Taking hints from 2K Games and BioShock’s SecuROM policy, SCEA revealed that their recently released action game, Warhawk, will feature DRM protection. Up until now, all PS3 downloadable games were sharable between 5 machines at once. But for Warhawk, it’s a whole different animal.
The downloadable version of Warhawk will be specifically tied to the one PSN account which was used to purchase the game. This account alone can actually play Warhawk. People who buy Warhawk from the PSN store can still download the game on up to 5 machines at once, but only one account will be able to play it.
So for instance, if you wanted to download the game to a friend’s PS3, you’d have to use your PSN account to do this. But if your friend just finished playing Warhawk from your account, (which is on a different PS3) you’ll have to wait 24 hours till you can access it again. Can anyone say BS?
Note that the downloadable version of Warhawk is only affected by the DRM protection; the Blu-ray disc version isn’t. SCEA said they’ll evaluate the DRM policy for future games, based on, "development costs, maintenance cost, server costs and other factors." Therefore, Warhawk’s DRM policy may not be the future for other PSN games.
2K Games wised up and upped the number of game activations and computers BioShock could be installed on. But this policy for Warhawk is pretty insane. Not being able to play your game after someone else played it on a different PS3 is a stretch.
But I do understand why Sony is using this DRM, you know, to fight evil piracy and the like.
[Via Next Generation]
