Rumor: Vita's Digital Games Will Be Cheaper

[Treblaine]

I wish Sony would just use SD cards rather than insisting on their own memory cards, SD cards are much cheaper and better.

Of course they won't because then they don't get any money from selling memory cards.

More like they don't want another PSP debacle which just turned out to be an emulation machine and a godsend for pirates.

I don't agree with their pricing strategy whatsoever, but I sure as hell understand the proprietary memory card choice.

You know WHY they became "emulation machines" in the pirate sense?

It wasn't for lack of security, hacking those things is harder than modding an Xbox 360.

It was because Sony did such a piss poor job of even attempting to sell the old games, and the few they did sell were not at competitive prices.

Only now 6 years later is Sony slowly and painfully starting to release the lions share of PSOne classics, and these are games that have been out of print for years before the PSP was ever released. And I'm not talking just in the US, I'm talking about Europe/Japan that Sony foolishly set up as separate releases, so a PSOne classic released for US PSN may not come to Europe for another THREE YEARS!

It is also an unreasonable pain in the arse getting PSN games except via your PS3 (think of all the people who own PSP but not a PS3.

Sony needs to right out the game focus HARD on getting as Many PSone, PS2, and old Sega titles available GLOBALLY for PSV.

 

[Something Amyss]

A game company actually offering digital games cheaper than their physical equivalent? Really? One of the primary benefits that was preached to the public when we first got sold digital titles?

It's sad when all you have to do to stand out is do what you said you'd do in the first place.

 

[Baresark]

I wish Sony would just use SD cards rather than insisting on their own memory cards, SD cards are much cheaper and better.

Of course they won't because then they don't get any money from selling memory cards.

More like they don't want another PSP debacle which just turned out to be an emulation machine and a godsend for pirates.

I don't agree with their pricing strategy whatsoever, but I sure as hell understand the proprietary memory card choice.

I doubt piracy has to do with anything in this case. They like to overcharge for their own proprietary memory. The PSP used the Produo memory stick. It's still too expensive. The only thing it's going to do for pirates is give them some kind of reason why they are now justified in doing it.

Yay, another rumor. Oh well. Still, the question I would be asking if this was true is how big the downloads will be. The price difference may seem good, but they you might have to pay a huge ammount for relatively small capacity memory cards that may only hold 5 or so games at a time.

I hope it's not only that many games. I know you are only speculating, but doing the math on that: 5 physical copies will cost $200, and 5 digital plus a 32 gig memory card is $235. Of course, it would be aligned with how Sony treats it's paying customers.

OT: Haha, I see what's gonna happen here. You see, before they made up for their innate ability to not make money on their console by increasing licensing costs. So, games on this generation went up in price by $10 ($60 average game cost). Now the problem is that there are a lot of games that were sold for that much and were never worth that amount of money. Some were, but most were not. Now they are going to have to make up for their money loss other ways since everyone is already pissed off about overpriced games. So, we'll go with their new memory standard. Expensive, no different than much cheaper alternatives (as far as we know). Then, they offer games for cheaper that will fill it up. And here is how it will work with kids. Parents will pay for digital copies because it's cheaper. The kids will fill them up and then want more games. So then the parents will have to go buy another card to buy more games, and BAM! More money for Sony.

Of course, I'm speculating like a MF Global investor speculates on sovereign foreign debt. In other words, with no real idea of what is going to happen. So, time will tell, hope I'm wrong. Some of the games coming out for this look awesome, but I have lived without games in the past because of money shit. And I refuse to support another Sony price gouging scheme.

 

[gigastar]

Ok, so it seems that the PSV is terra incognita in terms of its retail structure.

Guess ill just see how the numbers crunch overall then.

 

[Riku'sTwilight]

I do hope this is true, as it's a positive step towards full digital downloads.

It won't hurt retail in the slightest, as they will still stock retail copies of the games, and many many people will buy retail, as they don't like the online world.

