Playstation has announced that all games available for pre-order on the Playstation Store will also be pre-loaded up to several days in advance of that game’s official launch.
Once the game has been pre-ordered, the PS4 will automatically pre-load the game by default if the Playstation 4 is in standby mode.
The announcement wasn’t without its criticism as comments on the Playstation Blog indicate that when you pre-order a game, you are charged immediately for the full price of the game – even if the game is months away from being launched. Another comment that has surfaced is that once you pre-order a game, you cannot cancel it; so be sure you want the game before tossing down that $60USD in advance.
There was no word if the digital pre-orders would include pre-0rder bonuses that are commonplace when pre-ordering physical disc copies at many retailers.
Transformers: Rise of the Dark Spark will be the first game to pre-load (as it is the first game on the list due out). The rest of the initial list of games that Sony has up for pre-order and pre-loading are:
- Battlefield Hardline (regular and deluxe editions)
- Bloodborne
- Call of Duty: Advanced Warfare
- Destiny
- Dragon Age: Inquisition (regular and deluxe editions)
- Far Cry 4
- inFAMOUS First Light
- Plants vs. Zombies Garden Warfare
- LittleBigPlanet 3
- Middle Earth: Shadow of Mordor
- The Order: 1886
- Uncharted 4: A Thief’s End
It’s great seeing digital pre-orders and pre-loading being implemented, but in order for Sony (and Microsoft) to succeed at this the pre-order system should be set up more like the traditional physical pre-order: the credit card or account isn’t charged until the game begins to pre-load, and allow for gamers to cancel pre-orders before this time. One of the big things that is missing from digital downloads in general are the pre-order bonuses that come with physical games. As a further incentive to pre-order a game, gaming companies need to add some sort of pre-order bonus to digital pre-orders as well.
It definitely looks like things are moving in the right direction with the next generation of gaming, but there’s still work to do.
Source: Playstation Blog
Last Updated on November 27, 2018.
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