Digital Version Of The Last Of Us Playable During Download

GI:Naughty Dog has told Game Informer that its upcoming survival horror epic The Last of Us will be released digitally through the PlayStation Store on June 14, the same day that the game releases in stores on Blu-ray disc. There's also something special about this simultaneous release.

[Majin-vegeta]

Testing waters for the PS4?

[BattleAxe]

Testing the waters? Its about damn time Sony started doing this with their exclusive games. Companies like EA and 2K have been releasing their games on the PSN day one, or at least within a few months of release for a few years now.

[delicia]

It's about playing while downloading, not Day-One availability.

[Maninja]

Like takashima said, being able to play the game while it's downloading is one of the PS4's new features, so it definitely looks like they're testing it out with the Last of Us

[KwietStorm_BLM]

BattleAxe, you missed the point entirely.

[Sevir]

This article is isn't about Sony offering day 1 digital releases with the retail, its about the fact that this is the First PS3 title that allows for simultaneous play while downloading from the store, a feature Sony's PS4 does on the fly... Which is why the poster above mentions testing water for the PS4.

Just slow down and read the article thoroughly instead of seeing what you want to see and making such a statement. Cheers

[abzdine]

man you are completely out of topic!

This is huge news, if the price isn't higher than retail i'll be curious to try this feature.

[nveenio]

I would go digital if the price was the same as retail, as long as this feature actually works, and I don't have to download 1GB to get started. PSN downloads are really slow for me for some reason, and I have a 20Mbps connection. Not great, but enough to know when a server is slow.

[Codey47]

Note to self
Must read topics before letting my keyboard do the talking!

[Gamesgbkiller]

@inveni0
Not great you say ?
I have 4Mbps.
I'm VERy SLOW.

[minimur12]

@battleaxe

I can tell you're new.

[Oschino1907]

The Playstation Store only started promoting/doing Day 1 Digital Downloads like last Sep/Oct (6-7months) along with digital pre orders often giving a discount and/or bonus game/content.

if your going to go off topic and make a douchey statement atleast know what your going off topic about.

On Topic, I hope they offer some sort of a discount for PS+ member like they did with Metro Last light cause $48 day one beats what any other retailer can offer 99% of the time.

[hkgamer]

I think it would be better to allow you to download a night before, then release a small patch on release date that unlocks the game.

[HappyGaming]

hkgamer for PSN CEO!

[BISHOP-BRASIL]

@Minimur12

He's not new at all, he've been here almost as long as me (since 2007) and is usually a cool guy (I noticed him long ago as we apparently share an interest in tactical shooters), I don't get it either... I think he just misreaded it.

[Cam977]

It's here to stay so enjoy it.

[NBT91]

You still need to DL 50% of the file to play it, which is still going to take a while for a lot of people. Not that "futuristic" really, if you ask me.

PS4 needs to be instant or very close to instant. But for now, 50% i better than nothing I guess. And what better game to test it on? =D

[ZodTheRipper]

^
It's instant on PS4. Thing is, nobody expected that to be possible on PS3 already.

[MiloGarret]

Welcome to the past, this is not something new. Nor is it particularly useful.

[dedicatedtogamers]

Definitely testing the waters. Next gen is going to be all about convenience (because devs are learning that graphics and $100 million advertising budgets just aren't enough to cut in anymore). Games will load faster. Systems will boot up faster (or in the case of PS4 there will be a "sleep mode" that lets you suspend your game like you can on Vita and 3DS). Everything will be about convenience.

[FamilyGuy]

They arent testing the waters, the test have been completed and they decided on making this a feature before we even saw the feb press conference. If they're testing anything it's our reaction to it, seeing if we praise it and such.

About advertising:
Sony/Playstation executives have always claimed that word of mouth is the best advertising and with the Share button features we gamers will be doing the advertising for them. Constantly, in full force and for anyone on our friends list or anyone checking out our UStream channels to see. This is something that will help them advertise games beyond anything a 30sec commercial or billboard could ever do.

It's going to be a big deal.

[Abdou23]

Now they need to lower the price than the retail version to be worth it.

[tracyllrkn]

Only way I see that happening is when the game can only be purchased digitally.

[morgenpimm]

why not join ps+, they always have good discounts for that and if you purchase your digital games regularly annually, that comes to some real savings.

[Thatguy-310]

Well in retail you almost find yourself paying close to 70$ with taxes and in the psn store you buy it 60$ even. That's why lately I been buying them off there. Save me the time and the extra bucks.

[irepbtown]

PSN UK new games are usually £59.99 (some £49.99), in store/online is £40-45. The odd games do get reduced quite a bit on PSN such as Ghost Recon Future Soldier (I believe it's under £30).

So it'd be great if they could at least match retail price on Playstation store (here in UK, I don't know about the rest). If downloads become cheaper than actual copies, then I for one will start buying through PSN. But for now, I'll stick with Disc.

PS: Damn! I did not expect at all the PS3 to be able to 'play while downloading'. Even if you do have to wait 50%, still bloody good.
This is like a teaser for the PS4, Cheeky Sony :D

[L6RD7BLU3]

That's what I said too

[FamilyGuy]

It's beginning...

I wonder if it's still going to need to be installed after the download is complete? Usually you have to wait for the download to complete and the install, maybe this one installs while it's downloading though.

I know the PS4 is going to be instant but what magic are they working here?

[zeddy]

gonna go buy the disc version at midnight, its tradition.

[Nitrowolf2]

That's awesome, even if it's just at the 50% download line (right away on the ps4), that's pretty neat that they snuck this feature in. Hopefully other DD games do this on the ps3. I wonder if this is what the information about the PS4 testing on PSN being hacked a few days was really about.

