XBOX 360, PS3 & Revolution - News & stuff

[Mr. Analytical]

There is absolutely nothing wrong with 'weird' games, I'd rather play them than ANOTHER tedious '50 Cent- The Game' bollocks, I would like to see them outside the shores of Japan  and marketed better though.

 Frink was talking about Nintendo's disastrous marketing and I responded in kind.  YOU might very well like the whimsy and humour of the Nintendo games but most western audiences, particularly those who didn't play videogames until PS1 appeared, don't.

 The question of whether they're right or wrong to have that attitude is a completely separate issue but you can't talk about the decline of Nintendo in the West without talking about the fact that they look like they're making games for kids.

 In truth they're not, because Japan's gaming population is aging like ours but it's a fact about our respective cultures that whimsical games about gorillas playing bongos are acceptable for adults in Japan but seen as childish over here.

[Garfield And Friends]

the PS2 is a bloody crap DVD player

How so?

[Purple Tentacle]

There is absolutely nothing wrong with 'weird' games, I'd rather play them than ANOTHER tedious '50 Cent- The Game' bollocks, I would like to see them outside the shores of Japan  and marketed better though.

Frink was talking about Nintendo's disastrous marketing and I responded in kind.  YOU might very well like the whimsy and humour of the Nintendo games but most western audiences, particularly those who didn't play videogames until PS1 appeared, don't.

 The question of whether they're right or wrong to have that attitude is a completely separate issue but you can't talk about the decline of Nintendo in the West without talking about the fact that they look like they're making games for kids.

 In truth they're not, because Japan's gaming population is aging like ours but it's a fact about our respective cultures that whimsical games about gorillas playing bongos are acceptable for adults in Japan but seen as childish over here.

I don't like Nintendo because of the whimsy and cuteness, I like them because they're deep, well crafted and massively entertaining games.

I also like GTA, Total War, Half Life, Deus Ex etc. for the exact same reasons.

So the 'West' like grown-up, killkillkill games only do they? Or is that what Sony and MS (via EA Games) have marketed to the west? Because before the Playstation existed, believe it or not, a whole shitload of people played computer games (and got a thrill out of violent games like Robocop, Shinobi and, er, Horace Goes Skiing), without wishing that there were more games set in murky downtown LA where they could earn 'respect' by shooting passers-by.

It's also a mistake to label Japanese culture as 'childish and whimsical' when they produce frankly some of the most disturbing tentacle-up-the-fanny rapegore material in the world.


However, if you think I'm prejudiced about people who only got into gaming because of the Playstation, then you're right. It's like people only getting into cricket during the Ashes, or people only watching international football, they should not have the balance of power switched to them. Sega and Nintendo's in-house games were incredible, and made for entertainment, and made huge profits because people were buying them.

The ZX Spectrum market was saturated with home-made games, most of them cack, but the really great ones shone through and made money, because they were the ones people bought. Originality and playability, not clever marketing.

I've got nothing against the Playstation or Xbox themselves, they're just pieces of hardware, we're not in the playground any more, but when the only adverts you see on telly are for another tedious shoot-em-up or film license, it does hammer home how depressing the mass-market gaming scene is these days. I mean, Far Cry's alright, but I don't want to play it forever.

[terminallyrelaxed]

people only watching international football, they should not have the balance of power switched to them

In what way is this happening?

[Purple Tentacle]

people only watching international football, they should not have the balance of power switched to them

In what way is this happening?

Ha, I was thinking theoretically. You know, if they changed the rules of football to suit the more casual viewer, like eliminating draws, that sort of thing.

[InfiniteFury]

PLEASE GO OUT AND BUY ROCKSTAR TABLE TENNIS AND WE WILL HAVE LIVE HEAVEN

Sorry for the caps, but for £25 and a 9/10 on Eurogamer you know this is going to go batshit on Live:

http://www.eurogamer.net/article.php?article_id=64906

If one more person explains what a "surprising move" this is for Rockstar I'm going to pay to have sex with them and then beat them up when I get out of the car.

