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Sony introduces new DRM for SOCOM Fireteam Bravo 3, hopes to combat PSP piracy for good

Posted Feb 17, 2010 at 1:42AM EST by Ryan F.

Listed in: PSP Tags: John Koller, piracy, Sony

socom

Surprise, surprise, surprise... With the US release of SOCOM: U.S. Navy SEALs Fireteam Bravo 3 today, Sony has also introduced a new security feature that the company hopes will help eradicate the rampant piracy issue seen on the PSP for good.

In SCEA's new initiative, those who will purchase the game are now required to register the title through PlayStation Network before given access to online gameplay. A voucher code that must be redeemed online will be given to those who wish to purchase a UMD version of the game, while digital copies will automatically register in the background. But for those who chooses to buy a used copy of the UMD, you will be required to purchase a PSN entitlement voucher for US$ 20 in order to play online. According to John Koller, director of hardware marketing at SCEA:

SOCOM: U.S. Navy SEALs Fireteam Bravo 3 is the first title to introduce the new online entitlement feature. As with many programs, we're investigating future opportunities, but we have no announcements to make on it at this time.

From our research, this will be received quite positively. Remember, piracy affects more than just the creators of the game. It also affects the consumers who purchase titles expecting a high-quality gaming experience. Game development is a long and costly process that can take years to create and many more dollars to develop, manufacture, market and distribute.

Our goal is to keep this development pipeline flowing with creative new IPs, well known franchises and pick up and play experiences that all can legally enjoy. That's something that all fans can be happy about.

Via [IGN]

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See a bloody dime of used game sales, why should they care if you bought it used, for all they know you pirated it, now if you bt it off the web you still have to pay $20, meaning games are profitable for the publisher again, morale of the story, EB Games can't keep ripping off the publishers anymore

# How so? — JaXeRiR 2010-02-18 10:58

The box probably clearly says that you need to buy an online voucher before you can play the game on the netz.

This is a great move by Sony, and will hopefully help diminish PSP piracy and online cheating/hacking.

And since online play is the primary objective for FTB3, they should be able to get some well-deserved cash for this one!

# Yo JaXeRiR — psp2 2010-02-18 18:15

I really like how there wont be any cheaters like before on FTB2 and 1.
Its just Im super positive there are some cheap people out there that will buy the game but not the online voucher.
Iam mad about that because there goes some potential players that will not play online.
Also if sony just updates the firmware and block lower firmwares, like whats happening now, WTF??? This is BS!
Cheaters allready can not play online.

Charging for everything really grinds my gears! Ima buy the game, believe it. Its just now some people will not play online when i reccomend this game, because they dont want to pay for the crappy voucher.

When it comes to playing games online with psp, people just like loading it up, signing in, and bam straight into online play.

I hate sony for this! Now every potential customer, will not have a equal chance of playing online because most of them are cheap!

# they do block the lower firmwares — Guest 2010-02-20 17:45

the highest bootleg firmware i believe is 5.50, all the new games are getting patched to play on the older firmwares, that is the reason sony is doing that ... its not their fault that there are ppl out there that are just as good as sony in making things and breaking the down

+1 # So, in the end.... — Saito Forte 2010-02-17 04:11

Pirates still get the cheaper version. I know I would rather 20 dollars over 50 for the full product.

# wow seriously? — Guest 2010-02-17 04:11

so people who rely on trading in games to get a used copy because they cant afford to buy new games outright now can buy a used UMD for 20-30 bucks and then if they want the full features another 20? seems a bit much IMO 5-10 ok.... but 20?

no matter im sure a workaround will be found...

# wow seriously? — Shabbypenguin 2010-02-17 04:16

so someone who cant afford to buy new games outright can trade in games and get the used UMD for 20-30 bucks and then pay another 20 to get the full product... i could agree with 5-10.. but 20? thats a lot of stuff on the playstation store

oh well im sure a workaround will be found for those that refuse to pay...

on a side note why is it that the authors of the article have started to post a comment as well? is that so every article gets some commenting love? or just to stop all those stupid "first!!!" posts?

