Sony Wants To Put Your Game Saves In the Cloud 224
itwbennett writes "Sony may be planning to have three platforms (Android devices, NGP, PS3) running PlayStation Suite content and needing access to the same saved data stored in the cloud, says blogger Peter Smith. At last week's PlayStation Meeting, game developer Hideo Kojima said his 'dream' was to offer the same game on the PS3 and the new PlayStation Portable with saves in the cloud. If Kotaku has it right, that dream may be coming in firmware version 3.6. Also, in an interview with Engadget, Sony's Jack Tretton first said that PlayStation Suite games would work on the PS3. He then retracted that comment, but it's sounding a lot like Sony just isn't ready to talk officially about plans to bring Suite content to the PS3, says Smith."
Good idea. (Score:2, Interesting)
Imagine your PS3 hard drive dies. Your saves are online, or your PS3 is in for repairs. You can still use a buddies PS3 and login to an account and play from your last save. Even upgrading to a new console (of the sony variety) and still having your saves for backwards compatible games. That sort of service gives incentive to buy future products.
Of course there are problems. What if you don't connect your console to the internet? What if the servers hosting your saves go down? Would the servers act as a backup for your saves on your hard drive? (I think that would be a good idea)
I like it sirs.
que privacy and/or anti-"cloud" /. comments NOW!
Moving Forward or Raising Stakes on Jailbreaking? (Score:5, Interesting)
That said, it raises the stakes on what happens if I decide to jailbreak my devices. Is there always going to be a hard copy, or do I get a nastygram message at startup saying "Your account (and all of those saves) have been locked out due to unlicensed use of your hardware"? Let's not forget that many manufacturers (Sony and Nintendo included) are moving towards digital delivery systems.
Could be good! (Score:5, Interesting)
That could be really good! So long as I wasn't required to be connected to the internet in order to play my games. If there was some kind of consolecloud replication and games could function in a completely offline state it would be pretty great. It sucks balls when Blizzard is offline and I can't get my StarCraft 2 injection.
Re:Good idea (Score:2, Interesting)
Re:Kojima's "dream" is not mine (Score:2, Interesting)
Have you been absent during the latest era of Console/PC cross-development? They don't design for the high-bar and port down, they design for the low-bar and port up. I know it's a taboo word, but PC games have been 'dumbed-down' so they can also be played on a console. The resolutions and frame-rates are locked, the HUDs use overly large and brightly colored fonts. The controls consist of 4 buttons (which are often displayed on the screen when you are supposed to click them.) The games seem like they were made by Playskool except that they are violent.
The same will happen for PS3/PSP development. The PS3 version will be exactly like the PSP version...just bigger.
Cross development is painful for those who choose to play on the 'high-bar' system.
That would be nice, if... (Score:4, Interesting)
...they don't abuse the power.
For instance, Nintendo happens to sign your save game files with a per-console key. This allows developers the option to lock their game's saves to the console, preventing you from moving them from one machine to the next. Certain homebrew applications were created that allowed you to actually back up your save file.
This hit me when I bought Ghost Squad. I unlocked a bunch of guns, and wanted to take the game to a friend's house to play on his Wii. I tried to copy my save file to the SD Card, and it told me no. That's some balls, telling me that I can't copy my own save file. WTF?