Why is it surprising? Look at The Warriors. That was pure vanity. They just liked the film and wanted to do something new. Like when Simon Pegg did zombies or Travolta did planes or Jade did the marathon or Cruise did Holmes. Maybe they just wanted Deborah Van Valkenburgh's phone number. A bit like Nintendo making Brain Training because its finance director had Kawashima's book on his coffee table. Except with, you know, sexual deviancy. Which, let's face it, was bound to feature.

What's actually surprising is that nobody's bothered to try this in years. Because Rockstar Table Tennis is very, very good.

Superficially it's incredibly simple. You learn everything in five minutes, and then it takes hours to master. There's a well-worked training mode, which explains how the four face buttons are mapped to backspin, leftspin, rightspin and topspin, then talks about positioning yourself and handling smashes, serves and the game's "focus" special power meter, all the while it's giving you a taste of the pace. Do a quick exhibition match to get the feel and you're set. Everyone's played table tennis anyway so it's obvious how it all works and the game respects that.

Carmen takes on Liu Ping. Yes. I suspect they thought of his name first then made the game.

It evolves so quickly. Timing's key, and the timings are really well judged; the harmony's such that you can usually tell when you've missed a ball before it's actually flashed past. You can feel it go. You quickly figure out that with aiming and movement both mapped to left-analogue you're going to put yourself out of position if you hold it one way too long. Player movement is deliberate and recovering is hard when you over-extend, but like the shot system it's all logical and intuitive. You never feel as though you lost because the game messed up; you lost because you didn't react quickly enough, or because you were caught out of position. When the ball brushes the net and your player lunges forward you lunge forward with them, and then if it doesn't work out you laugh or curse the sport, not the game.

Rockstar's very smartly taken a couple of things out of your hands - so you can't stab at shots that your opponent's over hit, which would cost you points in a real match, and your player simply adapts to edged balls or those that brush the net. Providing you're in a decent enough position, you'll be able to return them anyway. There's a wonderful system governing whether smashes go in or out, too. When you go to play a shot you can hold down the button to charge it up as you direct it with left-analogue, and as you do this the pad starts to vibrate. If the vibrations are mild, you'll land it on the table no matter how far you're pushing; if the vibrations are strong, you're heading off-table and need to compensate. When the hard vibes kick in just as you're about to launch a shot, it's a delightful panic.

The subtleties are quickly ingrained. You start to throw "focus" shots into play to find tighter angles on spinning returns or to add a bit of menace to a topspin forehand. You reach for the left shoulder bumper to modify your returns into dropshots. You toy with the service meter, which has two little lines moving up and down at different speeds to represent speed and spin, and even if you're rubbish at real table tennis you learn how to read the play and react to different types of shot - and before you can say "don't stop it with your foot you'll break it" you're wiping the floor with the low-end opposition.



Let's be honest, FIFA 2006 would've been fine if it was Sven's ARM that looked like that and not his FACE.

All the systems are balanced and the graphics do their job brilliantly. To begin with you might need to keep an eye on the coloured aura of the spinning ball so you can do the mental blue=left equation and respond accordingly. After a while you just see it. You watch your opponent closely and plan ahead, figuring if you can get them to spin it this way next you can play a tight rightspin shot to catch them totally off-balance. You can't do anything that seems impossible. You can't win against tougher opposition if you don't concentrate on your footwork and timing. You pick characters to match your approach - I'm better with the Japanese girl Kumi because she can spin the ball out wide a lot better, for example, and is much better against lumbering blokes as a result. The girls are more evenly patched for pace. Push hard for a while and your focus meter tops out and you go into a sustained power-mode that speeds things up considerably; when you're both there it's intense, and so much more of a tightrope than any other racket sports videogame.

It's perfect for online play, and the online play's excellent. The pace is ridiculous, but the connection keeps up - I have no idea how it's doing it, but I never had a problem with lag or prediction or any of the other things people in my Counter-Strike clan used to complain about in garrulous antipodean. You can play ranked matches, shoot for a high spot on the leaderboard (with weekly tournament-style boards too), and failing that you can just play two-player with another pad. The only thing missing is doubles, and although that might have been nice it really didn't bother me. Given the price, you can expect a decent range of opponents to face off with too.

