I just watched some AOTS on G4 and on the Feed they talked about how PS3 MIGHT be region free so you can play games from China or Europe on a PS3 that was bought here in the states.. well the problem with that is the PS3 will download a code from that disc and only allow you to play that copy of the game and that copy only.. So in turn that means NO renting games or buying used games.. RC tell me these are just rumors, is there any talk of this happening for sure?
Maybe. I remember once Dadda explaned that he and game developers don't like that they don't get a cut from used game sales. Though, I've never heard that Ford or GM get cuts from used car sales. Anyways, this seems like quite a why to just end reselling.
I'm pretty sure it is BS. I kind of stopped paying attention shortly after hearing about it, but IIRC, this was originally posted at the IGN boards. I believe it is theoretically possible in a way on Blu-ray discs (probably not CD/DVD games), and it probably wouldn't be TOO surprising if Sony did something like this (the publishers would LOVE them for it), but I still don't think it is likely. So, why don't I think it is likely? Well first of all, it seems like the patent in question was published in 2004, and that was just an update to a previous patent made in 1999. Yeah...Sony had this planned for BR and the PS3 all along. Even then, it sounds like the patent is more about detecting "counterfeit" discs (as in burned/pirated games), and not actually used games. The method being used sounds like a way of checking for a valid "cdkey" on the discs (which would not appear, or maybe I should say not appear easily on pirated games). The PS3 would either have a list to check these keys against, or it would have some way of knowing whether or not it was valid. Either way, there's really no way of it knowing whether or not it was "used," just if it was a legit copy of the game. I would think that instead of going through all this trouble, it would be SO much easier to do some sort of online distribution, ala Steam. So many things could go wrong using this, from what I could tell, that it would just not be worth it. Notice I didn’t even bother going into all the issues that would occur if they did do this, such as 3rd place in the "console war."
I think they can't be dumb enough to do this. Considering that means if my PS3 breaks, I can't get a new one, will not happen.
