What happens to the games ?

[JurassicBD]

Originally Posted by Armchair NZ

^^ yeah cases are nice. Manuals are even nicer. Unfortunately, this gen has not been kind to manuals. They're a critically endangered species at this point *sigh*

At least when they started eliminating manuals they'd still put them on the disc. With some games I can't even find a controls layout anymore.

[JurassicBD]

Originally Posted by Eidolon

has there been anything said about the servers being shut down? I know Nintendo are completely pulling the plug on the WiiShop early next year and games will no longer be (re)downloadable as a result, but Nintendo do things in a somewhat different way.

There ought to be a law protecting digital purchases really. If you've bought it digitally, you should always be able to download it, no matter how far into the future. With the PS3, there are people who also have PS+ games, and will be continuing to pay for PS+, as such the games should be available for a considerable time at least, based on that.

But these are simply storage servers, not busy multi-player ones. There's no reason why the older games can't be stored by Sony, they're hardly going to take up a lot of space for them, and the reduced traffic from occasional downloads in the future won't push their bandwidth at all.

The gaming industries motivations for pushing digital aren't much different from Hollywoods, in that it's the used market they chiefly want to eliminate, as the courts have ruled repeatedly they have no legal claim to the discs they sell, they only own the content on said discs. So consumers and rental outlets can do with the physical discs whatever they want, just like you don't have to send Ford or whatever company a check whenever you sell your car, just because their name is on the grill. Based on all past court rulings, none of the protections the courts have given consumers of physical media can be applied to digital. I don't know about games, but with movies Hollywood has been adamant in their disagreement with court rulings that consumers have any legal claim to their products beyond what they deem acceptable use. They think it should be illegal to resale a disc you bought at Walmart or wherever, lend it to a family member, or even invite your neighbors over for dinner and a movie. So, a return to the PPV era of yesteryear is the world they have planned for the future of movies and with cameras even on our TVs, they could even charge for every head in the room. But that'll be at least another 15-30 years. They know it's a long game they have to play. What we know of digital today is just a first step and it's really the younger generations that they're ultimately targeting. But higher prices, fewer extras, lower quality replication, fewer and fewer releases, will continue until the physical market has diminished enough that studios can financially justify ending the era. Boutique labels that are built solely around the physical market may continue for a while longer, IF the studios will continue licensing their stuff. But high profile new releases will cost a lot more than boutique vendors are paying now for second rate catalog titles Hollywood doesn't deem profitable enough to release themselves and the occasional top tier re-release where the studio has already milked most of the market once. Add the diminished market for physical and we'll no doubt see a return to the niche pricing of the laserdisc era, if studios allow physical to continue at all.

The gaming industry is obviously a little different, but not much. The same motivations apply: eliminating the used market the courts won't give them a piece of, which thanks to Blockbuster was extended to rental surplus, lower production overhead as development costs continue to rise, for movies it's also the elimination of third party profit sharing, but unless console gaming becomes extinct I imagine that likely won't affect the gaming industry. And afterall, what game in the last two generations hasn't had to be fixed digitally at least once. Frankly I'm surprised they get away with releasing unfinished, half-broken games with such regularity that most gamers have virtually become accustomed to it. And thanks to digital, waiting for the full, fixed version at a lower price a year down the road, is becoming all too rare, unless you buy digitally. I doubt the relative few fans who will want to continue playing years later, games that seem very dated in terms of graphics and operability, by the standards of the day, seems at all a significant concern, considering they show so little care about the state of their games upon release these days.

[Suntory_Times]

Originally Posted by Alhlan Ain Ajeeba

Even though ive never had a ps3,and jumped straight to ps4,I have to ask. What happens to all the downloaded ps3 games one has once the ps3 servers shut down for good,do they get to keep them? What about games in their library,but not downloaded? Same question for ps4 ,what happens to those games?

You loose access to them if you don't have them downloaded. That is what will happen. Just look at past console services which are similar.