Sony announces UMD to Digital License Transfer for PS Vita

[kupomogli]

Of course the age of the content is relevant.

With that you're only partially correct. Age of content is relevant, but not what I was on about. While most PSX digital copies are $5.99, NES digital copies are $5 and N64 titles are twice as much. So if you want to bring being greedy into it, that's a topic that I could talk about Nintendo as a company all day long. I could easily point out multiple things that Sony and Microsoft do as well, but Nintendo is king in this category.

The Vita is 100% backwards compatible.

Actually it's not. There are quite a few games missing as digital downloads.

It's simple, if you want to maintain your loyal customers, you reward that loyalty by providing a low or no cost alternative to rebuying the entire catalog of games you already own. Anything else is just plain greed and completely out of touch with the economic realities of today and the way people consume media.

I'm not even going to point out the irony.

[portnoyd]

Dude. Seriously. Everything you are saying, Frankie did and what Frankie didn't, was already invalidated many posts ago. Give it up.

[goatdan]

The *entire* reason that people are pissed about this is exactly because of what someone said before -- when Sony announced the PSPGo, they said that they would come up with this device. It was supposedly part of the reason that the PSPGo was so god-awful expensive, it was an upgrade, and you would get this ability to do this!

Now, Sony is launching a product which is essentially compatible for free with the PSPGo, but is again telling the people who bought stuff for the PSP to shove it. That is where the problem comes in. You *promised* that you would do this, never did, and now want to charge people for the ability to do it.

Yeah, the original idea had a million and seven issues with it, and yeah game companies weren't going to want to do it, and yeah, this somewhat solves that so I get why Sony is doing it, and it honestly isn't a horrible solution *if they didn't already tell us we would have this ability for free before*. But they did. So it seems really stupid.

[Leo_A]

Are you serious? I have a launch 360 and I have played a pretty decent chunk of my Xbox library on it and the vast majority of the games play as well as they did on my Xbox. Sure, there are some games that aren't supported and some that have significant glitches, but it's certainly most of the major releases that are supported and they didn't charge me for the backwards compatibility. In fact, on several occasions they added more games to the library which required some time and expense on their part as the hardware is not 100% compatible and yet charged nothing for the added titles.

It still doesn't change the fact that only half of the library was compatible and that the majority of compatible titles ran with significant issues. Take PGR2, for instance. While there are some minor issues that don't affect gameplay with such things as the car selection screens, pay close attention to the frame rate when you're in the car. It's all over the place and slows down a good bit on many corners. It's so bad that it even seems to get the AI cars out of wack and they make mistakes they never did on the original hardware. And there's no shortage of popular games and classics that aren't on the list and don't run at all.

I can't believe you were actually serious when you said it had "almost total backwards compatibility".

I've actually been at various press events for Sony including all but one of the last 10 E3 shows. Both at the PSPGo unveiling and the Vita unveiling, there were press materials and representatives that indicated owners of UMDs would be provided with a solution to using their games on the new platforms. Now, admittedly, they never said it would be totally free, but for the PSPGo, they never even bothered to provide anything and for Vita, it appears it will cost in some cases almost as much as just buying the game digitally to begin with..

It's odd that they never used such wording on anything I've read online.

[Icarus Moonsight]

I had a run in with the Post-Eating-Tree, 500 of them.
Anyway...

Sony had to work very fucking hard to do something worse than the 3DS before their system even launches. Be impressed and show some appreciation for the effort they put into it to earn your patronage. Or don't. *shrugs*

[Frankie_Says_Relax]

The *entire* reason that people are pissed about this is exactly because of what someone said before -- when Sony announced the PSPGo, they said that they would come up with this device. It was supposedly part of the reason that the PSPGo was so god-awful expensive, it was an upgrade, and you would get this ability to do this!

Now, Sony is launching a product which is essentially compatible for free with the PSPGo, but is again telling the people who bought stuff for the PSP to shove it. That is where the problem comes in. You *promised* that you would do this, never did, and now want to charge people for the ability to do it.

Yeah, the original idea had a million and seven issues with it, and yeah game companies weren't going to want to do it, and yeah, this somewhat solves that so I get why Sony is doing it, and it honestly isn't a horrible solution *if they didn't already tell us we would have this ability for free before*. But they did. So it seems really stupid.

Sony promising any such thing for *free* is largely the product of created/implanted false memory.

They stated that they were looking into solutions for UMD transfer, they never officially in any public press release used the words "free" much less "we promise". Stating that they did is only adding hay to the strawman position in this argument.

