Sony’s new technology will restrict or block the second hand games market
Sony Computer Entertainment Japan has patented the technology of restricting or blocking the use of the second hand video games. This technology will tag the game discs to the user accounts resulting in the rejection of playing the game with another user’s account.
According to the patent, “A game playing system includes a use permission tag provided for use in a game disk for a user of a game, a disk drive, and a reproduction device for reproducing the game. The disk drive reads out a disk ID from the game disk. When the game is to be played, the reproduction device conveys the disk ID and a player ID to the use permission tag. The use permission tag stores the terms of use of the game and determines whether a combination of the disk ID and the player ID conveyed from the reproduction device fulfills the terms of use or not.”
According to Sony, other anti-second hand gaming methods such as Online Passes and passwords worked better only when the user was connected to the internet and the ability of those methods fell down upon disconnection from the internet.
The filing continues: “As a result [of the patented idea], the dealing of electronic content in second-hand markets is suppressed, which in turn supports the redistribution of part of proceeds from sales of the electronic content to the developers.”
Sony is expected to launch the next generation of PlayStation later this year.