Also, lord, it's about time somebody gave up on all this create-a-player stuff, isn't it? Well done Rockstar. I don't care about having some alien-face-oh-sod-it-randomised peon with my name on it playing my shots. I like having a simple range of made-up players to mock. I like that Cassidy looks a bit like a mouse with devil eyes and Luc's got a rubbish ponytail. It reminds me of picking Jethro in Micromachines because I liked his picture. You don't upgrade stats. You can change shirts - and you might want to given how visibly sweaty the players get - but you don't have to care if you're not using special Adidas water bottle with the +2 spin. They don't need a rubbish pre-rolled personality. You've got one anyway! Well, you've got a personality. Personally I think you're lovely.



Go Liu! Oh, actually, I do need to.

There just isn't much to complain about. The only thing, if I have to be mean, is that with just four single-player tournaments to bash your way through it's not going to keep you picking away meaningfully for that long - although the range of achievements to gun for might extend that a bit. It needed some silly little arcade tasks, like Virtua Tennis. I love it, but I want more things to do with my love. I want tickling as well as sex.

Even so. Some games are just about the playing. They're about contesting a 70-shot rally with some bloke on the internet and squeaking every time the ball brushes the net or you scramble to block a smash. And then laughing about it together afterwards. Table Tennis is really good at this. You can't be good unless you practice, and you can't help but love it once you get good.

Fine, it's simple. It's never going to be a £50 game, but even Rockstar knows this, which is why it costs half that. It doesn't matter. It's fun from the start until the early hours when you realise you've got to get up the next day and write the stupid review. And if you can't fit a table tennis table in your lounge (and I bloody can't), it's the next best thing. It's the sign of a great sports game when you can't think of anything you'd want to change in the next version. It doesn't need another version. If Rockstar's decision over whether to make more of these vanity side projects wobbles precariously, then we must all band together around them, shielding them from the winds. This is brilliant, whichever way you spin it.

9/10

[hencole]

I don't like Nintendo because of the whimsy and cuteness, I like them because they're deep, well crafted and massively entertaining games.

I have to say buying a gamecube was my worst ever console purchase. It suffered a horrible lack of games, and the games that were available were aimed at children. I've always been a big SEGA fan and found their innovation much more appealing because they aimed at an older market. Nintendo make great games, but their range is very limited despite lots of great ideas. I ended up disliking both companies though as they show no respect for western markets, fail to release the better Japanese games anyway and have terrible customer service. If I compare Microsofts customer service skills to the Ninty or Sega there is no comparison because the latter two don't have any at all.

[Mr. Analytical]

I have to admit, Rockstar's Table Tennis game is, thus far, the only next-gen game that has seemed to me to be worth buying.

[TOCMFIC]

the PS2 is a bloody crap DVD player

How so?

Well for starters, you have to pay extra for the remote. Then there's the fact it can't play rewriteable disks (the only DVD playback device I've had that couldn't), and the PS2 DVD drive is notoriously shitty when it comes to dual layer disks. Quite often when I was stuck with using it, it wouldn't even recognise any of the Lord of the Rings disks, nor quite a few other dual layer disks. (NOTE: My disks are in pristine condition.) Every other DVD device I have cheerfully takes all of them and plays them. The PS2 doesn't even notice they're in the drive. If it was one or two disks, I'd say it was the disk, not the drive, but so many movies I put in there just flat out wouldn't play. (And this was after I completely overhauled and cleaned it.)

In short, it's a piece of shit. Let's not forget the cheap lasers that are used, causing people to quite often have to replace the entire drive, and the dreaded Disc Read Error which anyone who has had a PS2 for any length of time, unless they are exceptionally lucky, will have encountered, and you've got a crappy DVD device.

[Milo]

Well for starters, you have to pay extra for the remote.

On the plus side, at least you could still play DVDs without it. Unlike some xboxes I could mention.

Don't actually have a PS2 myself so can't comment too much on the other points but housemates and other friends have used their PS2s as their primary dvd players for a very long time without suffering any problems. The bloody things are noisy though.

