Sony Launching New PS Store on Web and Mobile This Month

[Lance_87]

3 hours ago, VoidVictorious said:

No, part of Sony’s terms of service is a binding arbitration agreement. They even state you don’t actually own digital games. You only possess the license for a game. After you purchase it and download it, no where does it state you have the right to download it in perpetuity. In layman’s terms: you are screwed.

 

I wasn't talking about that. Did you even read my post? They're selling games that aren't going to be buyable anymore, and they aren't even aware of that and didn't put a warning. They simply pretend that the PS3/Vita Store apps work as intended, but they (the apps) aren't.

 

If they're going to continue selling PS3/Vita stuff, why didn't they warn users about the loss of content available for sale?

 

Why didn't they think about equality like between the PS4 content on the web Store and the PS4 app, and possibly the same on PS5? Jesus Christ.

 

The funniest part is that the web Store was born with PS3/Vita/PSP content in mind, it was opened a whole month before the announcement of the PS4.

Edited October 17, 2020 by Lance_87

[xDerErnst]

37 minutes ago, Lance_87 said:

 

I wasn't talking about that. Did you even read my post? They're selling games that aren't going to be buyable anymore, and they aren't even aware of that and didn't put a warning. They simply pretend that the PS3/Vita Store apps work as intended, but they (the apps) aren't.

 

If they're going to continue selling PS3/Vita stuff, why didn't they warn users about the loss of content available for sale?

 

Why didn't they think about equality like between the PS4 content on the web Store and the PS4 app, and possibly the same on PS5? Jesus Christ.

 

The funniest part is that the web Store was born with PS3/Vita/PSP content in mind, it was opened a whole month before the announcement of the PS4.

Seriously. It's like they want people to pirate their games. This entire move is just absolute nonsense.

[ladynadiad]

1 hour ago, baboon_overlord said:

100% this. The Store prices are now so out of line with the secondary market, I don't really see why anyone would buy from there unless they had no choice. That's for PS3 though, I think physical Vita games are more expensive because they are "rarer". I've only had my Vita a month and haven't really looked at too many games yet, but when I was searching for Uncharted: Golden Abyss that seemed to be the case.

 

Physical Vita games holding more value also is likely caused in part by the high cost of memory cards on the Vita and the limited amount of storage you got even if you were willing to pay that cost.  If I recall right I think the biggest memory card released in the US was 64 GB?  And it cost more than the cost of a game to get one of those.  Most Vitas also didn't come with any memory card, only a few special bundles that include a game had one.  In the US I think the only two editions that had a memory card were the Walking Dead bundle that included a 4GB memory card and the Borderlands one that included an 8GB memory card.  While the slim version comes with some storage on it, 1GB isn't enough for most retail games.  That factor definitely led to Vita users being less willing to go digital with their games.  On top of that you had smaller print runs, few retailers stocking the games and most retailers that did stock them only ordering enough to cover their preorders.  Physical Vita games have always been hard to find and retained value well because the supply was so limited and the memory card costs and limits led to more demand for physical than the PS3 had.

[Lance_87]

What's the biggest Vita game ever, including updates and DLCs? I think the biggest one i've ever seen was Superbeat Xonic at around 5-6GB.

[Darling Baphomet]

7 hours ago, baboon_overlord said:

In related news, does anyone else think the new recording and "moderation" of voice chats in game is just a tad Orwellian? I really would discourage anyone from buying the digital only PS5 - we are going to get to the point where Sony starts banning players for almost no real reason and then your entire library is worthless, at least with physical you can just create another account and still play your games.

 

Sure, there may ultimately be class action lawsuits, but I really don't like the way this is going at all I'm afraid. The move of Sony HQ to California is going to be a disaster.

 

Not... really, they're just trying to keep the platform safe from harassment. It's a private company, and that means they're legally allowed to moderate it as they see fit. Besides that, they're not monitoring voice themselves, simply allowing people to do their own recording. Now, you could make a case for it being dystopic that profit driven corporations are able to tightly control public platforms (and by extension, public discourse), but that's a systemic issue, not something exclusive to Sony.

