Sony Joins the Offensive Against Pre-Owned Games 461
BanjoTed writes "In a move to counter sales of pre-owned games, EA recently revealed DLC perks for those who buy new copies of Mass Effect 2 and Battlefield: Bad Company 2. Now, PlayStation platform holder Sony has jumped on the bandwagon with similar plans for the PSP's SOCOM: Fireteam Bravo 3. '[Players] will need to register their game online before they are able to access the multiplayer component of the title. UMD copies will use a redeemable code while the digital version will authenticate automatically in the background. Furthermore ... anyone buying a pre-owned copy of the game will be forced to cough up $20 to obtain a code to play online."
Re:It benefits the consumer, really. (Score:3, Informative)
They really are completely delusional. What benefit does this provide to the consumers that they'll react positively to? Is there even any theoretical benefit to the consumer? Maybe the research was done entirely among Sony executives.
It's the oldest story in the book. If you repeat something enough people will eventually believe it. Besides, how often have you seen press statements that don't appear to make any sense at all, but they still play the "Hai, this is what we do" statement. It's sad, but it works in the bigger picture. A lot of investors simply lap that shit up.
Used games are not harming the New Game Market! (Score:5, Informative)
So many people think that the used game market is somehow harming the new game market. They are completely wrong. Through the magic of a priori reasoning, I know that you cannot be harmed merely because you're not getting what you are not entitled.
Let me explain. Wouldn't it be awesome if your coworkers gave you a cut of their salary, for no reason whatsoever? Wouldn't it be great if you walked into a bank one day and the teller decided to give you a portion of the bank's holdings, for no reason whatsoever?
Yep, that would be awesome, no doubt about it. But are you being harmed because your coworkers and bank are not giving you money you don't deserve? Nope.
That's what's going on with the new game and used game markets. The new game industry somehow feels entitled to profits from the used game market. Despite having absolutely no legal basis for such entitlement. In the United States we have the right of first sale. What that means is that we can sell what we bought, even if what we bought was copyrighted material. So we have a right to sell our DVDs, CD, and used games.
Of course someone will say that my coworker/bank analogies fail because they don't take into consideration that the game industry created the games that the used game market is selling. If you think that, you're completely missing the point.
The fact that the game industry originally created the game is completely irrelevant to whether it is entitled to any profits from secondary or tertiary sales. It does not have such a right to profits. None whatsoever. No more than General Motors has a right to profit from the sale of the used Chevy truck you just sold. GM created the truck, does it deserve a cut from every subsequent sale? What about your house, should the contractor get a cut when you sell it, when it's sold 100 years from now? (I live in a house originally built in 1856, exactly who am I supposed to pay when I resell and move out?)
My point is, much like how you have no rights to your coworkers pay, and much like how you have no rights to your bank's holdings, the new game industry has no right to profits from the used game market. None whatsoever.
Of course the new game industry outright lies and claims that the used game market "Is profiting from the sale of our games." It's a lie because once the new game industry sells a particular copy of the game; it is no longer their game. They have absolutely no ownership right in that particular copy. So to accuse the used game market of taking or stealing their property is an outright lie.
I have no doubt that someone will argue that the new game industry is being harmed because of lost sales. I.e., consumers are buying from the used game market rather than from the new game industry which is causing the new game industry to lose money.
Let's get one thing straight: Losing sales to a competitor is not harm. It's competition.
The new game industry's claim that it's being harmed from the used game market is as asinine as McDonalds claiming it is being harmed by Burger King.
Now certainly if Burger King was unfairly or illegally competing, for example, if Burger King ignored health and safety laws to keep their prices lower, in that circumstance one could argue that McDonalds would be harmed by the unfair and illegal competition.
But in this instance there is no illegality or unfairness in the used game market. It's not illegal for consumers to resell their games. It's not unfair to price those used games lower because the products are necessarily inferior to the new ones.
