The Death of Used Game Sales? 168
xtracto writes "The Inquirer has an interesting piece about a new Sony Patent on a technology that may possible prevent DVD disc media users from using their purchased disks in other machines after they have used them on a specific reader. Commentary also available on Joystiq. From the Article: 'While many are aware of the double profit companies make on pre-owned games, this would ensure the death of trading games between friends and even going to a friend's house to play a little multiplayer.'"
Re:That Spells "Problem" (Score:3, Interesting)
Sony would never do that, right? They are a responsible company which looks out for the consumer of their products?
Lets face it, Sony's had a break from reality, they'll pull this crap in an instant as long as it doesn't cost them much more in production.
No worries. (Score:5, Interesting)
It's also a pretty ridiculous idea, as I know a lot of people who bring together their games and/or consoles to have parties and whatnot. This kind of (legal, by the way) game trading and loaning is a form of free word-of-mouth advertising for game companies.
Going back all the way to my Atari 2600 in the early 80s, I can remember buying way more console games after having borrowed a friend's copy or renting a copy from a store that I have from reading useless magazine ads and reviews.
The line up so far (Score:5, Interesting)
+Blu-ray drive
+Lean Mean Sony Company Gaming Machine look
+Backwards compatible with PS2/PS1 games
+Games: Final Fantasy series, GTA series (first serve, anyway)
-Lock out technology to make sure that when a review says a game has no replay value, that means no one else can replay it, either
-Probably makes lousy burgers
-Expensive
-Same old controllers
Microsoft - XBox 360 (confirmed name)
+First to launch
+XBox Live features
+Games: Halo,
+It's white?
-Plain old DVD drive (no advanced drive- what is their's, HD-DVD?)
-Only partial backwards compatibility
-Same old controllers
Nintendo - Revolution (tentative name)
+Smallest of the three systems
+Innovative, new controller interface
+Backwards compatibility for the past 20 years
+Ability for controller attachments greatly increases game immersion and developer freedom
+Games: Zelda, Mario, Smash Brothers, Metroid
-Regular DVD drive
-Lack of HDTV support (IIRC, it has high resolution, but not HDTV)
-Arms or wrists could wear out faster than after a "session" with certain Pamela Anderson videos (this remains to be seen)
-Ability for controller attachments could overwhelm people who get 15 different types (there are already two "official" regular attachments- the Ninchuck and the shell)
Personally, I was leaning towards a Revolution when they first revealed the console, and I'm hard set on it now that I know about the controller. Sony's attempts at similar "prevention" in other technology realms ("P.C. phone home") helps make my mind up. Sony can keep their anti-customer DRM and Spider-man font. They won't get another cent from me.
Re:Publishers (Score:3, Interesting)
Their marketing likely contributed to Joe Blow walking into the store looking for the game, yet they don't get to recoup that money through revenue if Joe buy's a used copy of the game. The support issue is also valid.
It wouldn't be as big of a deal if it were people selling their old games at yard sales, or even individuals clearing out their collection on eBay. But this is facilitated and organized by fairly large retail chains, so it's on a grander scale.
Having said all that, I don't think TFA's subject is the best solution. As many have pointed out, it'd screw over just about all of the legitimate consumers, and encourage people to resort to piracy, or boycott.
Can't the publishers just say "You know, if you're going to sell copies of our games used without cutting us in on the profit, we're not selling you any new games?". It'd hurt their bottom lines for a while, but if enough of them did it, the EB and GameStops would revise their policy or go out of business.