Playstation: What we should learn from Sony's handling of the PSN Store

Playstation

An important note in advance: This report is not intended to be a blanket criticism of the digital distribution channel. On the contrary, this is an important tool for both the industry and the players and has made the indie wave a massive success. Without him, hits like Braid, Undertale or Untitled Goose Game might never have seen the light of day.

Nonetheless, a large part of the really important games still appear in physical form - sometimes classically via retailers, sometimes via limited run games , Special Reserve Games or Eastasiasoft as limited pressings. This is partly due to the incorrigible collectors who want to keep their favorite games on the shelf. On the other hand, more and more gamblers are simply afraid that a game sold via digital channels could at some point no longer be available or playable.

Table of contents

Page 1 What we got from Sony's dealings with the PSN Store should learn - Page 1 1.1 Sony's withdrawal 1.2 Forever lost 1.3 Vague promises are no guarantees Page 2 What we should learn from Sony's handling of the PSN Store - Page 2 2.1 The debacle with the CMOS battery 2.2 An unexpected price increase 2.3 Never say never 2.4 Conclusion: We have it in our own hands Months: This report was mainly written in April 2021 and was largely written when Sony surprisingly partially (!) Withdrew the planned partial closure of the PSN store. For the time being, support for the PlayStation Portable is only expected to end on July 2, 2021. And yet some damage has already occurred that is apparently irreversible.

For example, Sony has secretly removed some PlayStation 1 classics, which you can play emulated on PSP and PS3, from the European store. We know this so well because we were able to purchase the Shoot 'em Up GaiaSeed for five euros on March 24, 2021. But when we started our research a few weeks later, the game was nowhere to be found.

Recommended editorial content Here you can find external content from [PLATFORM]. To protect your personal data, external integrations are only displayed if you confirm this by clicking on "Load all external content": Load all external content I consent to external content being displayed to me. This means that personal data is transmitted to third-party platforms. Read more about our privacy policy . External content More on this in our data protection declaration. The American and Japanese PSN stores, on the other hand, appear to be intact; There are still loads of PSOne titles available there. For the equivalent of five to ten euros you can get rare pearls like the Jump & Run Tomba! 2, the role-playing epic Xenogears, the motley Shoot 'em Up The safari simulation Africa (2008) is one of the most beautiful games of the PS3 era. To get hold of an English translation, you should either look for the US version or the Hakuna Matata published in Asia.

Source: media agency plassma Harmful Park or grab the bizarre LSD: Dream Emulator. You have to be aware, however, that creating and using a foreign account falls into a legal gray area and Sony can deactivate it at any time.

Also bad news: some patches for PlayStation-3 have been available for a month or more. Games (e.g. for Soul Calibur 4) can no longer be loaded. Sony has not yet issued a statement on this. This inadequate communication gives rise to fears that the partial closure could only be temporarily suspended and that it could still take place in the not too distant future.

Lost forever

Now the shutdown of a digital store and the associated one are now Fear of not being able to buy various games anymore, a relatively minor problem. Tangible damage to you personally only arises when the purchases you have already made can no longer be used. What irony: In God of War: Ascension (2013) you can manipulate time and fast forward and rewind individual objects. Exactly the same is what Sony fans want today, who would like to return to a time when buying a PS3 title was still carefree.

Source: plassma media agency

That is exactly what it is Already happened to some PC users: From 2010 to 2016 there was a website called Desura, through which you could legally buy and download digital games. With the shutdown of the service, this was simply more possible, and buyers lost all titles they had acquired from one day to the next, if they had not previously secured them.

Admittedly, within the six years that Desura has been active the owner of the site changed several times, which is why one could already guess at the debacle. Nevertheless, the case is solid proof that we are chained to the manufacturers and distributors with the purchase of digital games. In relation to Desura, one could still speak of "luck in misfortune": the games had no copy protection and can still be installed without any problems today. On the other hand, it is frightening that some titles were not available anywhere else and have been considered lost since the shutdown.

