PS2 now an 'open platform' in Europe

[CosmicMonkey]

No more certification required from Sony to publish games on the PlayStation 2 in Europe.

Kotaku Article
Game Daily Article

[Kitsune Sniper]

Oh my god...

If this happens in the US... does that mean we'll get tons of awesome JP games that never made it stateside?

Edit:
Also, WTF, this means those horrible Phoenix Games actually passed certification? WTF?!

[Leo_A]

What does this mean? The games no longer have to be licensed by Sony? Will they still have standard PS2 packaging, disc pressed by Sony's approved manufacturers, etc? Or is it going to be like PC gaming?

How will Sony make any money on games if theres no licensing fees? Will they still be able to take advantage of the benefits Sony brings to the table like their distribution network and such, or will individual publishers have to convince retailers to take their product and do everything on their own?

[Kitsune Sniper]

They still have to be manufactured by Sony, but they won't really have to have certain "standards". They'll still make money in the manufacturing process.

[skaar]

Sony standards testing has been a joke for 2 years now. Trust me - from a developer's point of view as long as it's not crashing it'll pass in 48 hours. They just decided to stop rubberstamping basically.

The biggest thing in this is that you don't need a licensed publisher anymore. That's HUGE for the value games business as they don't have that extra hand to pay.

[SegaAges]

More porn games?

[Superman]

More porn games?

Hopefully.

[Flack]

It would be cool to see the same thing happen with the PS2 community that has been happening over the past several years with the Dreamcast community.

[TonyTheTiger]

So now that this is the case, can the PS2 technically "die" at all?

[Bojay1997]

So now that this is the case, can the PS2 technically "die" at all?

Yes, because you still need a licensed development kit and you still must publish through Sony. All this really does is allow small developers to deal directly with Sony and eliminate some of the risk that a title will be rejected. Could this open the door for savvy coders and creative types to break into PS2 game design? Perhaps, but I find it hard to believe that Sony will approve anything completely broken for pressing.

[CosmicMonkey]

I do wonder why Sony didn't do this with the original PlayStation at the end of it's lifetime? I mean, Sony had already released the Yaroze and learnt from the experience. They could have easily released an updated fuller version as a cheap development kit. Especially as ALL PlayStation 2 consoles were compatible with the previous generation.

Anyway, I think this is a great announcement. It'll be very interesting to see what weird obscure releases (and porn) we see over the coming years. It's just a pity that a full-on TOOL is still $10k. I assume that all the TEST units Sony are now shipping are slimlines?

And to anyone that's going for a PS2 full set: Have fun

[roushimsx]

God, I hope this happens in the US. Sure, it means that we'll get hit with a flurry of shit that'd make the PS2 sections of the game stores look almost as bad as the DS & Wii sections, but it could mean good things for small time publishers (O3, Valcon, XS Games, etc).

+ Someone hurry and get the license for Puchi Copter 2, please.

[Rob2600]

They still have to be manufactured by Sony, but they won't really have to have certain "standards". They'll still make money in the manufacturing process.

I'm guessing the only reason Sony is doing this is to make back a fraction of the money it's lost on the PS3.

"Hey everyone, go ahead and release whatever you want for the PS2. Just pay us for the manufacturing."

[j_factor]

I bet Victor Ireland is livid.

[swlovinist]

Good move for sony, this will be great in the long run for PS2 fans. Gosh the system will never die

[alexkidd2000]

I really like this too. It would be sweet if eventually the PS2 was totally opened up. I could see decent releases coming out for another 10 years.

[Rob2600]

I could see decent releases coming out for another 10 years.

Based on games that were released late in the Atari 2600 and PlayStation's life (10+ years), I don't think so.

[Bojay1997]

Based on games that were released late in the Atari 2600 and PlayStation's life (10+ years), I don't think so.

No kidding. I think people are making way too much of this announcement, particularly in light of the fact that you still have to buy a licensed dev kit for thousands of dollars, probably some middleware tools if you want something commercial and you still have to negotiate with Sony for replication which costs tens of thousands of dollars assuming they let you do even a small run of 5K-10K units. All this really does is eliminate one tier of bureaucracy by taking away the requirement that you put a game out through a licensed publisher and pass the standards review. Has anyone looked at what has passed standards in Europe in the last few years? Those Phoenix games are literally barely games and only interesting for their poorly done cover art and weird names. I suspect that the only thing to come out of this deal is more super budget junk and possibly a few more Japanese titles which don't require any localization for an English release.

[old_skoolin_jim]

I bet Victor Ireland is livid.

Wow, I can't wait to read his eventual rant on this topic after having been reduced to selling his closet full of WD's games on eBay.
I think his seller ID is "game_genie" or something like that.

But... maybe he can give Goemon a EU release?

[Bojay1997]

Wow, I can't wait to read his eventual rant on this topic after having been reduced to selling his closet full of WD's games on eBay.
I think his seller ID is "game_genie" or something like that.

But... maybe he can give Goemon a EU release?

Not sure what he would have to rant about. It's not like Sony did this at the peak of the console's lifetime or anything. Other than a few last Atlus and NIS RPGs, nothing major is scheduled to come out for the PS2 after Christmas of this year. The console is basically commercially dead for full-price releases. I may not have always agreed with Sony's decisions, but at least they had some type of standards process. Whenever I see the mountain of poor quality Wii games, I have flashbacks to the crash of the early 80s. Not that it could happen again necessarily, but I don't like the idea of kids receiving games for Christmas that are total crap when their parents were just trying to save a few bucks in this economy.