Sony confirms UMD-less Patapon 2 US release |
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It's no longer a rumor: Sony has confirmed that Patapon 2 will be shipping UMD-less in North America next month.
According to Kotaku, SCEA's Senior Director of Corporate Communications, Patrick Seybold, has called the move a "one time test case" as part of their explorations on consumer reactions to digital-only releases. I expect to see more of this kind of releases if this takes off.
Question time: does this affect your purchasing decisions? Will you still buy the game knowing that all you get is an empty UMD case and a download code?
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Comments [refresh]
This isn't going to stop piracy. Not even going to slow it down any. And what about people who want to play it but don't have an active internet connection, or one that is too slow to download (i.e. dial up)? Yeah, those people aren't allowed to play the game.
this sucks i have horrible download speeds and it would probably take over 3 days to download.
What is sony thinking about....are they *****ing gonna give free memory sticks? and i don't think i want to wait for 2 hours to download a *****ing game and spend more money on memory sticks..
u dont need an active net connection to play, and who still has no fast connection to internet these days?? dial up?? computer shops costs 50 cents an hour.
I never thought I'd get encouragement from sony to download this game.
The euro release is already out, and it's free. So much for me wanting to pick this up on UMD to free up some space.
as long as the code doesn't expire...
and as long as i have a large memory stick
and as long as the game is a small size :(
im all ready enjoying this and im in US XD
The PSP has slow ass wi-fi so that doesn`t help at all either, wirelessly speaking.
I like physical objects, I prefer it, it's much better.
It makes a shelf full of collectors stuff look good.
Sure I could say "LOOK AT MY AWESOME COLLECTION OF GAMES ON MY MEMORY STICK"
But it just doesn't have the same effect as "Look at my awesome bookshelf of manga, anime and games!"
Know what I mean?
True, PSP has awful Wi-Fi
And MANY people still use Dial-Up, more than even I ever thought, but a firend of mine has Dial-Up, and so do many others.
Plus not everyone wants to pay £1 an hour for an internet cafe that will obviously not give you their Wi-Fi code.
Not to mention the issue of memory stick space, it doesn't take a genius to figure out that not everyone's going to be able to fit and keep a 1GB+ games on their memory stick, even if you can redownload it, that's still a long wait to download a game that size and to use so much space, Sony's not thinking this through properly, they have the ideas just not the "ideas".
UMDs may not be the best option for portable gaming, but download-only full retail games are not the alternative.
That will sick for people that have PSPs and no internet or dial up.
@ MedHead:
Spot ON MedHead, Digital download ONLY is a big gamble.
As much as people complain about UMDs there the best option for a portable gaming system like the PSP. With a capacity at 1.8GB, or so, there is room for full content games and more. As JoycieC also stated, I want to physically own my games, DL is not that same as having a hard copy to own.
My guess is that in 6 months or so they will back track and release it on UMD as well.
I concur
Is downloading it from the PC PSN store possible?
I'd like to see PSP game download kiosks. You bring in your PSP/memory stick/external storage of some kind and buy/copy the game off of a hard drive stored locally.
Bam. After the initial investment, distribution costs are obliterated, and the system could easily be upgraded for use with newer consoles.
Offer the same downloads to home users and voila, a disc-less world where broadband and dial-up users alike are happy.
As some of you says, when I buy a game I like to have it physically. I like to have the boxes with their little instructions books and the games, even if I play the game using it's .iso. But I was going to buy Patapon 2 and now I think I will not.
I hope you are right Viper_Bravo, and in six months or so the game will be released on UMD.
This is of course a test to see what will happend if they release the PSP2 (that with no UMD), but when someone buys a game, he or she likes to have it in his/her hands!
Maybe with the next console they could sell MS-Pro DUO sticks (or faster ones) with the game and without write permissions. If they are going to finish with UMDs, that could be an option.
I like Sony pushing the PSN a bit further, maybe one day homebrew devs would be able to spread their work with this...
That really sucks, if all game will be download like this one
time to sell my psp, so bye bye sony
Amen to that
I've never played a Patapon game, but I generally like to have physical evidence of my game purchases...
Still waiting for Birth by Sleep news...I need a Kingdom Hearts fix...and I don't think 385/2 Days can fill it....
I too like to have the physical box and instruction booklet. Just as a keepsake.
I think the only way they can go is with the proDuo sticks. It is becoming an increasingly cheap alternative and can hold way more than a UMD. I say they package a MS-proDuo with a package and instruction book, they could even have art on the sticks. Just think you could have extra photos, game tracks, trailers/ingame movie scenes all on their own custom stick. Just make them unwritable to the user.
IMHO that is the best option hands down.
Homebrew on PSN will never happen, and dont use XBLA as an example of homebrew on XB. There little coding ensnarement for "Anyone" who want to make a game is a joke.
I agree 100% my friend :3
There are a few things that don't make sense here...
First of all, why would you buy an empty box with a download code? I mean, if you had to download it anyway, why would you bother going to the store to get the box and download code when you can just buy it straight from the PS store??? Does the coexistence of a store bought download code and the PS Store make any sense at all?