They did initially state that they were "evaluating solutions" for UMD transfer, and eventually they went on record stating that they could not come to terms with publishers on an acceptable method. That's as far as it went. Anybody claiming that they "promised" anything is mis-remembering/mis-stating the facts.

Dude. Seriously. Everything you are saying, Frankie did and what Frankie didn't, was already invalidated many posts ago. Give it up.

And, Dave, as far as what has and hasn't been "invalidated" - everybody here (myself included) merely has an opinion on the subject. No matter how loud you shout your opinion, it's still doesn't make yours more (or less) "valid" than anybody else's.

Last time I checked opinions such as "this is a good idea/this is a bad idea" aren't a measurable thing in terms of correctness and they can't be invalidated. So go ahead and keep thinking that your position is more correct than anybody else's if it helps you sleep better but that doesn't make it so.

[G-Boobie]

We should probably remember a few things before tossing out wild rhetoric on the subject of the UMD Passport thing.

1) If you have any UMDs to transfer, chances are you still have a PSP, which plays UMD games.

2) When the PS3 backwards compatibility was pulled, everyone (including myself) screamed bloody murder. Four years later, I received my limited edition of the MGS HD collection in the mail. I bought and loved the Ico/Shadow of the Colossus collection last month, too. These are HD ports of games I already own. These are selling pretty well: some of you out there are buying them despite your earlier reservations. We are hypocrites. Also, the release of the "PS2 Classics" on PSN is being treated pretty positively. So much for consumer rage. Assuming you buy a Vita, and assuming that you're going to want to play Patapon or Gradius Collection at some point and you own the UMD, you're going to pay the fee and forget about it.

3) Sony does not have the legal right to offer licenses for games that it does not own. It could certainly offer up a free transfer for God of War, Twisted Metal, SOCOM, etc(which of course they most certainly won't), but in the cases of games by third party publishers, not so much. They have the legal right to demand recompense to transfer their games: especially since Sony charges them bandwidth every time someone downloads one of their products. In fact, I'd bet that third party publishers are the ones who choose which price point their license fee takes. We'll know for sure when Square-Enix charges thirty bucks for a license to download Dissidia or Crisis Core.


What I don't get is that no one freaked out when Nintendo started charging five to fifteen bucks to play ROMS of games that we've been running in Nesticle for ten years, on a system with a shit controller and NO OPTION AT ALL to transfer your games in the event of a system failure. In fact, mostly we hear bitching about how there aren't enough ROM dumps available to lose completely when the Wii U comes out and there's no server side account to transfer over and you have to buy them all AGAIN, because Nintendo knows Fuck All about the internet and how it actually works. So figure that one out.

I am not a fan of Sony, or Nintendo, or Microsoft, or any entity that exists purely to suck the money out of my wallet as quickly as they can. I pay for what I want to play and leave it at that. If I buy a Vita, and if I want to play Street Fighter Alpha 3 MAX on it, AND if the license fee is less than the cost of the game as a new download: great. If not? Fuck it. It's not like someone is holding a gun to my head, and anyway, I have a PSP somewhere, I'm pretty sure, assuming it still works. I think. I might have sold it.

[portnoyd]

And, Dave, as far as what has and hasn't been "invalidated" - everybody here (myself included) merely has an opinion on the subject. No matter how loud you shout your opinion, it's still doesn't make yours more (or less) "valid" than anybody else's.

Last time I checked opinions such as "this is a good idea/this is a bad idea" aren't a measurable thing in terms of correctness and they can't be invalidated. So go ahead and keep thinking that your position is more correct than anybody else's if it helps you sleep better but that doesn't make it so.

Invalidated, already said, redundant, what the fuck ever. Kupo is bringing nothing new to the table which doesn't help the Defend Sony No Matter What Crowd (which is just you and him) at all.

[Frankie_Says_Relax]

Invalidated, already said, redundant, what the fuck ever. Kupo is bringing nothing new to the table which doesn't help the Defend Sony No Matter What Crowd (which is just you and him) at all.

I'm a card carrying member of the defend anything game-related that's being railed on by hypocritical, closed-minded over-reactors club.

I'm constantly voicing support for all manner of companies, developers and publishers when I feel that an "unpopular" concept has some manner of redeeming quality or simply isn't as big a deal as the community/gaming media is making it out to be.

Just because I don't have some kind of misplaced and unnatural "hatred" for Sony based on who-knows-what doesn't mean that I'm defending them with no logical position.

You and others butt-hurt individuals are WILDLY over-reacting, and as much as you're entitled to feel whatever the fuck you want to feel I don't see anything you or anybody else has said that that strictly invalidates anything about the normalcy of what Sony is offering here.