# psn alternative — Guest 2010-02-17 06:57

Or instead of buying a used copy and paying the online voucher don't you think it'll be cheaper to buy the PSN version? Buying games in the PS Store over secondhand UMD. I think thats what sony would like to happen.

# oh i understand — Shabbypenguin 2010-02-17 11:37

sony would love a lot of things, but you cant trade in games and get psn items.. (well you could trade in 20 dollars worth of stuff and get a 20 dollar PSN card) but most people dont do the trading games thing to get rid of them...

-1 # too late — Guest 2010-02-17 04:28

already playing on 5.00 M33-6

# How? — Guest 2010-02-20 03:04

I cant get mine to play? Any suggested sites or tutorials?

# How? — Guest 2010-02-20 03:05

I cant get mine to play on m33 heolp pleasxe!

# RE: Sony introduces new DRM for SOCOM Fireteam Bravo 3, hopes to combat PSP piracy for good — tech3475 2010-02-17 04:31

Pirates can't play the game online anyway! The most recent CFW is 5.55 Gen-D2 (or whatever revision) which is blocked by PSN (correct me if I am wrong).

So all this does is alter the second hand market.

+3 # RE: RE: Sony introduces new DRM for SOCOM Fireteam Bravo 3, hopes to combat PSP piracy for good — Guest 2010-02-17 04:53

Yeah. That's the point. You don't actually believe these companies when they say it's to combat piracy, do you? DRM in general is more a jab at secondary markets than at pirates.

Piracy is just a convenient scapegoat.

+1 # RE: RE: Sony introduces new DRM for SOCOM Fireteam Bravo 3, hopes to combat PSP piracy for good — XenderRAy 2010-02-17 06:26

Second hand market is much worse for developers than pirates. They will sell one game wich will be using 10 or more ppl. Only one who will benefit from that will be socond hand marketers.

# Yes they can. — Rolen47 2010-02-17 08:52

Look up the "PSNABLER". They've been playing online games for a while now.

# RE: Yes they can. — pspg2000 2010-02-17 09:21

It's a matter of hours until the boys from Sony, block PSNABLER.

# Sony won't block PSNabler — b|ank Crossfire 2010-02-17 10:26

Because they don't know how.
Redhate has already hijacked FTB3. The good news is that he won't release it but its already CONFIRMED that he's already been able to play on PSP with CFW.

# RE: RE: Sony introduces new DRM for SOCOM Fireteam Bravo 3, hopes to combat PSP piracy for good — pspg2000 2010-02-17 09:20

It's 5.50 GEN-D3.

5.55 GEN-D2 doesn't exist.

# RE: RE: RE: Sony introduces new DRM for SOCOM Fireteam Bravo 3, hopes to combat PSP piracy for good — Guest 2010-02-18 09:26

Dunno what you're talkin about, Ive got 5.55 GEN-D2 runnin on my psp right now.

-1 # fail — Guest 2010-02-17 05:02

Hackers have already made it on the servers using DayPr, Enjoy people, we will be taking over socom 3 yay

# turut — Guest 2010-02-17 05:24

xfrfhd

# RE: Sony introduces new DRM for SOCOM Fireteam Bravo 3, hopes to combat PSP piracy for good — Guest 2010-02-17 06:01

Good try Sony, but its been out.

Oh you guys.

# Hmm — Acteon 2010-02-17 06:25

Since it only affects the online area of the game it won't put everyone off. Presumably thehigh $20 price tag is to make money from the pirates too, and we all know that devs hate the second hand market.

I'm not a SOCOM fan myself, but it'll be interesting to see how the fanbase at large reacts.

# RE: Sony introduces new DRM for SOCOM Fireteam Bravo 3, hopes to combat PSP piracy for good — yoshinatsu 2010-02-17 07:41

I suppose that can ONLY mean one thing. WAR.

-1 # LOL — Guest 2010-02-17 07:49

This wont stop pirates as its already out online to download. Check your favorite site and it'll be there.

Just because you have to pay to play a pirated version online just means there will be less people playing it online and more playing it offline.