Considering I'm only going to use my vita as a tertiary console, I'll probably download all of my (few) games I'll get on it anyway. I've got awesome UMD games sitting in my drawer, but the games I play the most on my PSP are the one's I've downloaded from PSN (mainly FF VII, VIII and IX) because it's so much simpler, quicker and not to mention quieter playing straight from the hard drive/memory card.

Here's the thing though: the PS Vita is basically being advertised as a mini-PS3, with games of similar graphical quality being available for it. If so, how big are these digital downloads going to be? Sony invested in a 50GB disc to make sure games didn't have to be split over multiple discs for the PS3. If you purchase the 32GB memory card, then decide to download some Vita games, how many are you going to be able to download before your memory card is full and you need to get a new one? Because if they're planning on releasing games like Uncharted and Killzone on the Vita, they're going to need a heck of a lot more than 32GB.

I doubt the games are going to be anywhere near the '50' gb limit of PS3 (and I don't think many games take up that level of space anyway, as your 300gb ps3 would only be able to hold 6 games.

They will probably be along the lines of 3-4 gb per game. A hefty amount, but still more than acceptable if you were planning on buying a 32gb memory card.

 

[masticina]

Situation
Game has come out 9 months ago,

Game in the shops $30 or $20 depending on sales so far.
Game on PSN $60

...

Yeah Sony when things did go digital this meant in part that prices would go down with it.

Moral of the story if you see a game on PSN, first check shops for a hard copy!

I can only hope they fix it with the Vita. If the launch price is cheaper then a hard copy it might work.

 

[Treblaine]

Sony needs to right out the game focus HARD on getting as Many PSone, PS2, and old Sega titles available GLOBALLY for PSV.

Yep because we all know its Sony that decides wether or not a developer wants to release a PSone game on their store or not. Nope nothing at all to do with the developer who actually owns the rights to the game or anything.

Excuses excuses.

Sony has extraordinary sway and yet they are doing a worse job of getting re-releases than a no-name start-up like GoodOldGames. Compare and contrast GoodOldGames that negotiate global re-releases of PC games at competitive prices against PSN for any given region (especially Europe).

Remember, these PSOne and PS2 games are out of print, they aren't making ANY money for the publishers, Sony is asking for them permission to GIVE THEM MONEY!! Sony has to be extraordinarily incompetent to screw up what is such good deal for all parties, a chance for everyone to make more money again at no extra effort or investment, but nope, they sit on their hands for years at a time and wonder why piracy is so bad.

Certainly on ALL their first-party titles they have absolute control and not to mention when I said:

"so a PSOne classic released for US PSN may not come to Europe for another THREE YEARS!"

Sony. Don't do that. Do NOT negotiate any more regional biased releases. That just leaves the people in the deprived regions wanting (when people in other regions say they have it) and when they can't get it legitimately, they hack it and you haven't just lost that sale, you've likely lost all future sales! I never hacked my PSP, but it has literally sat collecting dust for 18 months before some PSN titles came along that interested me.

No one - not you, not Sony - can make the excuse that it's 'too hard' because they don't have central absolute control. Bullhockey! Sony can RIGHT NOW release these games at as little as a couple K investment each (bit of code work, couple minutes of legal, and write a text intro):

-Ratchet & Clank 1, 2, 3 & Gladiator
-Killzone
-Jak 1, II, 3 and X
-God of War 1 & 2
-Kinetica (very under-appreciated title)
-Ape Escape series (great for PSV considering dual-analogue)
-Syphon Filter series
-Shadow of Colossus

And all the other titles. Sony just has to show some bloody business acumen and - oh I don't know - email the publishers and ask them if they'd like to make a lot of money from their old brands that were doing nothing?!? And then, you know, follow on from there.

Sony just seems to be paralysed with inaction half of the time.