[yndajas]

On 16/10/2020 at 9:13 PM, baboon_overlord said:

Thanks for the reply. I'm not sure how he's managed to pull that information but would assume it's via an API. If the (MYSQL?) databases are maintained in their current location (they would need to be maintained for the console stores,presumably they are all pulling the same DB information or they would both need to be updated) then I think everything will continue to work.

I'm not sure if Sony provides an API - it might just be a custom built scraper of the store webpages? In which case if PS3 content is ripped from the store webpages, PSPrices' database wouldn't be updatable.

 

Not sure whether the method for updating profiles on this site (by which I mean PSNProfiles) is public knowledge, but @jonny2608 and I have assumed it's a (custom built) scraper of the official PlayStation profile pages rather than an API (Google doesn't seem to return any reference to an official API), and I'd guess the same is true of anything unofficial providing store data.

[The_Mighty_Ducks]

Agreed, its a stupid ass decision. 

I still play my PS3 constantly and never got a PS4 cause this generation was eh for me. Theres great games, but never had one where I was like "I must get a PS4 to play now!"

 

Makes me wonder if they're following Apples business model.. if they are, they're stupid as hell for doing it..  just make a PS5 app that does everything they want. And just rename the current app Playstation Legacies or something..

 

 

[Dav9834]

18 minutes ago, The_Mighty_Ducks said:

Agreed, its a stupid ass decision. 

I still play my PS3 constantly and never got a PS4 cause this generation was eh for me. Theres great games, but never had one where I was like "I must get a PS4 to play now!"

That's sad 

You missed out on a lot

[Zid960]

8 hours ago, Lance_87 said:

 

Here in Italy we say "things done with the arse" (i.e. done in a bad way) to refer to things like that email. But in general it could be said about the whole situation. They are doing this without thinking about the consequences, i.e. the missing titles from the Store apps. Or without knowing about things that happened years ago.

You can technically buy most the psp library on vita. [Except a few things like OG crash]And for the psp itself. You can download the games from a ps3 with can see them.? This 100% sucks but there is a way.

But if you dont have all 3 then ya i dont think there a way to buy psp games. 

So useing the psp emulator is fair game now.? cuz if you can't get it legally. Then there forcing us to do it. 

Edited October 18, 2020 by Zid960

[wackt1]

Are there any digital only ps3 games/avatars/themes I have to buy?

[VoidVictorious]

5 hours ago, Lance_87 said:

 

I wasn't talking about that. Did you even read my post? They're selling games that aren't going to be buyable anymore, and they aren't even aware of that and didn't put a warning. They simply pretend that the PS3/Vita Store apps work as intended, but they (the apps) aren't.

 

If they're going to continue selling PS3/Vita stuff, why didn't they warn users about the loss of content available for sale?

 

Why didn't they think about equality like between the PS4 content on the web Store and the PS4 app, and possibly the same on PS5? Jesus Christ.

 

The funniest part is that the web Store was born with PS3/Vita/PSP content in mind, it was opened a whole month before the announcement of the PS4.

Again based on their TOS they don’t owe you any of these things. I read your post but the expectation that you will have equal access today to things released over six years ago is ridiculous considering they are digital, licensed and not owned, and finally the fact that you have agreed to these terms over and over again every time you hit the button marked agree. 

[EqualityEarth]

I think the best suggestion to give that can earnestly benefit all persistent PS3/VITA users is to at least download the free demos for ALL desired games. This is sometimes done to obtain a delisted game while the demo can still be found in your store or a foreign one. You can purchase the game at your leisure through the Demo on the XMB “triangle menu,” the same for checking for patches, sorting into albums, and deleting. In addition, this seems to totally bypass the roadblock with the PS3 console storefront “undergoing maintenance” issue.

[VoidVictorious]

1 minute ago, EqualityEarth said:

I think the best suggestion to give that can earnestly benefit all persistent PS3/VITA users is to at least download the free demos for ALL desired games. This is sometimes done to obtain a delisted game while the demo can still be found in your store or a foreign one. You can purchase the game at your leisure through the Demo on the XMB “triangle menu,” the same for checking for patches, sorting into albums, and deleting. In addition, this seems to totally bypass the roadblock with the PS3 console storefront “undergoing maintenance” issue.