If your industry is somehow being harmed by perfectly legal and fair competition, then it's about time change careers because you have a complete misunderstanding about how capitalism is supposed to work. You are not entitled to someone else's profits, merely because you want them. Get over it.
Unfortunately, this is exactly why the new game industry is having laws passed to make it more difficult to sell used games. Despite what corporations say, they don't really want to compete in a free market, they want the government to bend over and protect them from legal competition.
Bad for customers, but not unique (Score:1, Informative)
I personally am against any corporations policy that limit the resale of of products that require a high upfront fee. As mentioned above, we need to draw a defining line between product purchases and subscriptions. I feel deceived when a purchase a software boxed set and discover that I only have a right to use the product, not transfer ownership.
For example, I bought a Rosetta Stone boxed language set and discovered that I only have the right to use the product and am barred from reselling it. They control this by requiring each user to register online.
I would be happy to pay a monthly subscription, but, resent paying the entire fee upfront. The upfront fee requires me to take all the risk. If I don't use the product, then I get no value and cannot recoup my costs. Under a subscription model, I pay an initiation fee plus a monthly subscription. The company gets an up front fee for providing the product, but we share the risk. I pay only for the value I receive.
I like the TiVo model the best. I pay a monthly subscription fee, but have the option of purchasing a life time subscription. The life time subscription is permanent and can be transferred with the TiVo device. That way I have a choice of an upfront transferable versus low monthly subscription fee.
Re:Bypassing doctrine of first sale (Score:5, Informative)
Doesn't it depend on how they present the product ? Let's say the product is the software, the physical media, the packaging, and maybe online access.
- if 'online' is an option, then I should be able to get a refund if I'm not interested. By law, 'linked sale' must be breakable into constitutive parts in my country (France).
- if 'online' is an integral part of the product, then I should be able to resell it along with the software itself.
We're going to see some fancy marketing-legalese footnotes on those games...
Repeat (Score:5, Informative)
Re:It's a company. Of course it's right. (Score:2, Informative)
According to your logic a company can charge you for a product and then not provide it, if they do provide it can be faulty, dangerous, or not as advertised "If a corporation does it, that makes it right"
Strangely the law disagrees with you ....as it probably does in this case as well, as soon as someone takes Sony to court ...
Re:Someone doesn't like second hand market? (Score:4, Informative)
Re:Someone doesn't like second hand market? (Score:3, Informative)
Most likely not. With their current setup, you're allowed 5 downloads of a game that you purchase over the PSN. After 5 downloads and reinstalls though, you're required to purchase again.
No, you're not. You're allowed to de-authorize previous consoles and get that download back.
Sony's store is fairly sane with regards to their policy. However, I still don't like the trend to sell us half of a game, and then force you to buy the additional content digitally.
Re:More than that. (Score:3, Informative)
Re:It's a company. Of course it's right. (Score:3, Informative)
If a corporation does it, that makes it right.
This is just wrong in so many ways. By that logic we wouldn't have anti-trust laws, safety regulations, or anything cause the corporation is always in the right. Well lets look at three examples where corporations were in the wrong and it required legislation to fix it.
We now have food regulation in place because a can of beef contained more than just beef. The corporations believed they could save money by filling a can of beef with half beef and half whatever the hell they wanted without telling us. Now we have food regulations in place to prevent this cause corporations were not trusted to do what was right.
Cars used to not have seat belts and the corporations claimed putting a seat belt in gave off the impression of a car not being safe. We now have legislation in place that require automobiles to have seat belts because cars were unsafe without seat belts.
And ENRON executives were in the right to deliberately lie about profits and performance of the company because simply whatever the corporation does makes its right. Now we have multiple anti-trust laws in place to make executives responsible for what they sign off.
Three examples of where corporations were wrong and cost lives. Why the hell would corporations be in the right in any of these examples?