If we're supposed to be OUTRAGED over the logic that Sony is asking us to pay for license transfer, answer me this:

If I purchased a vinyl LP of Iron Maiden Killers in 1985, why did not not retain the right to obtain it for free when it was released on CD? And if I spent $20 on the CD when it was released, why was I not entitled to download those tracks for free when they were relased on iTunes?

If I purchased Tim Burton's Batman on VHS in 1990, why was I not entitled to a free copy on DVD when it was released? And if I purchased that film on DVD why was I not entitled to a free digital version of it when it was released on iTunes or other digital movie services?

If I purchased the audio book version of Hitchhikers Guide to the Galaxy why am I not entitled to a free version of that on iTunes?

If I purchased Monkey Island for PC in 1989 on floppy, why was I not entitled to a free version when Lucasarts released it on CD rom? And if I purchased the CD rom version, why was I not entitled to a free copy of the version on the iOS app store?

If I own all of the Genesis Games on Sonic's Ultimate Genesis Collection for XBOX/PS3, why am I not entitled to a free copy of that game or all of the un-altered versions of those games available on the Wii virtual console?

If I purchased all three of the games in the XBOX/PS2 Splinter Cell Trilogy, why am I not entitled to a free copy of that game on PS3?

I could go on. I won't, but I could.

We ALL pay for the same things again and again. And for every moment of "outrage" like this another new Star Wars Box Set tops the global sales charts.

And as much as you may love wagging a self righteous finger at me (mainly just because it's me) over shit like this it doesn't change the fact that this is how the entertainment industry works. It's not by my design, I just try to look at it from a logical perspective and not act like a myopic cry-baby every time a company asks for my money.

As far as this being some kind of new/outrageous precedent, I directly addressed your specific position about last-gen games being a free to play industry standard.

If your claim is that all last-gen software should be free-to-play via backwards compatibility standards offered by Nintendo in recent generations - Microsoft and Sony say otherwise in this current generation.

They both currently want cash for immediate last-gen XBOX and PS2 games offered via download on their respective systems and I'm pretty sure that if you check the sales records Halo Combat Evolved is a pretty big seller via digital download on XBL - so we as consumers are supporting and reinforcing that game companies should continue down that road.

[Icarus Moonsight]

That's pretty much it. You can rip a vinyl source to MP3 and then burn a CD and record it onto tape reel or cassette if you want. My dad has been recording his VHS collection onto DVD for years now... They're charging for a shortcut no-fuss service, which is fine. Granted, most heavy player/collectors are invested enough to opt out and just do it themselves... From our perspective, it's stupid and a waste. For Jane Doe Aerostar Drivin' Soccer Mom, not so much. She'll gladly spend $20 to get Ben 10 and DBZ on their kids Vita just so they STFU.

[Bojay1997]

I'm a card carrying member of the defend anything game-related that's being railed on by hypocritical, closed-minded over-reactors club.

I'm constantly voicing support for all manner of companies, developers and publishers when I feel that an "unpopular" concept has some manner of redeeming quality or simply isn't as big a deal as the community/gaming media is making it out to be.

Just because I don't have some kind of misplaced and unnatural "hatred" for Sony based on who-knows-what doesn't mean that I'm defending them with no logical position.

I have no problem with you or anyone else expressing an opinion. Having said that, based on your previous posts, you are what any neutral observer would describe as an unabashed Sony fan-boy. You seem unable to recognize their numerous flaws. I own all three consoles this generation and I am glad I own them and use them all, but each one has amazing games but very real flaws. You seem to have no problem recognizing Microsoft or Nintendo's flaws, but the second someone points out Sony's flaws, it's like you are being personally attacked. Just a couple of weeks ago you were arguing that we should all accept Sony's low failure rate self-reported number and disregard a more unbiased report by a warranty company that actually deals with the failures on a daily basis.

This week, you took a story which many people found to be negative about Sony's "solution" to the UMD backwards compatibility issue and tried to spin it like it was some wonderful program. You're right, Sony never said it would be free, they always just claimed they were hard at work on a solution, a solution which never materialized despite the fact that Sony develops and publishes many of the top games for the PSP, so there should be no licensing issues. I guess I just assumed that they would go the Nintendo or Microsoft route and make the backward compatibility free. Now, obviously they ran into some issues, the biggest of which is that they are loosing massive amounts of money every quarter. The fact is, you seem unable to see both sides of an issue when it comes to Sony, so, you'll forgive me if I disregard and devalue your opinions on Sony related topics.

