RUMOR MILL: Disc-less Patapon 2 – The Future? [UPDATE: Sony Confirms]
- Scribbled on April 13th, 2009 by Jordan Lund
- Filed in Casual Gaming, Industry News, Rumor Mill, Sony PSP
Digital downloads for games have had two things against them so far – first being American bandwidth speeds, and the second being “the collection factor”; people just love having something physical to hold in their hands. Ars Technica has just broken a new rumor out of the Sony camp which may go a long way to solving both of these problems.
Apparently the new PlayStation Portable game Patapon 2 will be sold in stores, but not on physical media. Confused yet? When you buy the $20 game in the store, you will be presented with a Playstation Network voucher coupon which you can use to download the game. So you get a case, and a manual and the coupon good for a download.
Or, I suppose, you could just buy the game online for $15 and be done with it.
This is a new model which to date has only been explored via codes for extra content or Xbox Live hours. Many games on the Xbox and Xbox 360 platforms came with coupons to enable extra content or to add hours to your Xbox Live Gold account. This is the first time it’s been applied to an entire game though.
It would seem to be the best of both worlds for Sony. It reduces manufacturing costs for the game, but still allows people who like to collect things to get a spiffy printed game case and manual if they want it. At the same time it pushes forward their digital initiative which John Koller, head of PSP marketing, has said quite recently is “very important” to them. One wonders about Sony’s previous claim that UMD is “critical” for them.
It also gives them an alternative to packing games on a Memory Stick Pro Duo, which would represent an unnecessary cost for Sony and an un-needed bit of plastic for the gamer to keep track of when they already own at least one other (if not many other) memory sticks already.
While this kind of digital distribution most likely wouldn’t work for a multi-gigabyte PlayStation 3 or Xbox 360 title, the PSP seems to be a natural fit for this kind of exploration. The relative game sizes are small enough that American bandwidth speeds should be able to handle them, and in the past PSP demos have been able to store quite easily on a home PC or a Playstation 3 before being transferred to the PSP for play.
Patapon 2 would seem to be a good candidate for this kind of experiment as well, as the original release met with high acclaim among gamers and currently is sitting at an average score of 86 on Metacritic.
[UPDATE: Sony has just confirmed the story with a statement to Ars Technica. The statement reads:
"We're considering a digital only format for the Patapon 2 release as a one time test case as we continue to explore consumer preferences for digital content," Patrick Seybold, Senior Director of Corporate Communications at SCEA said. "The downloadable game will be available on May 5th at both retail and via the PlayStation Store. We remain focused on providing superior games and entertainment experiences in both the UMD and digital formats and are working closely with our partners to deliver the best PSP line up in our history."
Let us know what you think.]
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April 13th, 2009 at 6:42 pm
For Sony the DLC issue is more important as they’re losing the most in the current market. Any money the company can save is money they can throw into the ever expanding pit that the PS3 created…
It also eliminates the second-hand market which publishers and developers all hate vehemently. This would have happened a long time ago if people weren’t so attached to stuff and collecting it…
April 14th, 2009 at 4:10 pm
Gifts! you’re forgetting gifts, a lot of these games are gifts (to youngsters specially as they dont have their own money to buy) Passing on a code on a sticky note isn’t as cool as handing out a game, even if its just a cover with code inside.