Re:Bypassing doctrine of first sale (Score:3, Informative)
And, to boot, every car manufacture supports and participates in the second-hand market. You can buy a used GM directly from a GM dealer. They will take trade-ins for new cars. Yes, there are independent second-hand dealers, but rather than stamping them out, the car companies compete with them. All the "official" dealers will sell their cars with added value (real or perceived) like extended warranties, "higher-quality" used cars, etc, etc.
If I could go to the Sony Store and buy a used copy of a PS3 game for a price comparable to EB/Gamestop, I would. (Well, for the sake of argument, I would...)
Re:More than that. (Score:5, Informative)
I readily admit that on paper Blu-Ray was better technically regarding higher density disks. The slightly higher transfer rates are irrelevant regarding movies, since there's no bandwidth issues there unless your source is using an inefficient compression algorithm.
Both BR and HDDVD support TrueHD audio, so I'm not sure where your misinformation on audio comes from. You should also note that almost all movies are in 5.1 audio, not the 7.1 that's supported.
But, BR the implementation was hamstrung from the beginning by DRM requirements, and the implementation at the time of the "win" was far below what HD DVD already was capable of. (we really should just say "bought in as gross an example of monopolistic anti-competitive behavior as is available in history" as Sony mortgaged half the company to do so)
Add to that the fact that the hard coating was a requirement on BR disks, and could have easily been added to HD DVD disks, the only thing left is capacity. Now as to capacity, most BR disks use the less than optimal MPEG2 encoding which is a space hog, yet still leaves lots of room on most BR disks, essentially stating they could also easily fit on HD DVD disks. MPEG4 encoding, which is much more efficient and actually preserves more quality even when a movie is compressed to a smaller file size than MPEG2 equivalent would completely negate the size argument at least as far as movies go - the primary reason for these disks existence in the first place.
Re:More than that. (Score:2, Informative)
Both BR and HDDVD support TrueHD audio, so I'm not sure where your misinformation on audio comes from. You should also note that almost all movies are in 5.1 audio, not the 7.1 that's supported.
Dolby Digital, DTS-HD High Resolution and DTS-HD MA all are higher bit rates. Wikipedia contains the same "misinformation" - optical disc comparison [wikipedia.org]
Now as to capacity, most BR disks use the less than optimal MPEG2 encoding which is a space hog
I scanned about 30 recent titles here [blu-ray.com] and couldn't find one that was MPEG2. They were all equally split between MPEG4 and VC-1. The only MPEG2 titles I did find was stuff released in 2006, so it's pretty clear they're not using it any more for new releases.
Re:More than that. (Score:1, Informative)
Higher storage was of little consequence. HD-DVD disks were plenty capable of handling HD movies.
The main difference was HD-DVD used less energy to read/write due to using lower power lasers, was a standard worked up by a group of companies instead of one, and best of all had no region coding.
Fuck Blu-Ray.
Re:Weeeellllllllll. (Score:3, Informative)
It has a varying level of difficulty, depending on which PSP you've picked up.
As of my last foray into that realm:
PSP-1000 was the easiest to exploit, depending on firmware version. May need to have a go at it with a service mode battery if the firmware version is too high.
PSP-2000 usually requires a service mode battery and a 256 MB or larger memory stick to exploit. The batteries are cheap (about $7 [dealextreme.com] online if you know wher).
PSP-3000 had only a HEN exploit to date, which would allow one to run homebrew, but no PSP or PSX games. There's a few scattered claims that one could get a partial CFW onto the unit that would enable the playing of backups, but I've not had that experience.
PSP GO is a STOP. Return this box to the nearest retailer for full refund. You can't even play your legally purchased UMD games on this device, from what I understand.
Re:More than that. (Score:4, Informative)
Re:More than that. (Score:4, Informative)
The fact is Sony made a bunch of back-room deals that cut off a competitor that was doing better than they were. When Blu-Ray "won" there was already an HD-DVD player for roughly $100, at which point critical mass would have happened in a natural economic climate. That isn't what happened here.