So, what happens if you play the pirated PSN version? It doesn't say you have to pay for that one so thats the way around it. Just pirate the PSN version and there you go.

All the pirates have to do now is wait for 6.20CFW.

So, in the end what has DRM achieved? A lot more pirated versions as it'll be cheaper to play than the real and 2nd hand versions.

# eh. — MangoScango 2010-02-17 08:07

I can see this pissing a lot of people who buy used games off. But not like they care.

No doubt something will be able to patch it at some point anyway

# ... — symbal 2010-02-17 08:18

I don't see how it's possible to patch this because if each Psp has a different code then the server will know if more than one console's online with a single code and they just block it.

-2 # LOL — dennis96411 2010-02-17 08:29

LOL the guys from over at PSPISOZ.com or something already cracked the japanese version!

What a laugh!

# RE: LOL — Guest 2010-02-17 08:46

yeah, but they are talking about online gaming, not the game itself being cracked

# wtf? — Guest 2010-02-17 23:51

I've already "seen" the EURO version online. The JAP version is also English so it doesn't really matter which one you get they both play and look the same.

# ISO is useless in this case — justanothergamer 2010-02-17 08:54

Even if you have the ISO, you still can't play online - you need a voucher code. And that voucher code costs $20 because you don't own the game first-hand.

# RE: ISO is useless in this case — Guest 2010-02-22 04:37

Learn to read like 4 posts above yours has said ONLINE is cracked you can play pirated online drm is a joke it will never work and will only piss the wrong people off...

what they need to do is come up with a better encryption scheme that will be too much of a hassle for hackers to break.

# RE: Sony introduces new DRM for SOCOM Fireteam Bravo 3, hopes to combat PSP piracy for good — Guest 2010-02-17 08:57

So now PSP games might start coming with cd-keys? Works for PC games,what genious thought of that one.....gawwwdd.

# RE: Sony introduces new DRM for SOCOM Fireteam Bravo 3, hopes to combat PSP piracy for good — pspg2000 2010-02-17 09:19

I played the demo which I downloaded from PSS, but it god dammit, it sucked.

The controlls were bad, I couldn't manage to get used to, and graphics weren't the best.

If the controlls were good I'd actually liked the game, like, MGS PW DEMO was pretty good.

~

Sony, making us get brand new-sealed UMD's instead of used? That's fine.

# Useless — ThirstyCow 2010-02-17 09:40

This is a useless protection as people who wish to pirate use CFW, which ALREADY cant access PSN, so there is no point of this... (Of course unless PSN is accessed by CFW)

-2 # RE: Sony introduces new DRM for SOCOM Fireteam Bravo 3, hopes to combat PSP piracy for good — Guest 2010-02-17 09:54

Online gaming is for losers.

Piracy is for kings.

So I win. A lot.

# Oh LOL! — pspg2000 2010-02-17 11:47

LOL, have your way playing always with BOTs rather than human beings.

# yep. — Guest 2010-02-17 23:52

Thats the free way and the best way as nobody complains. :)

# .. — Guest 2010-02-18 12:37

Yeah no corner camping, immature children over using bad words they just learned yesterday.

# RE: Sony introduces new DRM for SOCOM Fireteam Bravo 3, hopes to combat PSP piracy for good — Guest 2010-02-17 10:58

They did this first with this game because the whole socom comunity is so pissed at Slant Six that we had all openly said on the ps blog and slant suck's blog that we were going to pirate the shit out of this game. Y'know get some of our money back from their piece of shyte version of socom that they half halfheartedly tried to do. I'm done with socom until Zipper int. puts out SOCOM 4 UNITED FRONT. Then will I be a fan again. Also I know how to crack this already. It's not really that hard.....

-1 # piracy — Guest 2010-02-17 11:42

to be honest, i wouldn't mind paying to play online if i actually liked the game.
i pirate games, and i only buy the ones that i actually like. and i wouldn't mind paying to play a game online if it's any good. but i ain't giving up my cfw for it.

# .. — Guest 2010-02-18 12:40

The only games I pirate are psp games. Most of them are trash, apart from your major hits (GoW, gran turismo, and monster hunter of course). I actually ENJOY buying my console games, and DS games for my children. Imagine that.

