PS3 gets Life and Movie service and Xbox 360 gets ability to transfer games
By Mike Ferro
What a busy day today has been, not only has Microsoft announced the release of a new tool to help gamers transfer downloadable games from one Xbox 360 to another 360 without getting slapped with DRM issues, Sony has announced a new movie and ‘Life’ service coming soon.
The main issue with the DRM on the Xbox 360 is once your system goes RROD you practically loose ownership of that game. After copying downloaded games to a replacement Xbox 360 users found out they did not have access to these games without having to sign on to Xbox Live.
It may not be a big deal to most, but for people who do not have an active Internet connection, or those wishing to play their downloadable game without being wired into Live can do so now. According to Kotaku This tools gives users the ability transfer the license of the game from console to console while still maintaining its unique DRM identity.
On the PS3 front, Sony has announced two new services, ‘Life’ and a movie download service coming soon. Life is a cool new service which gives you a globe of the world, and you can spin it around to any location you desire and pull up that location’s weather and news. Pretty cool stuff, now users will be able to learn where Guatemala is located on a map.
Sony’s other service is the movie download service. It has been in the works for quite some time after its announcement last year. It’s quite surprising why Sony did not have this service in place day one. After all, Sony owns 40% of the movie studios out there and the studio’s movie libraries are immense.
According to Game Daily, not only did Sony announce the Life and movie services, it was also announced that PSN membership had reached about 10 million member accounts, downloading approximately enough data to equal 17 million single-layer DVDs.
I’m guilty as charged; I buy up everything on PSN and download all the content as well. I also download everything and buy up most of the stuff on XBL except for those old arcade classics.
That reminds me I need to go play some more Commando 3.
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Tips N4G
June 26th, 2008
Commando 3 is sooooo cool. Played it today.
On the movie download service, nah, not interested. Blu-ray will do me fine thanks. I don’t want to download for ever and then clog up HDisk space with movies.
My HDisk is for games & music. Thats it.
June 27th, 2008
Hello…..shit.
June 27th, 2008
Wow that globe thing sounds really cool. They have it on the media player when playing songs and i was thinking they should do the globe in real time with weather and sunlight/night time etc. Im guessing this will be launched at E3? Movie download sounds great as well but as i said on another post, i really need a hard-drive upgrade : Thanks sony for making it replaceable with laptop hard drives.
June 27th, 2008
one has to wonder why sony is sabotaging their bluray efforts by offering movie d/l service. It goes completely against the grain and negates the need for a bluray drive compeletely. Sony is so confused they have no idea which way to run. hilarious….
June 27th, 2008
Kev - it’s about options. You can’t put a spin on everything. Now 360 will have Netflix (which everyone will be able to get when Netflix comes out with their download box) and PS3 will get downloads and bluray. Sounds good to me, I like options!
June 27th, 2008
Yeh Kevin , like having HD DVD (deceased) and movie downloads - how retarded! At least Sony use Blu Ray for something other than films.
June 27th, 2008
Gotta agree with Wylie here.
Not everything Sony/PS3 needs to be spun into some ‘Anti PS3′ or ‘Pro 360′ thing.
I like the idea. I’m a big fan of digital downloading IF it is FAST (e.g 10mbps). I don’t care if I don’t own the physical copies.
That said there are ALOT of people who prefer the physical disk, you just pop it in and play. Done.
On top of that, with Hancock (Yes it doesn’t interest me either) they are releasing the movie on DD before the DVD release as I understand it. So Sony could use this as an opportunity to say ‘ok you can get X a few weeks/months before DVD/BluRay, but it will be the movie ONLY, wait for blu ray for nice features and box if you want’
My only complaint will be the DRM, you can bet your bottom dollar Sony is going to try to lock these movies down with everything they can, and it will STILL get ripped. I would prefer a nice high quality file I could move around or re-encode etc.
June 27th, 2008
wylie, royzy - please take at LEAST one business class. they are shooting themselves in the foot. with bluray they see a higher margin per disk than what they’ll see with movie d/l.
yes, sony uses bluray for things other than films. those costs are passed onto the publisher which reduces margins for everyone. the fact that multiplat games almost constently look better on the 360 should prove to you that bluray is not needed for gaming, unless you like 10hours of cg sequences. which most gamers don’t.
sony never touted a benefit of bluray for gaming. only for movies. why? becuase their IS no benefit of bluray in gaming. sorry.
June 27th, 2008
Kev - everyone knows that most of those multiplat games you speak of are ported over from 360 games. I have taken a business class Kev, but even if I hadn’t I would know enough to see that options are good. Now they have two revenue builders on the way. There are different people out in this world Kev. Some may prefer to download a movie, most however will impulse buy at a store or rent from a store. Covering both demographics is GOOD BUSINESS! According to your theory M$ should have stuck with PC gaming, they were shooting themselves in the foot by going after the console consumers. The bigger the demographic you make your products available to the more sales you will recieve. (Business 101)
June 30th, 2008
wylie - actually many multiplat games are developed parallel. not ports. GTA
June 30th, 2008
(continued)..gta comes to mind. if bluray was NEEDED, it never would have come out on the 360.
the razor to blades model that sony is using is dependent on bluray disks making up for the high cost of the drives with the disk’s large margins. However, with the low margins of d/l movies they are directly taking the potential of a bluray sale away from the consumer. don’t think that sony gets every dime from the d/l movie. not even close. they’ll prolly enjoy larger revenues from sony studio movies, but not so much from others.
CAD made a great point. ms opted not to back bluray and go for d/l movies. while sony opted for bluray then decided to back d/l movies thus impacting their bluray strategy. i’m thinking ms was making the right decision. judging from the last place where sony sits, it looks like it was the right one.
you’re making a huge assumptionon the demographics, since the userbase of the ps3 is low in comparison to competing consoles and services.
believe what you want, but i’d wait until sony delivers before hyping anything. the have a long history of lying about what they will deliver.
June 30th, 2008
Got fuckee???