Sounds like a positive move. What is the “undergoing maintenance” issue? I haven’t encountered that on console.

[EqualityEarth]

8 minutes ago, VoidVictorious said:

Sounds like a positive move. What is the “undergoing maintenance” issue? I haven’t encountered that on console.

Lately when I’ve attempted to open the PS3 store on the console, after the loading screen with the face buttons shopping bag, I just get a black screen saying that. I’m not sure what is the cause, as I’m signed in, and downloads and syncs work normally. However when I go on the VITA store, a similar transparent pop up occurred....as I bypassed it searching for a game, buying and downloading normally. It’s the offloading of PS3/VITA content from mobile/web that makes this all quite alarming.

[mako-heart]

1 hour ago, VoidVictorious said:

Again based on their TOS they don’t owe you any of these things. I read your post but the expectation that you will have equal access today to things released over six years ago is ridiculous considering they are digital, licensed and not owned, and finally the fact that you have agreed to these terms over and over again every time you hit the button marked agree. 

 

It's cute you think they don't deserve to continue serving us due to a ToS written entirely to cover their ass legally. Give me a break.

[AJ_Radio]

PS Now does not have everything from the PS3 available that hasn’t been delisted or had server shutdown. 
 

Ultimately I feel this move is right along with the change to the trophy system and Sony’s constant censorship to where Disgaea 6 isn’t on the PS4/PS5. 
 

I don’t like the direction Sony has been taking. Seems a lot of shit hit the fan when Sony moved their headquarters to California. That state is a hellhole of censorship and political strife, along with many other issues I won’t even bother to mention. 
 

Sony is being fucking stupid. By taking away accessibility to games that still have license agreements and are ‘technically still’ on the Store, you are actually encouraging people to use torrents and things like ThePirateBay. I’ve used them myself for some of EA’s games. 

Edited October 18, 2020 by Spaz

[Lance_87]

5 hours ago, VoidVictorious said:

Again based on their TOS they don’t owe you any of these things. I read your post but the expectation that you will have equal access today to things released over six years ago is ridiculous considering they are digital, licensed and not owned, and finally the fact that you have agreed to these terms over and over again every time you hit the button marked agree. 

 

Looks like you still don't understand.

 

If they're selling, let's say, 3000 PS3 items on web browser, i'm expecting to see 3000 items on the PS3 app, after i'm being told to move there. They never wrote "sorry, certain items are going to be lost in the process because we couldn't give a damn, we only cared about the web Store and forgot about the PS3 app". The missing items aren't going to be removed because "muh licensed, muh owned, muh TOS" but literally because of search/visual bugs and/or a crappy app. The missing items aren't officially delisted.

 

The TOS talks about termination of services, i.e. full/total/whatever closure of the Store and/or the PSN servers, not discrepancies between different versions of the Store content for the same system due to THEIR negligence. They aren't terminating the sale of PS3/Vita items, but they pretend everything is fine.

Edited October 18, 2020 by Lance_87

[Dav9834]

5 hours ago, VoidVictorious said:

Again based on their TOS they don’t owe you any of these things. I read your post but the expectation that you will have equal access today to things released over six years ago is ridiculous considering they are digital, licensed and not owned, and finally the fact that you have agreed to these terms over and over again every time you hit the button marked agree. 

Hard truths, everyone was aware back then this could happen, and it has to a degree 

 

In 10-15 years I don't expect to be able to download vita or ps3 games at all

 

By then there should be a long term solution though, hopefully. Because those servers are not going to stay up forever 

 

I'm not happy about it at all, but I knew it was gonna happen eventually back then, and it's starting to show 

Edited October 18, 2020 by Dav9834

[Lance_87]

7 minutes ago, Dav9834 said:

In 10-15 years I don't expect to be able to download vita or ps3 games at all

 

No, you will be able. Encouraged piracy.