# RE: Sony introduces new DRM for SOCOM Fireteam Bravo 3, hopes to combat PSP piracy for good — metaangel 2010-02-17 16:22

so all you have to do is download it and pay $20 no biggee. i dont even see the point its not like theres alot of hackers in socom ftb2. oh well lucky am not a socom fan.

# RE: RE: Sony introduces new DRM for SOCOM Fireteam Bravo 3, hopes to combat PSP piracy for good — Guest 2010-02-17 19:16

when you pay the 20, they will have checks in place to make sure that you still got a legit copy. cso's will Not work for this. Good luck to all of you. This is prolly the last socom any will see for a long time. I think sony wanted MAG aka the new socom to succeed so they got a little known company to ruin the franchise.

# other servers — Knutselmaaster 2010-02-17 17:24

This will be good for programs like xlink-kai etc.
Or somebody will start a server where pirated versions can access after altering their iso a bit.

For me this is just a way for the publisher to make more money.
As it seems the game sucks and thus will be flooding the 2nd hand market soon, wich normally doesn't pay for the publishers but this way it will.

# RE: Sony introduces new DRM for SOCOM Fireteam Bravo 3, hopes to combat PSP piracy for good — Guest 2010-02-17 19:14

Time to break out the sony drm packager that was leaked some years ago. I'll just take it right out of the game itself. put the fw level lower and voila my own CFW enabled socom.

# meh.. — Guest 2010-02-17 19:52

Screw online anyway... too many cheaters =/ ad-hoc ftw.

# meh? — Guest 2010-02-18 14:31

aren't cheaters actually those using cfw? this way, no one can cheat because you can't run cheat programs.

# Actually.. — Guest 2010-02-22 23:48

You can.... this crap's been cracked up to oblivion already.

+1 # hmm — Guest 2010-02-17 22:08

somthing tells me ad-hoc party will be flooded with ftb3 users

# RE: Sony introduces new DRM for SOCOM Fireteam Bravo 3, hopes to combat PSP piracy for good — Guest 2010-02-18 01:57

Playing it online at this moment on 5m33-6. this is a ploy for sony to control market. sony is wasting time & money and should finish developing psp2 "if they can present a non hackable product" lol. You da man john k!

# WAT — Guest 2010-02-18 04:45

wut how? PSNABLER doesnt currently work for this...

# for the fun of it — Guest 2010-02-23 17:27

We're not releasing it for this game due to issues back in FTB2 sorry....

# research? — yoshi314 2010-02-18 07:53

"From our research, this will be received quite positively."

that's some botched research, i think. what were they thinking? (except from usual "profit! profit!")

# ADHOC PARTY!! — Guest 2010-02-18 13:33

come on guys! lets adhoc party on ps3! end of story!

# adhoc party on ps3! — Guest 2010-02-18 13:35

just use adhoc party on ps3!

# What did I say? — Evan Smith 2010-02-18 17:28

I KNEW IT, I KNEW IT, I KNEW IT! I called this happening since the first time the release date was pushed back!

# Screw You Pirates — Guest 2010-02-18 23:49

I love how people bitch and moan about things costing money and how Sony is like "big brother" when trying to protect their own rights. Homebrew games are one thing, hacking your own PSP to run them is completely ethical. Hacking so you can play a game for free undermines the industry. Remember how crappy games were back in the 80's? Thats back when developers made almost no money from games. Once game design began to be a legit job, quality and technology improved.

I used to pirate software when I was younger, I'd frequent Warez sites and get burned copies of games and movies from people that I knew. Hell, I even had PDF of D&D books. Then I realized one day that I wanted to contribute as well, not just leech, but actually design games and maybe even movies or music. When you don't have a job or are in school, it's easy to sit back and say "I want to play Mass Effect 2, but I don't have the cash, so I'll download the torrent and play for free." But once you're out in the world and mommy and daddy aren't paying your bills anymore, you start to realize that time is valuable. These designers DESERVE the money they make (and it's not a lot, believe me), and for people to steal their work is disgusting. VIDEO GAMES ARE A LUXURY ITEM. Just the act of playing them says you have disposable time, so if you can't pay to play, you don't deserve to.

