we know them and will open the market for some "hybrids".

And the transformation of consoles into barely functional PCs is now complete.

One can hope. There's no legitimate reason to not support the already large install base of the 360. Especially when they've put out the Slim version fairly recently.

Let the early adopters/gotta-have-its get the 720, but keep supporting your existing customers.

If I have to log into PSN every time I want to play a game, I'm skipping the PS4. If this is true of all consoles, I am skipping the entire generation of consoles and investing a gaming PC. I do not object to companies protecting against piracy or even used game sales (Gamestop is a parasite that sucks money from companies that could use it to develop better games). I do object to the way these protections are implemented, which at the beest inconveniences the consumer and at worst renders useless products that we thought we "bought."

After the first PSN or xboxlive outage, when all early adaptores are unable to play ANY games, the bell will have sounded the demise of the console. A shame.

Too bad companies will not continue to develop for the PS3 and Xbox. I have to say, this is the first generation of consoles where I have never wished for better graphics, and programmers have still not maximized the hardware.

One rumor I've heard (on an episode of TB's Mailbox) is that the publishers and console manufacturers have been talking about moving games to NES-esque mini cartridges with flash memory for storage. I think that's more plausible than going DD-only, as affordable high-capacity broadband connectivity still isn't widespread yet. The only issue I can think of is that flash storage isn't big enough yet to match the storage capabilities of Blu-Ray.

Personally, I think the next gen of consoles aren't going to ditch physical media yet, but things like free DLC limited only to new copies (I think Dragon Age and one of the earlier Mass Effect games did this, right?) are going to be the norm. From the perspective of publishers and developers, the used games market is a huge thorn in their side because the retailers like GameStop make huge profits on used games, with none of that revenue going back towards the developers. It's a special problem because games (like movies) are extremely expensive to produce, vs. a record or a book. The fault, for once, isn't with the developers, its with greedy businesses like GameStop/Game/GameStation/etc.

I can find tiny USB sticks (Sandisk Cruzer Blade) at 32GB for about 20 €. But this is the greatly inflated price I'd pay as a customer, not what a company producing hundreds of thousands (or millions) of cartridges would pay for the chips, cram a couple of those chips into a cartridge and you have more storage than a Blu-Ray disc can offer (dual-layered gives about 50 GB, isn't it?).

Yes, it's more expensive than discs, but I doubt the price is so great that they'll write it off completely.