An interesting development on the anti-piracy front has surfaced this week with the launch of Sony’s new PSP title SOCOM: U.S. Navy SEALs Fireteam Bravo 3 — Mike fired off his early review last week, in case you missed it.
In an interview with SCEA’s director of hardware marketing, John Koller, IGN sheds light on a new form of DRM being introduced to combat piracy (and clearly the used game market as well) on the PSP — a platform that has been known for rampant piracy.
Described by Koller as an “online entitlement feature,” Fireteam Bravo 3 requires PSN registration to access online content. For digital download users, this is of no serious concern, as the game registers to your PSN account in the background automatically like any other downloadable game.
However, for the retail UMD version, the game comes with a voucher code that must be redeemed to unlock access to online gameplay. The kicker: those who buy a UMD copy used will not get such a voucher (unless the previous owner didn’t bother redeeming it) and will thus be blocked from online play unless they pay $20 for a “PSN entitlement voucher.”
Koller also says that this “online entitlement” system is merely a “trial run for a new initiative we are exploring for the platform,” so how common a feature this will be on the PSP (or possibly even the PS3) moving forward is unknown.
Your thoughts?
Matt Litten is a 27 year old from-the-womb gamer turned video game reviewer/blogger and current editor/owner/operator of VGBlogger.com.
In 2004, Matt landed his first gig in the video game review business writing for the now-defunct website BonusStage.com. After the close of BonusStage, the former staff went on to found VGBlogger.com, and after a short stint as US Site Manager for AceGamez Matt turned his attention to making VGBlogger one of the top video game blogs in all the blogosphere.
Some of Matt's all-time favorite games include ICO, Shadow of the Colossus, Metal Gear Solid, Legend of Zelda, and, well...too many others to list here. 
Holy Crap! You’re right – I didn’t notice it! You KNOW this is the sort of thing that really gets me upset, and since I downloaded through PSN and already have active accounts for all of the online stuff I never even noticed a thing.
Wow … just wow …
I fear we’re heading towards an era where this is going to be prevalent in all games on all platform. We’re already seeing EA do it more and more with their Project 10 Dollar thing (I’m hearing BF: Bad Company 2 is going to have a DLC portal just like ME2′s Cerberus Network). It probably won’t be too long before every game will require some type of activation tying it to your system/account.
For the PSP, this obviously gets at the rampant piracy, and also the tendency for many folks to be hesitant of paying full price for what they view as a fairly mediocre library of games on the PSP (I know we’ve discussed that, but the perception is there) … so I know loads who depend on eBay / used / trade sites for the PSP games. Sony gets *none* of any of that stuff.
As for the other things like Dragon Age / Mass Effect / Bad Company … I really don’t mind that as a means of ‘profit preservation’ … I’d rather that than they raise prices!