Playstation loyalty?

I own a Playstation. I purchase lots of games. I play as much as I can (which is not much lately, though). Then, the new Playstation loyalty program, "Playstation Rewards", should be perfect for me, right?

Well,

The tiers earn members access to mostly digital rewards, like exclusive PSN avatars that display member status in the program, dynamic themes and PlayStation Home content.

Avatars, dynamic themes and PlayStation Home content? The stuff you can keep if you terminate your PlayStation Plus subscription because nobody really wants it and it's kind of worthless?

You can count me the f*** out.

Sony, you won't get my money this time

You've probably heard about Playstation Plus. For 50€/50$ a year, you get very big demos (or "full game trials", but they are still demos, right?) and lots of games:

As a member you can expect to get your hands on at least four games a month at no extra charge. Each month there will be a selection of one PSN game, two minis and one PS one classics available on PlayStation Store for you to download. You also get premium avatars and dynamic themes each month, many of which are exclusive to members.

Whaaat??? I'm sold! No, but wait, because there's a catch... You only have access to all those games as long as you subscribe. The day you stop paying the service, you lose them all (except for special offers like the downloadable version of Little Big Planet)

So your they are not really "free" games, and you are paying to keep them for a limited time. They don't use that word, but you will be renting those games. (So, if during your Playstation Plus subscription there's a special offer to buy them cheap, can you still buy them or you are stuck with this rental?) That is one of the things I hate about this current generation of digital downloads: you don't want to think about it too much, but you know that sooner or later the service will be discontinued and you won't be able to download the stuff you paid good money for anymore. So my beautiful list of games from Steam will be gone, just like that... But at least you accept that as something that will happen in the distant future. In this case, "your" games are like hostages being held by Sony, and if you ever get tired of this service, Sony will say to you "if you ever want to see your loved games alive, you have to pay the ransom!". Are you prepared to give up all the games you've collected during your time as a Playstation Plus subscriber?

I was prepared to be a day-one customer because I thought I would keep all those games. But now I'm not going to join in, even if they promise me a downloadable version of Uncharted 2 with a personalized welcome message from Nolan North... unless they change their mind so I get to keep the games. Maybe if we all rejected this system, Sony would get the message. Otherwise, they will understand that most customers see this rental as an acceptable service, and others will copy it in the same way many publishers are already copying EA's nasty Project $10, including (naturally!) giants like the evil Ubisoft, THQ, and even Sony itself!

Playstation Plus is not that great. The only "big thing" about it would be cross-game chat, and that's not even a launch-day feature (I'm sure they will offer it in the future, though). So my advice is, buy the games you want from the Playstation Store, and forget about paying to have a taste of games you'll still have to buy. Otherwise, you'll be helping to move the games industry in the wrong direction.

PS3 is down! I repeat, PS3 is down!

What the hell is going on? It looks like the PS3 has its own Y2K glitch!

Is there anything more annoying for a gamer than the Xbox 360 3 ROD thing? Well, it looks like if you have an old PS3 and you allow its internal date to advance from February 28th to March 1st, you are screwed too. The date is sent back to the year 2000, you can't play some games and you lose all the trophies you haven't synchronized with Sony's servers. More importantly, you can't access the PlayStation Network. If that's the case, how will I be able to download the fix for the problem when it's available?

This really sucks. Now, I can't use my PS3 until they fix this. I can't believe they didn't plan for something like this in advance. Also, some people think this problem is the consequence of anti-piracy measures out of control. And they may be right. Well, if you are affected by this, you can follow the story with frequent updates in Kotaku. Now I guess I'll have a rest from Assassin's Creed 2 and play some KOTOR on Steam.

But what will happen if Steam goes down too? Depending on a "global network" can be bad on these occasions.

I love what a guy called Mr. Winters said in a forum: "No, seriously... This is unbelievable, a kick in the nuts for Sony. The Xbox design flaw was (is) a more serious issue, that slow death, that invisible cancer... but this meltdown, simultaneous, global, explosive... was spectacular!"

No choices! & Sony leaks (part XXVII)

Letter 1:



Hi SuperViv!


