From what I remember, Microsoft presented the Xbox One in the initial E3 presentation as a pretty dramatic departure from previous consoles in that it was heavily set-top box/TV oriented and so you had stuff like the magic TV pass through thing triggered by Kinect and the original TV series they said they were going to do and there would be all this floaty cloud DRM stuff. People seemed generally revulsed by the concept, not just the disc thing but the entire concept. It was perhaps the wrong time - with the increasing popularity of streaming and games becoming increasingly digitally oriented and hard to sell with season passes and stuff it probably wouldn't go down that badly today.

Of course, apart from a coupe of points, the main thing that Microsoft fucked up was the presentation of things. They assumed everyone would want the same things they do, rather than just saying "our new game console can also do these things, if you want them".

You may think it's daft, but that's the way it happens and there's no indication of it stopping any time soon.

I mean, I accept that this is the way things have been done in the past, but these deals always seemed very much like an anomaly in terms of media licensing deals, films don’t get pulled from sale because the license on a soundtracked song has run out. Surely the games companies have wised up a bit.

Are we talking about games like Tony Hawks, so a licensing deal from 20 years ago?

Edit: you’ve edited.

But things also change because money can be made. These days, more money can be made by both halves of a deal by not expiring them.

I’m not aware of those ones.

Yossarian wrote:

I’m not aware of those ones.

First results from a Google:
https://gamerant.com/activision-spider-man-teenage-mutant-ninja-turtle-digital/
https://kotaku.com/activision-pulls-transformers-games-from-steam-and-play-1821535229

There are likely more I'm not aware of.

But yeah, perhaps Activision will keep being daft, hopefully other pubs are a bit more sensible these days.

Spiderman 2 on PS2 (ie the best superhero game ever) goes for slightly silly monies at cex *spit*

Wasn't obvious at the PS3 launch at all, that.

afgavinstan wrote:

Spiderman 2 on PS2 (ie the best superhero game ever) goes for slightly silly monies at cex *spit*

It was at the time, but we've had the Arkham games since then, and there are probably others I've forgotten about.

Anyway, after the PC one, which was a completely different game, the PS2 is the worst version. Xbox has best graphics and GC has widescreen support. I have both; we've covered how I'm a massive nerd for that game, haven't we?

No, you can still download these games, you just can’t buy them.

None of these are deals! I came in here all excited

Licensing is almost always going to run out isn’t it? Especially with big IPs. Marvel Ip is the most obvious example, but more than that, a distributer only holds onto the rights for an amount of time. It’s why you see some films on DVD with different labels on, as a distributor will lose the license to press/release that film. Very common with independent and foreign releases.

Sometimes a distributer of a film will lose the rights, and the film won’t be picked up again.

Likewise, I was trying to get a copy of ‘trails in the sky’ for vita on the PSN store, and it’s just that ghostlight lost the license. I think atlas have it back now (as they didn’t publish in EU themselves) so my only legal way of getting it is the UMD on PSP, as they haven’t republished it.

Now, if that UMD was tied to a service that checked online, and the PSP services are all down, what happens to that version of the game?

Edit: Apologies, this isn’t the thread for this is it...

Okay back to deals please. That was an underwhelming visit to this thread for sure.

I got an email from Toys R Us saying the closing down sale was now 25% max saving, which seems an increase from the other day when it was 20%. Everything's probably gone though.