Recommended editorial content Here you will find external content from [PLATFORM]. To protect your personal data, external integrations are only displayed if you confirm this by clicking on "Load all external content": Load all external content I consent to external content being displayed to me. This means that personal data is transmitted to third-party platforms. Read more about our privacy policy . External content More on this in our data protection declaration. In the case of GOG.com and most of the Epic Store, the same consequences would threaten if one of the stores closed. In the absence of copy protection, you will still be able to play those games that you have backed up on your hard drive, blank DVD or USB stick in 100 years. But what happens if an active Internet connection is required for installation or even use? This is where Origin or uPlay users start giggling quietly, but the mass of Steam users shouldn't feel too safe either. Most parts of the strategy role-playing game series Disgaea are available for different systems. Disgaea 3: Absene of Justice (2008) can only be played on the PlayStation Vita or (as you can see on the picture here) on the PS3.

Source: media agency plassma

Yes, that's right : You can use Steam in offline mode, and Valve even offers an option to back up and restore purchased games. However, the handling is horrible: You can only save every single game with difficulty or you can press several games into a collective backup. Unfortunately, there is no automated backup that saves several tracks in different folders and that can be restored separately.

Regardless of this, the question remains: What happens if Steam switches off its service and then you shut down PC changes? Or are you just setting up your operating system from scratch? Then you would have to reinstall Steam - and that won't work if there are no more servers. All previously made backups would therefore be worthless and useless.

Vague promises are no guarantees

According to rumors, Valve has promised that the system will be patched in good time before a potential shutdown of Steam. But we don't really believe in it, simply because this promise dates back to ancient times. In addition, it is doubtful whether the manufacturers of the games will follow suit and give their okay for such a patch. After all, your games would then be usable on all PCs in the world.

"But I bought the games and can do what I want with them!", Some will now think. Unfortunately, that is not correct: If you get a game that is activated via Steam, you only get one right of use. Incidentally, this is also the reason why you can neither sell your library used nor bequeath it to your descendants. And unfortunately all of this also applies to the PSN Store, Xbox Live or Nintendo's eShop.

What an irony: In God of War: Ascension (2013) you can manipulate time and rewind individual objects. Exactly the same is what Sony fans want today, who would like to return to a time when buying a PS3 title was still carefree.

Source: media agency plassma Fans of Nintendo consoles have indeed become already faced with the problem: a good three years ago the Wii Shop Channel closed its doors; bis Contrary to many articles that are currently doing the rounds on the Internet and listing purely digital PlayStation 3 games, the nice shadow puzzle game Echochrome 2 (2010) is part of the Move Mind Benders Collection and is therefore also physically available.

Source: media agency plassma, Wii Points purchased at that time could still be redeemed until January 31, 2019. Since then, it has no longer been possible to purchase digital games for Wii or Wii U. Furthermore, the purchases are tied to the console and not to an account. So if the hardware breaks, everything is gone. Finally, Nintendo stated that the service for downloading purchased games will be switched off at some point. When? Nobody knows.

Microsoft, on the other hand, seems to take the worries of its fans a little more seriously and is working hard to ensure that a large number of its games remain usable in the long term. For example, if you slide an old Dragoon Orta tank (2002) or the open-world classic Red Dead Redemption (2010) into the drive of your Xbox One or Xbox Series X / S, you will receive a technically slightly improved version free of charge.

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Buy PS5: This is the current situation

What is the current availability of the Playstation 5? Apparently a larger delivery is on the way to Europe. var lstExcludedArticleTicker = '1371891,1371837'; The only "damage" that has so far occurred with regard to digital Xbox games concerns the so-called Xbox Live Indie Games: small developers were able to market games for the Xbox 360 via this platform. The service was discontinued in 2017, so that since then you can no longer buy Xbox Live indie games. In addition, you need an active Internet connection in order to be able to play the titles you have purchased - which is still possible.

According to Microsoft, efforts are still being made to secure the indie games in some form for posterity . But not much has actually happened. And Microsoft's ambitions in full honor: we gamers and buyers are once again dependent on the group. After all, only the workforce on the management floor has to change and usher in a change of course in order to jeopardize the long-term storage of the games.

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