 

[Treblaine]

Here's the thing though: the PS Vita is basically being advertised as a mini-PS3, with games of similar graphical quality being available for it. If so, how big are these digital downloads going to be? Sony invested in a 50GB disc to make sure games didn't have to be split over multiple discs for the PS3. If you purchase the 32GB memory card, then decide to download some Vita games, how many are you going to be able to download before your memory card is full and you need to get a new one? Because if they're planning on releasing games like Uncharted and Killzone on the Vita, they're going to need a heck of a lot more than 32GB.

Hmm, PS3 games don't really NEED to take up all that space. Xbox 360 games of very similar quality and size have all taken up less than 6.8GB, it's simply that the blu-ray format allows the code to be bloated. Even on PC Crysis takes up only 6.84GB on Steam, and on PC there is no upper limit on install size. And that is a huge, and extremely detailed game.

Remember when games are made they are in the raw uncompressed and with so many redundant elements they can make up 1Terabyte of data, they HAVE to be compressed down several orders of magnitude not just for storage size but storage speed. It takes time to seek through a lot of data and if it is bloated and redundant then it will take too long to read. Smart coders load only the delta (the new assets you need) and with appropriate compression on each.

Microsoft's decision to stick with fast-and-cheap DVD was a good decision for more than economy, it kept games tight and compact that they had much quicker loading times. We saw a similar thing in the last gen with Gamecube that used 1.5GB mini-DVDs and was able to have much better graphics and fast almost seamless load times. Twilight Princess was I think one of the best examples of this, that massive beautiful Hyrule on a single 1.5GB disc.

Though this does raise a conflict of interest:

Technically, developers have every reason to make the game-data as small a file as possible, but Sony benefits from a large file as larger game-data file = more money from proprietary memory.

So who knows how that will turn out.

Here is hoping though they jsut figure out a simple adaptor for PSV memory cards to take micro-SD cards like I used for my PSP.

 

[FamoFunk]

Still waiting to see what happens after launch, the whole insane price of memory cards have put me off something I was once very excited for; even if digital game are cheaper.

 

[Epona]

The next question is, can I store games on something else, such as my PS3 or my computer. If I can do that, I'd likely get a 4 or 8 GB memory stick, keep a couple of games on it, and then put the rest on something else until I'm ready to play.

Otherwise I'll get the 32 GB... I'm liking the vita SO MUCH - except for those damn memory sticks!

You can do that with the PSP so I am going to say it will work the same for Vita, I hope so anyway.

On the price issue:

So you will be able to buy a new Vita game from PSN for cheaper than you can buy many older PSP games on PSN. I wonder if they are going to lower PSP digital downoad prices too.

 

[Treblaine]

Remember, these PSOne and PS2 games are out of print, they aren't making ANY money for the publishers, Sony is asking for them permission to GIVE THEM MONEY!! Sony has to be extraordinarily incompetent to screw up what is such good deal for all parties, a chance for everyone to make more money again at no extra effort or investment, but nope, they sit on their hands for years at a time and wonder why piracy is so bad.

If a company does not want to release their game on the playstation store then their is nothing that Sony can do. Some companies just dont want to do that. It may be because they dont think the money is worth the effort or that they have better things to be doing at the time. It may not be a good deal for all parties involved. It is the exact same for region locking as well. Companies simply feel that it is not worth the ROC is not high enough to bother releasing a game in that perticular region.

Yes, but WHY would they do that?

Not worth the effort? There is ZERO EFFORT! Sony can do all the leg-work. The publishers own the right to the game, not responsibility to port it to a system they don't even control! All that needs to be done is stick the game within an emulation profile. There is no way that they have better things to do with their time then answer a call from big-shots like Sony who want to give them a lot of money.

Unless if Sony never calls them in the first place. Because they are incompetent and no one is actually responsible and accountable for such things.

It may not be a good deal for all parties involved.

How. How could that possibly be the case. Considering all that has been said about how publishers get money-for-nothing for games that have gone out of print, and customers get the games they want, and Sony's new handheld is more valuable and staves off piracy.