[hoverdonkey]

Table Tennis is in the post from Play so I'll be ready for some that action at the weekend. That review has certainly whetted my appetite

[TOCMFIC]

people only watching international football, they should not have the balance of power switched to them

In what way is this happening?

Ha, I was thinking theoretically. You know, if they changed the rules of football to suit the more casual viewer, like eliminating draws, that sort of thing.

Or make the goals wider. Don't forget that gem:)

I think you chose a bad example, though I'm totally with you on your comments. I've been gaming since the Atari 2600. The problem with ANYTHING is when it reaches a certain point of popularity, the passionate folk who strive to be creative in the medium are pushed aside to let the suits in, who then sit down and say "No, we can't bankroll this game. There's no market for it. How about murderkillfest 18?" Corporate drones take over, and it's no longer the games that matter, it's how much volume they can ship and how much money they can make befofe the public realise they've been duped.

I saw someone on another message board who was massively excited about the new Elder Scrolls game, and they said "Once that's out, it's time to get excited about..." and to be honest, I don't remember what game it was, but it's out in October. I couldn't let that slide and had to pull them up on it. People like that are the exact problem with gaming today. All the fucking hype. I mean by his own admission, once one game has shipped, he'll be salivating over the next game down the pipe. And the next one. And the next one. So the folk in the gaming industry keep shovelling the shit down the pipe, because they know there's a whole bunch of jackasses at the end just waiting to lap it all up. "They've got disposable income. Fuck it! We'll have that."

It's no longer about creating quality games, it's about product, and how many boxes you can ship in the first 3 weeks. Fuck quality. Fuck content. Fuck gameplay. So long as the box is nice and shiny and Joe Fuckwit will part with his cash, who gives a shit that our title marketed at $60 will be in the $10 bin at WalMart within 3 months. We'll have another piece of shit out there then that the same morons will be buy for $60. Oh, but wait, let's all get together in our little cartel then say that because development costs are going up, games will have to go up in price. We can make even MORE money! This is almost as good as shipping the same sports game every year with an update roster and a few minor tweaks. 10 hours works equals a brand new $60 title that gullible sports fans buy, year in, year out." (The gaming industry would be a much better place if Electronic Arts, in it's entirety, was fired into the sun.)

The example I like to hold up for originality is Katamari Damacy. An absolutely deranged, fantastic game that would NEVER EVER have seen the light of day in the western market. "Well what genre is it? What others games is it like? Well how can we possibly sell it if it's not like GTA, or Splinter Cell, or Counterstrike etc...?" "Harvest Moon" would be another great example. Western publishers would view that game as akin to the almighty Lawnmower Simulator. "It's what? A FARMING game?"

Remember back to the mid to late 90's? Command and Conquer hit, and suddenly every company was chucking out a real time strategy game? For every great entry in the genre (Starcraft, Total Annihilation, Myth, all of which I still play) you get 20 shitty ones. (None of which are remembered, for obvious reasons).

Not sure I'd tie the blame to the PS1 myself. I think the PC taking off as a games platform is equally guilty.

I dunno. I'm tired and cranky and the attitude above is ultimately what got me hired, and then when the site started to attract corporate sponsors, got me fired from my last writing gig. I hate the fucking gaming industry, while still loving games. It's probably because I remember how it used to be. Nostalgia? Partly, but I know in ten years time I'm more likely to be playing games from the 20th century than the 21st.

On the PC, you've got ever increasingly intrusive copy protections, totally broken games shipping because "we can patch it" has become the corporate credo, meaning we're all paying to be beta testers. You've got multiple companies trying to figure out how to make money from online gaming when it used to be free. Electronic Arts for example charging for the top level of service in the Madden series online when it used to be free. Microsoft selling "extra content" (AKA content that was removed so they could flog it later) for games over Xbox Live. And let's not forget Xbox Live itself. It's never ceased to amaze me how the ONLY company that figured out how to make money from online gaming lobby services without gouging the consumer was Blizzard with Battlenet.