Secondly, why include an empty UMD case if the download is going on a memorystick. If you want to include a case at all, include a damn pro-duo case.
Download only games isn't a bad idea, but the way they're implementing it is. For this to be successful, they need to either, A, invest in download kiosks for game stores so that people without internet connections can purchase it, B, sell the game in stores on a memorycard, this would increase the price of course. Or C, work out a deal with somewhere like Kinkos to advertise and promote it so people without internet or knowledge of how to download the game will know an option or place they can go to get it.
Just another example of Sony's enduring track record for having great ideas, but implementing them poorly or just falling short.
why bother making them unwritable? they would be more valuable if they could be reused for other data.
Plus, with custom art they could become something like collectors items.
you don't speak for everyone. Personally, I don't care about a box or any of that, just more junk in my opinion... I like to have a manual, but that could easily be replaced with a PDF. I do agree that they should sell it on Pro DUO sticks though, its not smart to make it so that you can only download it unless they implement download kiosks.
I don't think UMDs are the best option at all. They're battery consuming, noisy, easily damaged, and bulky. To be direct, I think Pro DUO sticks are the best option.
you can still go somewhere like Kinkos or Starbucks to download it, but its definitely an inconvenience, and I'm willing to bet that there are some people that aren't techno-savy enough to do that.
I guess if you're a little kid and like to brag, then I can see your point, but for me, its more convenient and less cluttered to keep all of my anime and games, etc. on a harddrive. The problem is that too many people are still in that consumer frame of mind... when most people think product, they think physical. That can easily change with more of this type of thing occuring. I'm actually anxious to see the day that we break that tether to physical clutter and junk. I for one already have and really enjoy how space saving and convenient it is.
all that isn't needed for me... well maybe the first one. But for me, the most important aspect will be if the price reflects the loss of the storage media. I'd happily forgo a physical disc if the game was a steal when it came to price. Its the very reason that Itunes stays in business regardless of the fact that music is easy to download nowadays. I think its a smart move to catch up with the times and combat piracy if implemented correctly. Why risk pirating a game when you could have full support for a few bucks... say $5...
However, if the price isn't dropped much, then they could mess this up for everyone, including companies trying to make the same implementation in the future.
But if this catches on, I won't buy another PSP game. I don't buy data.
Stop being a *****ing brit and talk like a real person god damn it. It's $ not *****ing E.
Sounds like Sony is testing the waters on digital downloads before releasing there next PSP sans UMD drive.
I think it's a bad move and was probably thought up by the same guy that thought it was a good move to eliminate PS2/PSX backwards compatibility from the PS3!...
this wouldnt stop me from buying it, but it won't make me jump for joy on release date to buy it either, no point, I liked having my UMDs
They clearly said this is a "one time test case".
If you don't like it, don't buy the game.
They will see that it doesn't work yet and will switch back to UMD eventually.
You guys remember the UMD less PSP2, there trying to test it out right now on PSP as a beta type thing.
This is what PSP2 will be like basically.
This is no alternative, its just Sony's way of TESTING how it would work for PSP2.
Well it kinda is but its a test run for there prototype PSP2's.
Understand now.
Don't get angry at Sony about the new PSP2, this is how games are gonna work after its released this winter.
I already know, I've been knowing about the PSP2 for along time, while you people have been very naive with the thought. Its a fact that theres a PSP2 coming this year.
Just buy a damn 8gig memory stick and then go to Starbucks to download the game. Digital distribution is better because you can carry all of your games in one memory stick and not bother with game cases.
Another thing, when I play games on my ps3: most of the time, I choose to play a psn downloaded game over a bluray game. Why? Because I'm too damn lazy to get up, change the game and put the other game away in its case. While in my ps3, I can simply hit quit scroll to another game and hit x. Simple~
Just buy a damn 8gig memory stick and then go to Starbucks to download the game. Digital distribution is better because you can carry all of your games in one memory stick and not bother with game cases.
Another thing, when I play games on my ps3: most of the time, I choose to play a psn downloaded game over a bluray game. Why? Because I'm too damn lazy to get up, change the game and put the other game away in its case. While in my ps3, I can simply hit quit scroll to another game and hit x. Simple~
i hope this test fails!
the current psp's available in the market has UMD drives to play games in. most people would still wanna buy a hard copy.
if this game was intended for the new UMD less psp then by all means have it just downloadable coz such new psp would also have big storage. if the new psp doesnt have big storage then just make purchased games downloadable unlimited times by the same unit (the ps3 psn dl games too).
What isn't battery consuming?
There is already UMD cache added since PSP2k. Developer's can also do a lot to save battery by mastering their discs to reduce seek time and using compressed file formats to reduce read time (at the expense of CPU time to uncompress it).
A lot of games do not use the full capacity of the UMD, data can be duplicated on the disc and the game can seek to the nearest copy of it.
Lastly and most importantly, if you're reading data from any kind of media do not read it a few bytes at a time! There will be a sweet spot where you can maximise throughput, say reading in 400k blocks.
None of these are new tricks, I hope at least some developers are using them.