If what Gamespot’s review on Winning Eleven: Pro Evolution Soccer is true, a copy of the game could never be sold or loaned to another PS3 owner for online play without handing over account details.
From the review:
It’s also worth noting the online registration process, which locks your copy of the game to your Konami account for online play. This means that if you ever want to sell your copy of the game, the next person will be unable to play online unless he or she has your registration details. To our knowledge this is the first time this has happened in a PS3 title, and Konami’s UK office declined to respond to inquiries over why the system was implemented.
A game that locks to the first person that owns it? That’s a bold way to stop the used games problem dead in its tracks, though I’m not sure that any gamer would stand for this. If this is really the case, stores that stock used games (like GameStop) would have to somehow monitor if the game has had its online ability ‘used’ or not.
Although this is a Konami game, and the game uses a Konami account, it sounds suspiciously similar to other recent rights management issues Sony has had in the music and film industry. Let’s hope we hear some clarification on this issue soon.
