Account sharing on Sony's Playstation Network and Capcom's Final Fight

ceo@secureplay.com (SecurePlay) — Wed, 28 Apr 2010 05:38:00 -0700

Sony's Playstation Network is rather different from Microsoft's Xbox Live in that games are tied to an account instead of a console. PSN players can install a game on up to five consoles. Clever users are "timesharing" games using a single purchase to install games on five consoles and share the game... basically buying a game for 1/5th the price.

Capcom has added a layer of "DRM" to its PSN game, Final Fight. This retro game requires players to login with the account of the person who purchased the game originally in order to play and in order to login, the player has to be connected to the PSN.

So, Capcom is requiring the same continuous connection that is getting Ubisoft in trouble, but on a console instead of a PC.

Account sharing may also be a problem for other online services like Steam.

J. Fletcher (2010), "PS3 Final Fight: Double Impact requires PSN connection", http://www.joystiq.com/2010/04/21/ps3-final-fight-double-impact-requires-psn-connection/

via

" Final Fight Brings Restrictive DRM To the PS3", http://games.slashdot.org/story/10/04/23/0536246/Final-Fight-Brings-Restrictive-DRM-To-the-PS3

"Capcom's Response on the Final Fight DRM", http://boards.ign.com/ps3_general_board/b8267/191330467/p1/

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Account sharing on Sony's Playstation Network and Capcom's Final Fight