Now there's companies springing up to put realtime adverts in games we've paid for. "But you pay for cable TV and that has commercials!" To which I say "Yes, but back when it first came out, you only PAID for channels that didn't have commercials, but then that got bastardised as well because people wanted more money." The day I buy a game and it subjects me to ads mid gameplay, is the last time that company gets a penny out of me. (Thank christ I like fantasy games. And admittedly racing games, where ads are kinda integral to the experience.)

The suits have ruined gaming. Out went creativity and artistic integrity. In came bottom lines, shareholders and the death of all that was once good and pure. (Luckily the ethic is still alive on the indie gaming scene, but sadly, that's PC only.)

I mean don't get me wrong, I love GTA. It's a great sandbox game. Some games today are games that will be looked back on as classics. I love the Metal Gear series for example. Many people don't. Fair enough. But when any game becomes remotely big now, the other companies all cluster around to see how they can benefit. It's like the first kid at school to get pubic hair, and all the hairless kids gaping in awe in the changing room going "How can I be like that?"

The magazines we used to trust for reviews are now bought and paid for by the gaming industry. I've got personal experience of what happens when you give a bad review. Unless the company needs you more than you need them, you get blackballed, no products to review, and advertising dollars are removed. Even the credits I should have received in the manuals for games were removed. That's just how petty the industry is on the other side of the table. You play by their rules, or they take their ball home.

I don't ever imagine looking back to now in 15 years, and being anything but depressed at the state of gaming in the early 21st century. You only have to look at the games charts to see how bad it is. Of the top ten selling console games, I guarantee that at best, 2 will be original games. The rest will be sequels and movie licenses. (I'm so very depressed that shitty movie licenses have made a comeback. I was hoping we'd seen the last of them.)

All these fuckers who sign off on shitty clones, unfinished games, and basically treat the consumers like scum (and let's face it, some of them deserve to be) need to be duct taped to a chair, and forced to play "Frankie Goes to Hollywood" on a Spectrum with a dodgy joystick, and a slightly misaligned cassette player for loading the game. They get two hours to see if they can get their head around something that would never see the light of day today. If they get it, they can be released back to their job to hopefully spread the message that signing off on quirky, bizarre games is totally acceptable, and perhaps the bottom line shouldn't always be the priority, because by creating something unique, and not worrying about demographics for once, can produce something unique that folk WILL buy.

Those who don't get it are taken out back and shot in the head.

Oh man that was fun to write... (NOTE: Frankie was the strangest game I could think of when writing that. I was never able to figure out if it was any good. I miss those days.)

Anyone who disagrees, don't bother arguing. I am far too old, tired and jaded to have my opinion changed at this point... If you don't like it, don't read it. Now go ponder that, as you had to have read it to read that bit that said don't read it. Ponder, rather than respond, because I'll invariably forget to come back and check the responses anyway... and come back in about a months time when I've totally forgotten I wrote this and the thread will have long moved on.

I'm going to bed now, to sleep the sleep of the vented, to dream of a gaming industry not populated by corporate scum who stifle any attempt at creativity... And to wonder if the Oilers will actually win the Stanley Cup. (Google it.)

[Mr. Analytical]

[(NOTE: Frankie was the strangest game I could think of when writing that. I was never able to figure out if it was any good. I miss those days.)

 I remember that game.  Never bought it but it conjures up memories of the utterly bizarre Young Ones game for C64.

 So what's all this about you being black-balled? how did that happen? what did you do?

[Garfield And Friends]

http://www.gamesradar.com/gb/ps3/game/news/article.jsp?articleId=20060524153157765035&sectionId=1006
Sony are bastards. Utter bastards.

You will not own your PS3 games when you pay money for them.
Hence, no second-hand market is allowed.

EDIT:
http://next-gen.biz/index.php?option=com_content&task=view&id=3086&Itemid=2
Some doubt here.

[Purple Tentacle]

If that's true.... fucking scum!

Oh well, I've gone beyond the lazy SNES vs Megadrive schoolground reasons for wanting Sony to fail to actually coveting their failure. I'm not massive fan of Microsoft or the Xbox in particular, but I'd happily see 10 years of generic Xbox WarKillMurderGames if it means Sony get reamed on this.

