What does the new PSN Terms of Service Agreement Contain?

The other I day powered on my PS3 for the first time in about a week to play a little 'Deus Ex: Human Revolution'.  And I was greeted with a prompt to accept the new PSN TOS before I could login.  Not a big deal since 'Deus Ex' doesn't feature online play.  But I do like to browser the PSN Store on occassion to see what's new.  So I decided to be a good little PS3 owner and do as I was being told by Sony.  Like many user's, I rarely read the entire TOS agreements.  Simply put they are long and drawn out.  And in the case of my situation, I have a smaller television and the small print this agreement is typed up in (and some game text as well) makes it absolute murder to read onscreen.  So, I scroll down and click on 'Accept'.

So what was in it that was so noteworthy I needed to accept it now?  Simply put, a little 'cover-their-butt' strategy by Sony.  In layman terms, the new Terms of Services agreement will prevent customer's from filing class-action lawsuits against Sony.  If you digg around enough there are a few loopholes to the new agreement, but if you want to play on their device you have to accept it.

So what about those involved in lawsuits for this past summer's PSN outage and data leak?  Those people aren't covered under this new TOS for that lawsuit since it occured before the new TOS was issued and put into action.

Here is where the red flag jumps out to me.  After this summer's issues that impacted not only Sony, but game publisher's market wide and customer's alike.  What has Sony discovered (if anything) that would cause them to go out of their way to issue this TOS now?  I would fully expect either something crazy to hit the headlines soon about a new internal issue or a drastic change to existing services that may impact customer's experience with their products?  Time will tell.

I love my PS3, and haven't had any real issues or qualms about Sony (with the exception the events from April/May 2011).  And one reason I jumped ship from the Xbox 360, is Sony doesn't charge for online access.  But with all the controversy flying around the last several months, I have to ask myself: "Is a single, dedicated platform for any service really that good of an idea?"

And my answer is "No".  It only benefits the companies behind the platform.  As demonstrated in April and May, a dedicated platform can be brought down and can greatly impact not only transactions and business conducted via the product, but also completely shut down the online portions of games people just wanted to play.  This is where PC gaming is mostly different.  Most PC games feature hosts for online playing.  Where the game servers are not dependent upon a e-commerce platform to operate.  So you may not be able to by a player skin for your character, but at least you can play.  I completely understand that this is not how Sony or Microsoft has setup either of their platforms, but moving forward maybe it is something that should at least be considered.

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Sony Network Pass? What the crap?

Hey PS3 owners, are you looking forward to getting Online Pass codes in your games?  Well, looks like it's going to happen.  Later this year (with the release of Resistance 3) games part of the Online Pass program will include a code that will grant you access for the online components of the games you buy.  If you buy new games, no big deal.

But if you are buying a used game, get ready to pony up around $10.00 for the online code to let you play the rest of the game you just bought.  Much like they did with Mortal Kombat (which included an online pass code for online play).  If you bought it as Used, visit the PSN Store and purchase the access pack for $10 (USD).

So why the drive for this Online Pass crap?  Simple, game publisher's get no money from the sale of a preowned (used) game.  So while your local Gamestop is pressing for preowned game sales, the publisher's are smacking gamer's on the hand when the buy a used game.  So look at it this way, 2 years into the future, Mortal Kombat may be marked down used to $15.00 (purely for example).  So you buy preowned and wanted to play online, so you'll spend another $10 for the code.  You just spent $25 on the game.

Now look at this way, you buy a preowned copy of Resistance 3 with your Christmas money later this year for $49.99 (marked down from $59.99 new) from Gamestop.  But in order to play online against your friends, you have to visit the PSN Store and purchase the Online Pass code for $10.  Guess what?  You just paid the same amount as compared to buying it as New.  And let's face it, with online play being such a big deal with many of the current gen games.  If you are looking to get the total value from your games, than you need online play to do so.

Publishers have been trying to circumvent used game sales for some time.  Most recently Capcom decided to lock game save data in one of their new Resident Evil titles for the Nintendo DS so you can't restart the game.  Meaning, if you buy it as preowned; you also get the previous owner's game state.  Better hope they saved before that last boss.  LOL

And it will be seen how this will affect game sales at preowned game stores like Gamestop.  But it's clear that the world is changing in all aspects (business, economic, and video games to name a few).  This will make cloud based options like OnLive look all that much better.

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