PS3 game downloads for Asia
In Asia, Sony considers offering downloadable Playstation 3 games at reduced prices in order to combat piracy. Sony plans to make the games available using their new online service.
At the Taipei Game Show, Tetsuhiko Yasuda, the Managing Director of Sony Computer Entertainment Asia, told Japanese website Games Watch that the arrival of the Playstation 3 era and the downloadable game service could reduce the level of video games counterfeiting in the region.
“The distribution of games will change dramatically after the PS3 is released.
I think many things that are sold at stores in Japan will change, and the number of pirate copy dealers in Asia will be reduced.”
Yasudu said that if the prices were lowered, customers would more more inclined to purchase downloadable games instead of copies and that there would no longer be a use for used-game stores.
“…it [the cost of downloadable games] may still be two or three times more expensive than copied games, but I think there will be customers who can buy legitimate copies for that [price].
If it [the service] is able to offer games at half the original price by download instead of 5800 yen (around US $60), then second-hand software stores can not be set up, can they?”
The news of the service is further evidence that with the PS3, Sony is taking anti piracy measures very seriously. Yasuda announced last week that they would not release the Playstation 3 console until it was “completely prepared” to deal with the threat of video games piracy.
Sony is able to make downloadable games available to Asia because of the highly developed broadband service in the region, with Hong Kong, South Korea, Taiwan, Singapore and Japan all in the list of top 10 countries for broadband penetration.
On most broadband connections there is a bandwidth of around 1-1.5 Mbps. It takes around 9 hours to download a full DVD with a bandwidth of 1.5 Mbps.
Some markets in Asia however, have access to download speeds that are able to perform at over seven times that, making it a viable option to download games.
“While 12 Mbps and higher DSL services are available in a few key markets (like Japan and Korea), most DSL users worldwide manage with connections offering download speeds of only 1 Mbps to 1.5 Mbps, and upstream speeds considerably lower than that.” (ITU)
With the advent of high speed DSL also available in other other regions, including Europe, the US, and Australia, and Sony’s push for an online game service that may equal and even surpass Microsoft’s Xbox Live, downloadable next-generation video games may become a reality much sooner than anticipated.
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