Actually if you think about it all PSN games have activation, so DRM has been on PSN since day one.

Anyway, WORSE DRM has come again to PSN, thanks to Bionic Commando Rearmed 2: check it out.

Basically BCR2 requires you to be online and verify your PSN account each time you start the game. Other than Ubisoft's PC DRM that is just about the worst DRM out there, and it's on consoles. I guess Capcom, the publisher of the game, did this before with another release but this shows they certainly aren't letting up.

I have to say, not only is being online every time you play a shitty DRM system, but also since it is a console it would be a super pain in the ass to circumvent, if even possible for a layman. Scary stuff...

I dont own a PS3 but if they do that on any 360 games I would return the bloody thing, I play offline so im not pestered by chat invites and random people on my friends list bugging me. To summerise if a game has a manditory online check I wouldnt buy it and if I did buy one without realising I would return it.

It's worse than that, there's a rumor going around that the next 3.56 firmware adds the ability of Sony to go in and monitor what's on your box and possibly report any pirated, backed up or any software which violates their rules. Whether or not it's actually pirated or otherwise illegal.

At this stage it's still a rumor, but if that's the case I definitely wouldn't be buying any software that requires the PSN, especially since I'd like to do a bit of homebrew on my console and I'm sure Sony considers that to be equally illegal to actual pirate materials.

Wasnt there a rumor that microsoft could watch you through your 360 kinect???

Doesn't surprise me. There are already rumors that the next gen consoles will have some always online component. Homebrew is not a positive point for console makers. Nintendo, Sony and Apple have all been doing their best to stamp it out.

I assumed they would go with a Steam model, but requiring a connection every time you play is a good bit further than that. Crazy.

And all of it on a closed system. I'll never support that.

Not only that but it's overpriced too, I hope sales suffer more due to pricing as the original was 800ms points on 360 and the sequel is 1200. They overcharge for games way too much (like map packs which were free in the good old days.)

I never ever plugged my PS3 on any network, not even my internal home network, if any games ever requires me to be online It will goes back to the store immediately.

I am pretty sure that with the NGP and it's 3G "always online" capability Sony will come up with some lovely DRM too.

PSN requires a 1-time activation and allows games to add their own protection or crappy DRM - I dont see how this is worse than Steam which does the exact same thing.

Blame Capcom and vote with your wallets, such a thing is unacceptable for me,

I didn't buy the first Bionic Commando Rearmed because I couldn't punch enemies back with my bionic arm in the demo. I could do that in the NES version. I wasn't entirely interested in the sequel because you can jump in the thing. Not being able to jump was sort of the point, and what made the game different. (Though you can get through without jumping and unlock "no jump" mode by doing so.)

I did purchase Final Fight: Double Impact before all the news regarding the online requirement came out, but I'm always connected to the net via my router. Still... I was about to forgive them and purchase Rearmed 2 despite the jumping, but I won't now. Thanks for the warning.

Sony pretty much just hate their customers. Other companies customers - Sony hates them too. Generally speaking it's been heading in an increasingly megalomaniacal totalitarian direction for over a decade now. So yeah, I will avoid buying anything of theirs as much as I can.

I can see you disliking them for many of their other decisions, but this is a Capcom decision, and not the first by them. The publisher gets to choose if they want DRM or not.

On the plus side, Sony has made the PS3 and PSP without region restrictions, while Nintendo has gone the opposite way. Sony also supported Linux on the PS2 and the PS3 (until recently). They don't charge for on-line, opting to make the publishers pay for PSN rather than the customers. They supported USB memory sticks long before Microsoft did, and they allow you to swap out your HDD for any laptop drive you want. (Microsoft makes you pay for their custom drives.)

I'm not saying that I like Sony that much, they are FAR from my favorite company, and many of their choices have been moronic at times, but to be fair, they've made a few decent decisions for the customers as well. (For the record I like all three consoles just fine.)

Console region restrictions are nonsensical in this day and age. Yes, that makes Nintendo nonsensical, but what's so surprising about that?

Yes, like you say, they've killed LInux support. So I don't see what's so good about that. I can kind of understand the decision in light of the fact that they were selling the consoles at a loss. It meant that people buying the console as a cheap computer were causing Sony to lose money. But even so, it's no longer a selling point of the company and that's that.

But ultimately my problem is their continuing company-wide attacks on consumer rights. Whether it be through their substantial hold on the music industry and their involvement with the RIAA, or their creation of SecuROM, or the fact that they DRM the crap out of everything they touch, from optical drives and players to consoles to MP3. What they're doing to the PS3 is merely an aspect of the nature of the beast.