ROC is not high enough to bother releasing a game in that perticular region.

Bullhockey. They are practically diving by zero the further investment to just extend that to another region, that there is no way they can have an inadequate ROC. Because that is a KEY element of ROC calculations, dividing by investment. You don't need to invest anything to extend a release from US to UK.

It's the same bullshit that Xenoblades Chronicles wasn't brought to US. There is no excuse for it, not even from the likes of industry apologists like Michael Pachter.

There is NO EXCUSE!

 

[mjc0961]

With memory card prices that high, nothing will happen. People will not buy Vita at all, or they'll buy one of the cheaper (but still overpriced) cards to have room for game saves and buy the games at retail.

 

[Treblaine]

Hmm, PS3 games don't really NEED to take up all that space. Xbox 360 games of very similar quality and size have all taken up less than 6.8GB, it's simply that the blu-ray format allows the code to be bloated. Even on PC Crysis takes up only 6.84GB on Steam, and on PC there is no upper limit on install size. And that is a huge, and extremely detailed game.

Remember when games are made they are in the raw uncompressed and with so many redundant elements they can make up 1Terabyte of data, they HAVE to be compressed down several orders of magnitude not just for storage size but storage speed. It takes time to seek through a lot of data and if it is bloated and redundant then it will take too long to read. Smart coders load only the delta (the new assets you need) and with appropriate compression on each.

Very true. But here's the thing: even if developers manage to compress their games down to around the 4-5GB mark, that still means there's not going to be room for a lot of games on Sony's memory cards. A 32GB memory card costs over $100. Even if games are released around the 4GB mark (which would mean a lot of compressing, or some very short games), that still means you can only store around 8 games on a memory card. And that's purely if you're using your memory card for games, not for other media as well.

So essentially for every 8 games you download, you'll then need to spend another 100+ bucks in order to get another memory card to store future purchases on.

Though this does raise a conflict of interest:

Technically, developers have every reason to make the game-data as small a file as possible, but Sony benefits from a large file as larger game-data file = more money from proprietary memory.

And this is what I can't help but think. If you're used to iPods and iPhones, 32GB sounds like quite a lot. But for games, that's not a lot at all. Any savings you make in buying a game digitally, you're going to end up paying to Sony anyways in order to buy more memory storage. And I think Sony know this.

you can only store around 8 games on a memory card.

Playlists.

Plug your PSV into your PS3 (or hopefully your PC if it has a good interface) and remove the games you don't want to play any more and loads the games you do want to play.

Say you've finished playing 'Tomb Raider', you delete that game-data from your device (backing up the save-files), then transfer over 'Tomb Raider II'. And you wouldn't install 'Tomb Raider 3' till you had finished with 'Tomb Raider II'. That's what I did with my PSP, when I had a titchy 512MB memory stick. Served me well.

The internal-storage limit is NOT a limit on the maximum of games you can own. It is a limit on the number of games you can carry on your device at any one time! You don't need to carry every single game you ever own, just a selection of whichever take you are playing through at the moment so there is no need to carry games you have completed nor games in the series a whole title AHEAD of what you already playing.

As to size. Take a look at this game "dogfighter" for the PC:


Looks pretty good, very close to PSV games quality seen so far? Well it is only 0.93GB on Steam and on PC with everyone having large capacity high-speed Hard-drives for storage there is little incentive to keep this game-data compressed. Bastion (XBLA/Steam) is only 0.82GB by install size.

Sony might try to push it with bloat ware but I think the smart third-part developers will endeavour to keep their games under 1GB and I think Sony'll completely give up with any "capacity gouging" once their proprietary hold is inevitably broken. Hell, Hard Reset is only 2GB:


You can do all that on 2GB of install space.

The ball is in Sony's court. Will they Do The Right Thing, or will they fuck it up... AGAIN!