Sony to begin making people use cd keys?

[GNSinned]

I'm not sure if this is a great idea especially in North America, since it will definitely hurt the used game business. It will work in Japan since selling used games is illegal, but then priacy is not really a problem there.

[stock2255]

To clarify my above post, I don't have an issue with having to enter a cd-key to play online. I do have an issue if its a limited pass, or you couldn't pass it off to someone you gave the game too. If i'm done with the game, and give it to my brother, why should he be barred from playing online? If we have to enter a cd-key that is verified by connecting to PSN just to play the game, than I have a problem. A lot of people don't have internet, or don't want to have their ps3 connected to the internet. What are you going to do in those cases, just make it so you have to have internet to play? Or are they going to create some kind of activation by phone thing where you give Sony a cd-key over the phone, and they give you an activation number to type in the game. That'd be a huge pain in the ass. And besides, as we know with Adobe products, activation by phone makes it real easy to bypass the activation with a simple generator. The activation key would have to be created by a simple algorithim that someone can figure out fairly easily. I hated AC2 on PC because of the stupid DRM check, I waited months until the game was cracked with the fake server emulation stuff before I even bought it.

I suppose an arguement could be made that as the years go on, everyone will have access to internet, but we're not their yet. I know in the US there are a few companies that are trying to recieve government grants that would basically provide free WIFI or satellite internet access to all, but thats YEARS off. And it thats not saying its ok, I will always be opposed to being FORCED to being connected to the internet to play my games. I've never played a game online on PSN or XBOX live. I've used PSN 3 or 4 times to buy Final Fantasy 7, 8, & 9. I'm a off-line, singleplayer gamer. I'd like to keep it off-line.

[Shadow Pyro]

Some of you forget that the PS3 is mostly third party driven. Activision and Infinityward are already bitching that people are hacking in their games.

I see no problem seeing this implemented. It is already all there hardware wise. Sure it is draconian but for the people who want to play the latest Call of Duty or next great game, they will just give up and buy the game.

Btw, SC2 you have to be online to play for it. Also most Steam games, you have to be online to authorise them.

Patching the games with this new code would be a lot harder. The PS3 is not a PC you warez kids. You would have to decrypt the game and find the file where to path it and make sure that all the security check pass. Then Encrypt it and make sure the PS3 plays it. It possible but probably time consuming for every single game.

[Saner]

If its just to play on PSN then i dont have an issue, if its to play the game offline I just wouldnt buy that game(s) and console(s)

I share games with both of my brothers and buy lots of second hand games.

But for online play take the EA route where it costs X amount for online play, that way if you want online play you can still have it even with second hand games and the game company makes some money from second hand games.

[Jacdru]

I just read this story does anyone know if it has any truth to it at all

Sony strikes back against piracy with hidden feature | N4G

Well if sony wants to kill the "used-game" market as well, then i can see this happening but i dont think even Sony would mess with that just to kill a few pirates who play backups.

[fldash]

I get all my games used... would suck... but you gotta do what you gotta do.

[clum]

If that is true (i doubt it), say goodbye to used ps3 games.

[wigsplitter]

Awesome! I hope they do.

I think this is a great idea as long as it will allow legitimate users who have a key to continue to play games copied to their consoles, and disallow pirates from playing games downloaded from bittorrent.

I don't like piracy. I feel that it could really cripple the quality of future games released. But I love the idea of having all my games on my PS3 hard drive. Faster loading and no getting up to change disks.

You want to type in cd keys for every game you have? What about when your system dies and you lose those pieces of paper with the keys on them? What then? What about when you want to sell an old game but you can't because you've already registered the key? CD keys fail!

[Wutangrza]

I think they should implement CD-keys for online play. This would be good for everyone really.

1) They don't have to ban people from PSN (lost revenue for them, lots of people that use homebrew have also purchased 100's in content from PSN, myself included).

2) It will prevent or at least deter cheaters online (which honestly, if you cheat online, **** off.) since cheaters will have their CD-key blacklisted (ie, those who cheat won't do so for long).

3) It's really probably the best option for them, as from this point on any firmware updates they make can probably be hacked to bits. Their other option is to just ban everyone who has any homebrew on their console from PSN, but I'm not sure the loss in revenue there makes that the superior decision.

Who knows, maybe Sony will start tiered PSN, with the bottom tier being free and being able to access the store/Netflix (since really the CDN's have nothing to do with their network)/NHL GCL/other video apps, but then having a subscription driven online gaming PSN, PSN-gold (or convert PSN+ to this). This would give Sony more revenue, further deter cheating (have to pay a monthly fee to cheat and might possibly get banned/account deleted for cheating?).

Anyway, who knows. Maybe Sony will decide the loss in revenue is worth it and just ban everyone from PSN. It is in their TOS after all.

[FeckinL]

What i'm wondering is, is this the only thing they can come up with to stop us playing backups online?