[kupomogli]

Sony never said it would be free, they always just claimed they were hard at work on a solution, a solution which never materialized despite the fact that Sony develops and publishes many of the top games for the PSP, so there should be no licensing issues.

If you lived in Europe they did. 10 games for free with the purchase of a PSP Go.

http://blog.eu.playstation.com/2010/...10-free-games/

Why are you bitching about the PSP Go anyways. Did you even purchase a PSP Go to feel robbed out of the games they didn't allow you to transfer into digital copies for free? Most people didn't purchase a Go, and those that did were well aware that Sony wasn't offering any sort of discount other than what I just mentioned. If you're fully aware that Sony wasn't doing anything for the PSP games you already owned and you still bought a PSP Go then that was your choice. You were well aware of what you getting into.

The Vita is a different system. A new system is for new games. Those that purchase their games digitally would have no problem playing older PSP games, but those that want to play their UMD copies would be required to repurchase them.

Like others have already mentioned, you can play the UMD copies on your PSP which you should still have. Or, someone mentioned that you can use the transfer system to purchase the digital copy for a lower price and then sell your physical copy on Ebay. With this way, you'll probably make more money off selling the game on Ebay than you lost by purchasing the digital copy. This way you're not spending anything and still keeping all your games, atleast all of them that have a digital copy on the PSN.

So you guys just expect Sony to allow you to have all the games free and still keep the UMDs? What's to stop you from getting the games free and then selling the UMDs? What's to stop you from going to the nearest video store using a one time out at a time video game rental service and transfering all games into free digital copies? I'm pretty sure people will do this for discounted rates.

The only other way would be Sony could have all their consumers send in the UMDs for a one time free digital copy of that game. There's really no other way to prove that the user actually owns the copy of the game. That would cost you more than it would just purchasing the game digitally through discount more than likely.

[Frankie_Says_Relax]

I have no problem with you or anyone else expressing an opinion. Having said that, based on your previous posts, you are what any neutral observer would describe as an unabashed Sony fan-boy. You seem unable to recognize their numerous flaws. I own all three consoles this generation and I am glad I own them and use them all, but each one has amazing games but very real flaws. You seem to have no problem recognizing Microsoft or Nintendo's flaws, but the second someone points out Sony's flaws, it's like you are being personally attacked. Just a couple of weeks ago you were arguing that we should all accept Sony's low failure rate self-reported number and disregard a more unbiased report by a warranty company that actually deals with the failures on a daily basis.

This week, you took a story which many people found to be negative about Sony's "solution" to the UMD backwards compatibility issue and tried to spin it like it was some wonderful program. You're right, Sony never said it would be free, they always just claimed they were hard at work on a solution, a solution which never materialized despite the fact that Sony develops and publishes many of the top games for the PSP, so there should be no licensing issues. I guess I just assumed that they would go the Nintendo or Microsoft route and make the backward compatibility free. Now, obviously they ran into some issues, the biggest of which is that they are loosing massive amounts of money every quarter. The fact is, you seem unable to see both sides of an issue when it comes to Sony, so, you'll forgive me if I disregard and devalue your opinions on Sony related topics.

If you or any other quote-unquote "neutral observers" think that I'm a "fanboy" based on any discussions I have on these forums, plainly stated, you simply don't know me.

I don't get off on being negative about shit like this, be the discussion about Nintendo, Sega, Microsoft, Google, Apple, Sony, etc.

It's obvious that a lot of you get your jollies by cleverly condemning every move that every company in this industry makes.

That's just not me. Jabbering on about how company X wants to strangle every last dollar out of us because they're greedy and evil isn't how I want to spend my days.

If that makes me come off like a fanboy to you, so be it.

There are plenty of people on these forums and elsewhere that really know me and know that my passion for every crevice of this industry goes way way beyond being tolerant in the face of programs like this.

As far as this thread is concerned, I've stated multiple times that I realize that this is not an ideal situation and not one that not all users will be satisfied with.

However, even if I acknowledge that it's not an ideal thing, I'm still allowed to have a fucking opinion of my own.

There's a HUGE difference between being of the position that a choice is better than no choice at all and spinning something as a "wonderful program".

You're just reading everything that I say and taking any proclivity that I have for positivity or optimism and applying some assumption that it's because I'm not lock-step in line with your rage-filled perspective that I'm incapable of viewing flaws in a business model.

This one isn't ideal for those who don't like re-buying the same games, but it hardly seems flawed to me. Somebody is going to stand to make money, and those who own UMDs and a PSP are going to have an option to spend less than those who don't.