[AJ_Radio]

3 hours ago, Lance_87 said:

If they're selling, let's say, 3000 PS3 items on web browser, i'm expecting to see 3000 items on the PS3 app, after i'm being told to move there. They never wrote "sorry, certain items are going to be lost in the process because we couldn't give a damn, we only cared about the web Store and forgot about the PS3 app". The missing items aren't going to be removed because "muh licensed, muh owned, muh TOS" but literally because of search/visual bugs and/or a crappy app. The missing items aren't officially delisted.

 

The TOS talks about termination of services, i.e. full/total/whatever closure of the Store and/or the PSN servers, not discrepancies between different versions of the Store content for the same system due to THEIR negligence. They aren't terminating the sale of PS3/Vita items, but they pretend everything is fine.

 

You cannot survive in an all digital world if you make your games more difficult to access by removing them from what we all consider to be the best option, using the browser/mobile version of a store to buy products. Not very many people are going to bother going through the hassle of using the terrible console versions of these stores, even the PS4 can be awful at times. And now in order to get themes and avatars for the PS4 you have to go through the console to access them.

 

The missing items aren't delisted as you stated. Why Sony decided to greenlight this shit is beyond me. Now they just made buying DLC and PSN games a lot more difficult and more of a pain to access.

 

2 hours ago, Dav9834 said:

Hard truths, everyone was aware back then this could happen, and it has to a degree 

 

In 10-15 years I don't expect to be able to download vita or ps3 games at all

 

By then there should be a long term solution though, hopefully. Because those servers are not going to stay up forever 

 

I'm not happy about it at all, but I knew it was gonna happen eventually back then, and it's starting to show 

 

Sony is digging themselves into trouble basically. This argument could be valid, but the fact that you can buy old ass games dating from the early - mid 2000s on Xbox proves to me that Sony doesn't know what the hell they're doing.

 

Honestly I couldn't care less if less than 99 percent of people don't care anymore because the games are old as fuck. If they're not delisted, then they should still be listed for the person to make a purchase should they be interested. Not hiding them behind a bunch of crap and then having the user jump through a bunch of hoops just to gain access to the fucking things. That's essentially what Sony did with this change.

 

This goes right back to my argument of preferring physical over digital. If you're pulling this bullshit this incompetently then that paints a very bad picture for the digital world, especially when shit in this day and age seemingly gets delisted left and right almost consistently, for no real reason other than the license expiring and the refusal to renew it. I have witnessed a lot of shit on Netflix suddenly getting delisted over the years and it literally pissed me off.

 

I don't see the digital only PS5 being a good investment for me, because with physical I can sell the games back, and I've done this plenty of times. Getting a little money back is a lot better than dealing with bullshit digital refund policies, which I've yet to see Sony do well on.

[InfinityOnH1gh]

Does anyone know why certain games don't show up on the native stores? Until I started reading about this news, I had no idea it was an issue. I had thought some games had been delisted when actually they're just missing.

[majob]

So the game library function has replaced the old download list section of the website and only PS4 and PS5 games are listed meaning you can't do remote downloads for the other platforms anymore. And the game library function doesn't even work well because it doesn't list every digital game I have. It seems to only go back to the last two years

Edited October 18, 2020 by majob

[Beliar4]

Im adding every piece of free content to my acc, no matter if its adons to games i care atm. Yesterday i added almost 70 "dlcs" before its too late. Glad i did dlcs to kingdom of amalur couse its allready delisted.

[Dav9834]

2 hours ago, Lance_87 said:

 

No, you will be able. Encouraged piracy.

? I will not disagree that will be the likely solution at that time

 

25 minutes ago, Spaz said:

 

Sony is digging themselves into trouble basically. This argument could be valid, but the fact that you can buy old ass games dating from the early - mid 2000s on Xbox proves to me that Sony doesn't know what the hell they're doing.

 

Honestly I couldn't care less if less than 99 percent of people don't care anymore because the games are old as fuck. If they're not delisted, then they should still be listed for the person to make a purchase should they be interested. Not hiding them behind a bunch of crap and then having the user jump through a bunch of hoops just to gain access to the fucking things. That's essentially what Sony did with this change.

