1 of 3 
Posted on 12 Jun 2013 at 11:28, by Seth Barton
UPDATED 12/06/13: After E3, is the console war already Sony's to lose?
So the big guns have fired their salvos at E3 and it looks like Sony
is making the early running. A lower price, more powerful hardware and a
popular stance against DRM put it ahead of its main rival after the
first hurdle.
Here we’ll go through everything we know about the PS4 and also
highlight everything we still don’t know. We’ll compare it to the
competition and look at where a PS4-dominated future might take console
gaming.
Below is the full E3 press conference, though there’s a lot of
pre-amble so skip ahead to 33min in to get the start of the
presentation, and right up to 54mins if you want to skip all the PS3 and
Vita stuff and get straight on with the PS4 content.
If you missed out on the initial PS4 announcement event, which
contains a lot more hardware information, you can watch a condensed
version below.
There’s quite a lot to get through so we’ve broken it down into key sections.
PS4 DRM AND USED GAMES
Video games are often presented as being cutting-edge entertainment,
but at E3 Sony struck a massive blow against its main rival by simply
standing still. DRM, digital licensing and mandatory internet
connections have become big topics in this fledgling console war.
Microsoft’s plan was to join the likes of Apple, Amazon and Steam - with
content that lives in the cloud and is attached to your user account
rather than physical media - with all the restrictions and advantages
that entails.
Sony subtly presents its point to Microsoft
It wasn’t a popular move though, or at least not popular with those
on gaming websites, forums and twitter. And so Sony scored an open goal
by announcing that disc-based games would work the same as ever, yours
to play, yours to sell and yours to lend. This sounds simple compared to
the Xbox One’s DRM system which you can read about in our
Xbox One article, but at least Microsoft has detailed exactly how its system will work.
Sony have taken the moral high ground in the DRM battle, but we want more details
Interviews soon after the event made it clear that although Sony was
certainly in the lead in this department, its statement wasn’t as all
encompassing as first thought. It only applies to first-party Sony
games, with third-party publishers free to implement whatever DRM
restrictions they can invent. That leaves PS4 gamers in the same
position as they are today, with constant incremental implementation of
DRM by publishers. Microsoft’s system may be unpopular, but it looks to
be all-encompassing, so you wouldn’t have a myriad of different DRM
systems, and user accounts, from different publishers.
We hope we’re wrong and that DRM issues will not be a big issue on
the PS4, but gaming is swimming against the tide here and we’re
pessimistic. Many are picturing Microsoft as the big bad and Sony as a
knight in shining armour, but until we get some clear answers to our
questions (Sony hasn't been able to comment so far) we’ll be wary.
We're interested in such things as:
1. Has Sony made any commitment to getting all games on sale through PSN
on the day of disc release? (first party and/or third party)
2. Will Sony be allowing gamers to share PSN purchases with friends/family on other consoles
3. Will PSN purchases be locked to a user account or to the console, or both in some way?
4. Will others on your PS4 be able to play multi-player online under
their own ‘Truenames’ or will it only be the PS Plus subscriber?
Primarily, we want to know whether or not third-party publishers will
be limited by Sony in their implementation of DRM through user
accounts, with regards to gamers using cloud features, multiplayer,
patches and other online components. The way gaming is moving, it’s all
well and good to argue that you want to play single-player games alone
and offline, but that is increasingly becoming sidelined, with
single-player, multi-player and co-op all being blended together - such
as in Bungie’s Destiny.
1497 4