You know what a FLAWED business model is?

One that doesn't make any money.

Because it gives everything away for free.

[portnoyd]

Since we're all in agreement Frankie is a monstrous Sony fanboy...

[GarrettCRW]

This thread needs a Picard/Riker/Worf facepalm pic. Seriously.

[RP2A03]

This thread needs a Picard/Riker/Worf facepalm pic. Seriously.

Will these do?









Bonus facepalms!

[Gameguy]

If I purchased Monkey Island for PC in 1989 on floppy, why was I not entitled to a free version when Lucasarts released it on CD rom? And if I purchased the CD rom version, why was I not entitled to a free copy of the version on the iOS app store?

It's a bit different than what you're getting at, it's more like if you played your copy of Monkey Island on your 1989 PC you won't be allowed to play it on your recent 2010 PC unless you pay more money to transfer the license. You wouldn't be allowed to backup the floppies using your old PC with a floppy drive and send the files to your new PC to play them, or have any access to a USB floppy drive to transfer it yourself.

If you bought the PC version you never had the Mac version included, why would you expect to have access to the iOS version years later? With PSP games they're the same games in the same format, if anything it's more like having the PC floppy version of Monkey Island and not being allowed to have a USB floppy drive to use them on your current PC.

[kupomogli]

With PSP games they're the same games in the same format

But again. It's not the same format. That's what we're getting at. Playing PSP on the Vita is no different than playing a PS2 game on a non bc PS3, NES game on the Wii, or even a PSX game on the PSP. The consoles can't support the previous format.

I'd see the point in complaining if the Vita had a higher capacity UMD drive and then it didn't play PSP games, but it's a totally different disc drive. That's where the complaining should end.

It doesn't matter. People are going to bitch regardless. Remember when PSOne Classics were announced and people were bitching about having to repurchase their PSX titles to play on the PSP. Praise Nintendo for overpricing their virtual console games and then bash Sony for doing the same thing except with some reasonable prices. That's Nintendo fanboy logic for you.

[Leo_A]

It's a bit different than what you're getting at, it's more like if you played your copy of Monkey Island on your 1989 PC you won't be allowed to play it on your recent 2010 PC unless you pay more money to transfer the license..

No, you've failed to form a correct analogy.

It's far closer to someone being upset that they'd have to pay $2.99 to download a 20 year old game off Steam that they own on a floppy disk but can't play since their new computer lacks a disk drive.

The Playstation Vita lacks a UMD drive. If it had a UMD drive and you still had to pay to be able to play your UMD's, I'd be all behind you.

[Gameguy]

But again. It's not the same format.

The games sold as digital downloads are not the same format as what's on the UMDs? I'm thinking of Papaton 2, this game was sold at retail as both a UMD and as a download code. If I'm understanding this new system correctly, if you purchased the game as a download code you can still use it on your new system but if you bought the UMD instead you have to pay more money to download it. Is that basically how this system is working?

I don't like Nintendo's download service either, but it's mostly for people who don't already have the game. And these are made available on another system years after they came out and long after they went out of print on their original format, I do agree that most games are overpriced though. For old games I'd rather just play them on original hardware anyway, I won't buy any type of ROM when it's also available in a physical format.

No, you've failed to form a correct analogy.

It's far closer to someone being upset that they'd have to pay $2.99 to download a 20 year old game off Steam that they own on a floppy disk but can't play since their new computer lacks a disk drive.

That's basically what I said in my second paragraph.

The Playstation Vita lacks a UMD drive. If it had a UMD drive and you still had to pay to be able to play your UMD's, I'd be all behind you.

People just want Sony to offer a device equivalent to a USB floppy drive so they don't have to pay for another version of the game when they already own one.

I don't have a problem with them offering the games for sale so people who never had a copy can buy them, but charging people for what they call a license transfer is what's bad. It's not paying for a new version of the game, it's to transfer a license. You don't have to pay a fee to transfer a license when selling a used game to someone else or selling used computer software to someone else, even if you just gave them to someone else as a gift the license is transfered to them automatically. You're not even transfering the license to someone else, the license still belongs to you just as it already did.

If these games were made for truly different formats there shouldn't be a license transfer available, you would be buying a new license for a new version. As for transfering your old games to your new system, all I can think about is how their current competitor in the handheld market lets you play old DS games on their new 3DS system as a standard feature(I don't even like the 3DS that much). This just looks bad for Sony, it's poorly marketed and comes across as bad public relations. That's how it's coming across to most people.