 

This goes right back to my argument of preferring physical over digital. If you're pulling this bullshit this incompetently then that paints a very bad picture for the digital world, especially when shit in this day and age seemingly gets delisted left and right almost consistently, for no real reason other than the license expiring and the refusal to renew it. I have witnessed a lot of shit on Netflix suddenly getting delisted over the years and it literally pissed me off.

 

I don't see the digital only PS5 being a good investment for me, because with physical I can sell the games back, and I've done this plenty of times. Getting a little money back is a lot better than dealing with bullshit digital refund policies, which I've yet to see Sony do well on.

 

The amount of old games you can buy on Xbox isn't very much at all in comparison to how many they had so I wouldn't toot their horn too much, it's kinda overblown and doesn't help the the digital issue in full for the future by praising them.

And though Sony is shutting down mobile downloads now and likely the store servers 10-15 years from now, I suspect Xbox will be right there as well in one way or another. 

 

I bought pretty much mostly digital games in the beginning of the ps4 life cycle despite my knowledge of what was to come, and a bit of ps3, but in the past few years I've been buying more physical again. 

I'm making up for my past transgressions towards my wallet and game collection. Maybe one day ps4 games will be dirt cheap and I'll be rich enough to buy all the games I bought but on physical instead. 

 

We knew then, everyone was talking about the future of digital with issues like this back then. We knew exactly what would happen in the future. But we still bought digital for the convenience. 

 

If we buy a cup of regular dirt, knowing it's just a cup of regular dirt, because it's convenient(idk how it'd be more convenient, or why you'd want it, just roll with it) it may be unethical on the seller, but we knew, there were no false promises. 

 

So I'm not happy, but I'm also not happy with myself.

[AJ_Radio]

2 minutes ago, Dav9834 said:

The amount of old games you can buy on Xbox isn't very much at all in comparison to how many they had so I wouldn't toot their horn too much, it's kinda overblown and doesn't help the the digital issue in full for the future by praising them.

And though Sony is shutting down mobile downloads now and likely the store servers 10-15 years from now, I suspect Xbox will be right there as well in one way or another. 

 

I bought pretty much mostly digital games in the beginning of the ps4 life cycle despite my knowledge of what was to come, and a bit of ps3, but in the past few years I've been buying more physical again. 

I'm making up for my past transgressions towards my wallet and game collection. Maybe one day ps4 games will be dirt cheap and I'll be rich enough to buy all the games I bought but on physical instead. 

 

We knew then, everyone was talking about the future of digital with issues like this back then. We knew exactly what would happen in the future. But we still bought digital for the convenience. 

 

If we buy a cup of regular dirt, knowing it's just a cup of regular dirt, because it's convenient(idk how it'd be more convenient, or why you'd want it, just roll with it) it may be unethical on the seller, but we knew, there were no false promises. 

 

So I'm not happy, but I'm also not happy with myself.

 

We can't have a digital future where this shit happens regularly. The delisting thing may be an issue with whomever has the power to renew the license. But it's still a shitty situation.

 

This is basically a move to get more people to subscribe to PS Now because that is the only viable option you have for playing old games on the PS4, practically anything that came before the release of the PS4.

 

And again, this is why I bitch when stuff on Netflix and other platforms suddenly gets taken off. So now not only am I pissed off but so is everyone else who was interested in watching a movie or tv show prior to it getting delisted.

 

Things have to change, because what Sony is doing is literally saying 'fuck you' to anyone who cares about backwards compatibility and giving a damn about legacy systems.

 

Digital is basically a glorified rental service, that's what it is really. When something becomes delisted or becomes a lot more difficult to access, that's basically someone with power saying "You had fun with it, now we're taking it away. Go play with something else".

 

People are so ingrained with today's internet technology everything is taken for granted. Then when shit hits the fan, I and maybe you will say "I told you so".

 

Physical over digital. The digital world is far too volatile. I can hope that in the next 10 years there will be new laws in regards to how digital content is handled. Sadly in my country, Congress and much of the corporate power is stuck in the past, so it will be a long time before things get settled.