If you can't afford games, you can't really afford the PSP. Read a book. Go for a walk. MAKE SOME FRIENDS. Do something that doesn't leech from those of us who work hard so we can play games, those of us who pay the price so games keep getting made. Without us, you'd only have homebrew to play (not that it's a bad thing, but which is better, MGS or some crap redux of Tetris?).

# You're an idiot. — Guest 2010-02-27 20:33

Your opinion on this mater makes me laugh so hard. You openly admitted to Pirating before yet; You say "F*ck Pirates". You sir, are an idiot. Are you ready for what I'm about to lay on you? Okay good. I hope you're sitting. Here are some powerful words. FREE TO PLAY MMORPGs & FPS. Luxury? My ass. Games are a tool of amusement and most developers know that if their game is unique and genuinely AWESOME, people will buy it. And you know; For that matter if people can't afford the game that doesn't mean they would have bought it in the first place. Hence the company doesn't make any more money than they would have if the person didn't pirate it to begin with. Hell. If someone has a pirated copy that means someone else had to have paid for it first. Also, what about people who pirate the game to try it out, and then buy the game later when they can afford it? Huh? Games that suck don't deserve me. Think about that for awhile. Your statement has no bearing.. You should probably think before you speak. Even the posts in this discussion this say, "Uh.. this is a hit against Second-hand games, not pirates". Good lord. I'm done ranting on you. Go be a tool somewhere else.

+1 # RE: Sony introduces new DRM for SOCOM Fireteam Bravo 3, hopes to combat PSP piracy for good — Guest 2010-02-19 00:11

Sony keeps alienating their fan base. They're making people jump through hoops. I thought getting online on my PSP was time consuming already, now with this added nuisance the portable 'pick-up-play' aspect of the PSP will be gone. By the time I start a game my lunch will be over and I'll have to go back to work. God, I hate Sony.

# Tsk tsk — Guest 2010-02-21 19:04

This is completely retarded. The way i see it, online gaming is a nice extra, but the big deal is always the single player mode. A game that is online-centric (or even online only) must be cheaper compared to a real game, since one day the servers will close, and the biggest part of the fun (or all of it) will cease to exist. So, fully priced online-centric game, or used one with extra fee for that "essential" bit that is so ephemeral?
Good thing i hate fps. In 20 years i will still be able (and willing? who knows) to play Valkyria Chronicles, wile Warhawk, MAG, Socom and so on will be just something that can waste shelf space. Or, put it differently, GARBAGE.

# Wiitards trying to end First Sale Doctrine — Nerd42 2010-02-22 12:27

LOL piracy doesn't affect the gameplay experience on single player for sure. As usual, the only people this DRM is going to inconvenience is legitimate customers, and this doesn't combat piracy - it only combats the First Sale Doctrine.

# for the fun of it — Guest 2010-02-23 17:23

We had their security cracked long before the game was released here in the US, We are not releasing it for the game in hopes that people respect the rest of the community who are currently enjoying it on OFW and more so to keep the users off that made FTB2 such a bad place for people to even be.
The PSNabler has proven to work thus far and we enjoy what we do with out abusing the community and we hope that others will follow the same respect and not release if they happen to find a way around it. Just for the record though, all of us involved actually went to the store and purchaced the game but other facts will obviously be hidden in hopes that it never gets out but we did spend the money and we hope that everyone see's that without sales developers will not make games for a system that doesn't provide a profit for them so please support the system, it's only $40.
Sorry for catching this post so late, keep the scene alive without having to be a thief about it, not that it will ever happen but sometimes it needs to be said.

# LOL good try sony XD — Guest 2010-02-26 11:53

Sorry but there are already a lot of hacked servers out there in which people play Monster Hunter and such. So maybe they wont play on your servers, but they will play online on private servers. So you're a little too late on that. =P

# Mr.Hacks — Mr.Hacks 2011-12-05 21:17

lmnao tht didnt stop us sony u c theres nerds out here u got the patch avalible for use to download

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