[-Alpha]

I doubt this will be a feature for any other game for PS3. Seems like Naughty Dog just knew what to do, or was at least thoughtful of the implementation.

It's a great idea of what PS4/next-gen will be like, though.

[greatcrusader44]

Music to my ears, just the fact that itll be digitally released. My ps3s bluesy drive died on me and while I know I will eventually get a new one, it's good knowing I can play Last of Us beforehand.

[Salooh]

Great :)

[Plagasx]

How is this even possible though? What if the game needs something from the data and it isn't finished yet??

[vickers500]

There's probably a minimum amount of game data you need (something like 30-50%) and then it starts working. That 30 or 50% is probably programmed to be the earliest parts of the game, because most people probably wont get very far enough in the game to have it stop, the game will probably have finished downloading before it hits the stopping point.

[Christopher]

The "game engine" and similar assets are at most 50MB (Unity game engine is only 15MB for me). The rest are sound and graphic assets. So, if you download the assets required for the first area of the game, you could play that while the game downloads the rest for future areas.

[KwietStorm_BLM]

I'd advise you not to attempt doing it on 56k.

[jimmywolf]

would be funny if someone did then 2 week later file complete.... error in download please re download

[Salooh]

Well, if i were them i would let it download the important stuff then chapters. That way when you reach 50% means you downloaded few chapters so you play them while the others downloading. GT5 let you install while you playing so it's already possible . I also would put the mp the last thing to download..

[NBT91]

They obviously planned for that. It will be like, it will fully download say, the first 6 hours of the campaign, by the time you get that far, the rest will have downloaded or if not, will be close.

You will probably need to exit the game to install the remaining data after you get to a certain point in the game. If it isnt done, you wait. But it probably will be fine by then.

[ginsunuva]

Doesn't it need to install? Or does it download 50%, install, let you play, and install the rest during.

[ltachiUchiha]

I swear naughty dog are a bunch of very talented studio. I love how they will be going all out on this game. I dont watch alot of tv but i hope sony advertises the hell out of this game because naughty dog deserves big sales for always bringing out quality games. Cant wait to see the multiplayer, I have a feeling it is going to blow ppl away and with an amazing single player, this game will be full of win.

[Sevir]

Sony isn't messing around. This is going to be one hell of a game. However, I won't be downloading this game, I'll just buy the retail copy. :-)

[ltachiUchiha]

Same here im buying the retail copy because i love collecting my games. I am glad that u guys are actually seeing advertisements for the game, naughty dog definitely deserves it. Cant freakin wait.

trenso1

Thats really good. I need to start watching tv sometimes lol.

[trenso1]

i actually saw a commercial for the last of us yesterday, i think the real world on mtv was on but it was cool to see the commercial

[illtornworld]

Thats what ive been yelling! notice theyre the first to do this :-) i hope 5mbs can do this,

[KwietStorm_BLM]

Wonder how they pulled that off.

[_QQ_]

Pc ,mainly blizzard, has been doing it for a while, i'm sure they just took notes.

[TronEOL]

Probably doesn't download the Multiplayer and the last half of the game before letting you play. So you can play maybe a few hours of the game while it downloads the rest, with the Multiplayer being last.

Maybe they'll even use (test out) Gaikai's PS4 service to help push the game better. So it won't use the regular slower servers (I CAN download at 80-100mbs, but my PS3 tops out at 19-25mbs) or whatever.

Gaikai is supposed to be taking over Sony's PSN for the PS4, so I'd assume testing it with Last of Us (and probably Beyond: Two Souls and GT6) would be a fairly good thing.

[Lockon]

Sony giving us a little taste of PS4.

[Sharius]

the PS4 demo, i support

[Iltapalanyymi]

OHH we get to taste PS4 playgo thingy. COOL!

[desertpunk86]

i don't give a crap about this i wanna know about mp i already spent 120 on sp games bioshock and tomb raider i wanna play good mp.

sick and tired of fps mp.

[Haules]

What makes you think the MP in this will be any different from the crap that's in every other game this gen?

[Rubberlegs]

Well we don't know if will be any different since we still don't know what it will be like. Naughty Dog said it will have multiplayer but they still haven't show it off yet and the only thing they have mention is that it won't be a coop muliplayer campaign.

This was a year ago too when they first said it would have multiplayer. The game is month away and we still don't got anything yet so it would seem like they trying for something different.

[boing1]

So I guess digital version will be a pretty big download.

[o-Sunny-o]

I might buy both digital and retail wow ND my money is catching fire. ^~^

[I_am_Batman]

Great news. Now I just need to get a faster connection (sitting at 2Mbps/256KBps max) and I'm ready for the PS4. I think we will need at least 5Mbps for all Gaikai features to work.

[WeAreLegion]

Naughty Dog doesn't care if technology is ready for them. They're gonna freakin' push the envelope!

[VonBraunschweigg]

Good good but nothing beats running to the closest videogamestore after work and grab that copy, hand it over, slide the card & push the numbers, grab it back and run home. And then you install.

And I'm a lazy person.

[BLKxSEPTEMBER]

with the size of some ps3 games, i dont see it worth downloading games over a physical copy.

[LKHGFDSA]

Sure 30GB can be alot, but what else are you going to do with the 500GB HDD.
The main advantage that I see if being able to buy the games at midnight.

[BLKxSEPTEMBER]

every one doesnt have a 500gb hdd. and with all the mandatory installs it just doesnt seem smart to download a game thats over 10 gbs. on top of that they charge the same price for a physical copy but minus the box. i dont see being able to buy a digital version at midnight much of an advantage. and does the psn do midnight releases? just curious