How fucking dare they! Wankers! Who the hell do they think they are? They've been in the computer game market for just over 10 years, and now they want to outlaw second hand games?

Can even the most rabid Sony fanboy justify this? I'm no Marxist by a long way, so I should have faith that the free market will destroy the PS3 because of this. If the consumer is being screwed, and companies elsewhere are offering a better service, then the consumers SHOULD flock to MS and Nintendo. Let's hope so.

[falafel]

A senior games publishing source told us, "Sony and the rest of us would love to put an end to this damaging trade, but actually making it happen looks like a fight that's beyond even Sony. I can't see it happening, but i hope I'm wrong."

Another senior manager at a third party publisher said, "I know that Sony is very upset about the used games market. But this story seems a bit far-fetched."

Whether it's true or not: I'm astonished that they think it's acceptable to even be slightly upset that people can sell their games on! It's a right, not a privilege! That's fucking appalling.

ed: jesus, corporate types really are fucking cunts, aren't they?

[Purple Tentacle]

I don't see how this is legal.

If you purchase an item, you can re-sell it, as long as you relinquish possession of that item. (ie: you can't buy a song off iTunes and make copies, but you can buy a car, then sell that car on)

i mean, for fuck's sake, that's how ALL RETAIL WORKS!  The distributors buy the stock from the company for £1, the shops buy the stock from the distributors for £2, the consumer buys the stock from the shop for £4. That's how capitalism works! And it works!

[hoverdonkey]

The success of the PS2 appears to have had a rather strange effect on the bods at Sony.

[falafel]

Not illegal. World of Warcraft effectively has exactly that problem - you can only use the license code once. It's totally fucking cunty.

[TotalNightmare]

Next thing you know, all sales on antique furniture would die out thanks to the ban on second hand items. Antiques Roadshow, gone!

DVDs will only be able to played ONCE on your DVD Player so you have to go out and buy it again if you want to re watch it. Like you would if you wanted to pay to see a film again at the cinema.

In a way, this seems a little redundant as, i believe, most viewed entertainment would be downloadable in 'THE FUTIRE'!

With Xbox and Nintendo gearing towards the Virtual Console deal, buying a disc with a game on will be a thing of the past. Not only would that mean you couldnt sell it on 2nd hand ( a boon for Sonybastards ) but it could even mean that you'd have to pay for each downlaod of that game or even that it would only be on your console for the time you had it switched on (not so fucking nice).

My point.

Errr...

[Garfield And Friends]

I posted a rant somewhere else about I.T. companies looking to recurring revenues (through licences, DRM and streaming content). It's the future, and it's out of your hands!

I know this in part because I work for a very large multinational IT company and that's exactly what "we're" trying to do, like all the others in this 'internet age'.

[Purple Tentacle]

It just staggers me how companies in the free market can get away with things that are utterly against the consumer in every way. I mean, people can whinge about copy protection etc., but there are a variety of good arguments how piracy hurts the consumer etc.

The theory, surely, is that if customers feel aggrieved about one service, they can move to another service, or if another service doesn't exist, someone can set one up and make lots of money. This doesn't work with railways, for obvious reasons (god the Tories are cunts), but for something wide open like the games industry, there has to be an alternative.

I just really really hope that MS and Nintendo don't follow Sony's example and do the same, I hope they realise they can make a lot of money out of disillusioned Sony fans. I doubt it though, they both have a history of massive cuntiness.


Apart from all of that, of course, the second-hand trade drives enthusiasm and advocacy for the games industry, getting more people into games and therefore getting more people to BUY brand new games.

[hoverdonkey]

Your point is in your name TN

[Purple Tentacle]

http://www.ukresistance.co.uk/

UkRes's PS3 lie-watch continues!

[Garfield And Friends]

You've got multiple companies trying to figure out how to make money from online gaming when it used to be free. Electronic Arts for example charging for the top level of service in the Madden series online when it used to be free. Microsoft selling "extra content" (AKA content that was removed so they could flog it later) for games over Xbox Live.

