Sony Unveils PS3 to PS4 Game Upgrade Plan
Last week we talked about the Amazon deal to let Xbox 360 game owners trade in select titles in order to upgrade them to their Xbox One counterparts for only $10. Sony apparently saw the deal as a good idea and thought, “Hey, let’s do that but better.” If Playstation 3 owners didn’t have enough reasons to stick with Sony for next gen, then Sony has just sweetened the pot for them.
Sony Unveils PS3 To PS4 Game Upgrade Plan
During GamesCom Sony announced that gamers who purchase select PS3 titles, will be able to download digital copies of those games for Playstation 4 at a significantly discounted price. While it will not be available for every single game, some big publishers have come out as participants in the program. As it stands we know that Warner Bros., Ubisoft, Electronic Arts, and Activision will all be in the program to some degree.
The program will only run for a limited time, so try not to wait around too long on buying the games that are in the program. There is no information regarding whether the offer is going to be worldwide, or focused specifically in the United States and United Kingdom.
When it comes to how much the digital copies of your upgraded games will cost, Sony has left that to the publishers. Fergal Gara, the UK managing Director, explained why the pricing is being left to publishers:
That mechanism doesn’t affect us, because we’re not publishing any titles across both platforms. It’s over to the EAs, the Activisions, and the Ubisofts to go and decide what the differential is to trade up.
Gara went on the comment about how exciting it was the Sony is able to offer the upgrade deal. Though he didn’t specifically name prices for the digital copies, he did comment that they would not be substantial but would be “fair.” It will most likely fall around the same cost as similar programs where you can get the digital copies for about $10.
Of course if you’re not planning on going for the PS4 and would rather trade up your 360 games, you can take advantage of similar offers from Amazon and Gamespot. We can only hope that they open up these program to a larger library of games. At least the upgrade options are spread across both of the next gen consoles.
These programs are very exciting in general for console gaming and help with a big weakness of home consoles. When put against PCs it has always been a losing point that once a new gen of consoles comes out you lose the ability to play older games. If this program could be opened up to cover more than just a few titles, it could be a big win for console users.
Reading about these upgrade programs just makes me wish they existed before. With digital downloads becoming very popular on the PS3 and 360, it would have been great to bring along some of my older 360 and Xbox games that weren’t compatible with the system yet. Heck, Microsoft could unload the costs of backwards compatibility on to publishers and it might benefit gamers.
The PS4 will be launching on November 15th in the US and November 29th in Europe. By the end of the year the console will be available in 32 countries around the world.
The Xbox One has a vague launch date somewhere in November. A specific date has yet to be announced for the console release.