Sony exec kinda sorta confirms Hub service and downloadable PS3 games

We can't ourselves confirm Impress's pseudo-confirmation, but according to PS3center's reading of an Impress report, it sounds like like corporate executive managing director and senior vice president of Sony Computer Entertainment Asia, Tetsuhiko Yasuda, said something about PlayStation 3 games being downloadable (nice) through Sony's supposed Hub service (nice!). Apparently this would be a concerted, controlled effort to combat game piracy in Asia, but hey, their new system (like every new system) is totally unbreakable and uncrackable, right, guys? Right? Anyway, we're taking this whole thing with a big grain of salt and keep you posted.

[Via PS3center]

[Ed @ Feb 20th 2006 2:40PM]

Pretty sure they don't mean entire games. Sony had stated several times that downloading minigames, demos, videos, patches etc is possible.. seems to me that PS3center just interepredted that as downloading Games.. as in 'entire releases.'

Considering these Blu-ray discs are touting like 30GB per disc, I highly doubt Sony will be offering near 30GB downloads.

File under salted.

[Ryan Renna @ Feb 20th 2006 2:48PM]

Playstation 3 probably-will-just-maby match a feature xbox360 already has? and Revolution is promising. I'm impressed...

[Broken Goalie @ Feb 20th 2006 2:49PM]

I think all of the next generation game systems will all have downloadable games. The only problem is that these game are now several GB in size which means they will need some serious bandwidth to feed the hungry gamers.

[stoobs @ Feb 20th 2006 3:44PM]

Yah i'm with #1, 30gb downloads would be out of the question. Unless you could download single missions or something like that. And the bandwith would have to be like 100 petabytes a month for sony.

[gizmondo_hater @ Feb 20th 2006 3:45PM]

i live opposite to a game shop so it doesn't really matter to me :)

[Luis La Torre @ Feb 20th 2006 3:50PM]

I personally like buyin CDs than downlodin from the iTunes music store even though i do sometimes when it comes to exclusetivity. So im gonna say that im gonna buy the Blu Rays intead than downloadin from the HUB store I guess. Although i would definetly buy old games from PS1 or even early games from PS2 or other consoles like dream cast( XBOX Live Bought them i guess).

[jamesthejust @ Feb 20th 2006 3:59PM]

After making such a fuss about the necessity of 30gb media, this'd be pretty funny.

By contrast, Microsoft may have done themselves a favor by going down the 'cheap' route. If they do decide to offer full game downloads via the marketplace (possible in the next couple of years), all games will weigh in under 10gb. Which, given the adaption of faster and faster broadband services (and a multitasking os), would be a breeze!

[Tim @ Feb 20th 2006 4:01PM]

Does he mean full PS3 game that you buy and download through the service? (Much like buying and downloading Source games through Valve's Steam program) Or do they mean games like Xbox 360's Live Arcade games?

[bazald @ Feb 20th 2006 4:08PM]

Sure, the downloads will be "a breeze", but where will the hardcore gamers store their 4-5 terabytes of data? I /can't wait/ to see their hard disk arrays...

[nojok3 @ Feb 20th 2006 4:47PM]

I think the xbox 360 should get fully downloadable games. The overheating of the console is mostly due to games in the dvd drive, and doing so would free up some of the fans. Seeing as most marketplace downloads are slow, because of the time you download, I don't see them being able to offer this unless some 3rd company helps with the hosting. Seeing as Sony doesn't have their own online system yet, I don't think they will have downloadable PS3 games at launch, at least not full games. Microsoft can't even do that and they have had an online service for 4 years now.

[jomtmon @ Feb 20th 2006 5:35PM]

Sounds like a good direction. The networks are gonna get a serious workout though. May be smaller updates will be downloads? Have to sell those new Blu-ray discs too..

[Slow News Day @ Feb 20th 2006 7:35PM]

Downloadable content would require a hard drive (sold separately).

Although I think digital downloads ARE the future, the one problem with downloading games, is that if anything happens to the hard drive, you lost the game. Over the years, I've gone through two Xboxes and two PS2s due to problems with hardware.

[all4emu @ Feb 21st 2006 1:49AM]

I am sure that PS3 will have this option built in, but not sure if they will use it right at the start. Free mini game downloads could be something to use against Revolution nes games.

[Paul @ Feb 21st 2006 3:12AM]

#9 where did you hear that "The overheating of the console is mostly due to games in the dvd drive" because that is purely BS. Optical drives throw off little to no heat.

Anyways staying with the topic, the current internet infrastructure is not currently capable of doing this sort of thing. 10+ GB downloads would take forever even on a cable (typically 6Mbps) connection.

[Eric @ Feb 21st 2006 5:55PM]

So, if you can download games of the "HUB" in Asia, then the HDD must be available for gaming unlike what Sony's always said previously, right?

[dij @ Feb 24th 2006 11:38AM]

how are you gonna download without a hard disk?