Now there's companies springing up to put realtime adverts in games we've paid for. "But you pay for cable TV and that has commercials!" To which I say "Yes, but back when it first came out, you only PAID for channels that didn't have commercials, but then that got bastardised as well because people wanted more money." The day I buy a game and it subjects me to ads mid gameplay, is the last time that company gets a penny out of me.

I had to quote these two points (not-really-'extra'-streamed-content + intrusive-ads-within-games), as they are bang on point. I hate these two concepts, but to my great disappointment I've found loads of people (youngsters especially) who don't see through the bullshit and are ready to lap up these two insidious ploys.


IGN forums (a place like flypaper to swarms of ignorant, illiterate and immature American teenagers) has loads of people who actually WANT to see commercials interrupt their games (such is the conditioning from a diet of commercial-heavy TV channels).

They also seem more than happy to pay to stream down 'extra' (hah! held-back more like) content for their games that they already paid many dollars for (or mommy/daddy paid for). "Never mind the mere 4% utilization of the humongous capacity of the Blu-ray disc in the first place - I wanna download the stuff!" Here's the manta: Downloading is gooooood!

[Purple Tentacle]

Advertising is OK in Pro Evo Soccer.

And that's IT!!!

Oh yeah, and racing games. As long as the advertising fits the actual advertising in real life.

[jutl]

I don't see how this is legal.

If you purchase an item, you can re-sell it, as long as you relinquish possession of that item. (ie: you can't buy a song off iTunes and make copies, but you can buy a car, then sell that car on)

i mean, for fuck's sake, that's how ALL RETAIL WORKS!  The distributors buy the stock from the company for £1, the shops buy the stock from the distributors for £2, the consumer buys the stock from the shop for £4. That's how capitalism works! And it works!

Copyright works don't work like that, as there are two components - the licence and the physical copy. The second hand book/video/DVD/game/software market has always had a quasi-legal status, as in most cases the licence acquired by the initial purchaser cannot be transferred to anyone else. Sony would only be taking out the 'physical copy' component of the sale price to make it clear that the buyer is buying a very limited copyright licence, not a commodity.

[Purple Tentacle]

Copyright works don't work like that, as there are two components - the licence and the physical copy. The second hand book/video/DVD/game/software market has always had a quasi-legal status, as in most cases the licence acquired by the initial purchaser cannot be transferred to anyone else. Sony would only be taking out the 'physical copy' component of the sale price to make it clear that the buyer is buying a very limited copyright licence, not a commodity.

I thought the consumer didn't 'own' the copyright, which is retained by the artist/writer/whatever. I thought the 'permission' to view the work was granted by the sale of the item, and by selling on the physical object, the 'permission' was being transferred with it.

I'm sure you know a lot more about this than I do, that was just my interpretation!

edit: How does that work when the retailer buys from the distributor/company then?

[slim]

Oh dear. I can't see people putting up with that. Well, I hope not anyway. It's how most teens fund new games, isn't it? Exchanges, second hand sales. I think this'll have a negative impact on sales rather than the positive they're hoping for.

[jutl]

Copyright works don't work like that, as there are two components - the licence and the physical copy. The second hand book/video/DVD/game/software market has always had a quasi-legal status, as in most cases the licence acquired by the initial purchaser cannot be transferred to anyone else. Sony would only be taking out the 'physical copy' component of the sale price to make it clear that the buyer is buying a very limited copyright licence, not a commodity.

I thought the consumer didn't 'own' the copyright, which is retained by the artist/writer/whatever. I thought the 'permission' to view the work was granted by the sale of the item, and by selling on the physical object, the 'permission' was being transferred with it.

I'm sure you know a lot more about this than I do, that was just my interpretation!

Yup - you're saying permission where I'm saying licence. The licence does not transfer with the object in most cases (look for the word 'non-transferable' in the legal splash screens or sleeve notes.

edit: How does that work when the retailer buys from the distributor/company then?

The owner can supply the work under any licence they like. The licence retailers obtain may well permit them to sell the item on. It's also possible that the retailer never in fact owns the stock, but essentially sell a 'shelf-space service' to the copyright-owners and creams off a hefty whack of the sale price in payment.