One of this days somebody will create the definitive action-strategy hybrid (which is not Raven Squad). But even then, I can't guarantee that I'll play it! :D


I admire the Command & Conquer series because they kept having FMV sequences even after they were officially declared to be uncool. And with great actors! If your game has Michael Ironside or Tim Curry, for me it's automatically promoted to "worth playing", even if it only had a loading screen. Maybe someday I will play them all, if we get another "definitive" compilation, or when a less lazy reissue of C&C: The First Decade includes a more user-friendly instalation process (when you install it you have to enter seven CD keys!)

My brother is a die-hard strategy gamer (he loves the Civilization and Alpha Centauri games, and is now playing the heck out of Hearts of Iron III), but he usually skips RTS games altogether, unless they are in space! I guess he just wants to have (virtual) power in his hands, but he doesn't care much about explosions and stuff. Though it's always interesting to have nukes in a game, and he says the nuclear bombs from Rise of Nations are very cool.

Now here's a GTA IV tip for you: If you want to date that lawchick, just keep looking for dates on the internet after the game requests you to date some dude for a mission.

I think the good/evil "decisions" in GTA IV are a joke. You are forced to act evil all the time! There was one mission in which I didn't want to shoot some unarmed guy on behalf of a paranoid scumbag I didn't even like, and the game didn't acknowledge my attempt to walk away from the murder. Some other times, I was given the chance to spare one guy or the other. But I wanted to kill both!

That's an interesting link! The matter of "moral choices" is a hot topic right now, but it's not very well done in games. It hasn't moved forward since Jedi Knight: you got "dark" powers and a bad ending. And that's it. Not really challenging, is it? So we are now offered lots of meaningless choices (if any) which don't change anything other than adding a +1 to the evil counter. You become too evil and a bad ending is silently triggered. Morality in games hasn't gone very far, don't you think?

Later,

- Danda

Letter 2: (replying to my buddy JR, who just sent me this)



Hi JR!


The house that Sony built is certainly leaky! So now everybody knows that they do have the technology to emulate the PS2 on the PS3 (of course they do! They had it two years ago after all). To tell you the truth, I think it's great that they start selling PS2 games on the PSN store, because I don't own one single PS2 game. You know, I almost bought a re-issue of ICO in Dublin in 2005, but it was too expensive!


Of course, if they can do that, there's absolutely no reason why you couldn't play the game if you already own it. You know, like with Xbox games. If you have, say, Conker: Live & Reloaded, you can play it on your Xbox 360 because it's on their retrocompatibility list. I completely assume Sony will do the same, right? I hope their customers won't accept less than that.


Oh, but there's actually more interesting information in that document, even if it's not highlighted as "the more interesting bits":



Alpha Protocol:

You know, I already preordered this for PC on Steam... but at some point I considered playing it on PS3. It's being developed by Obsidian, the company founded by members of the original Fallout game. According to Sony, it feels "barely RPG", and it's too challenging at first (it reminds me of how I got owned time after time by the rats on the first Fallout screen! You don't want to know how I fared against the radscorpions that attacked the first town...). Sony's product evaluator produced a great quote: "Mass Effect felt more RPG". Of course, many people feel Mass Effect can't be considered an RPG at all.

Planet 51:

For me this is specially interesting. Pyro Studios, from the Commandos: Behind Enemy Lines series, is behind this. Sony is worried because movie tie-ins traditionally underperform. Well, they underperform because they are crap. But I think this case is different: Pyro Studios hasn't been hired to create "the game from the movie". Actually, the game developers from Pyro Studios are directing the movie. Yeah, you read that right.

Yakuza:

Japanese imports? Yes! (And I don't even understand Japanese!)

Game + movie bundles:

Of course! Why didn't they even thought of it before? I even bought the Collector's Edition of Stranglehold just to get Hard Boiled in HD. And in Germany, you can buy Ghostbusters with the movie.

Of course, "the movie" means "the movie in HD". Some UK stores offered Wanted: The Videogame for the PS3... with the DVD! Why?! I already have a PS3 and I want the Blu-ray!

It's funny how the big secret from the document (the potential PS3 price cut) was already leaked weeks ago!

I know you're very busy, but I hope you have time to reply!

Hope to hear from you soon!

- Danda