http://www.computerandvideogames.com/38 ... be-newell/

Not unless they do a content deal for 'proper' games* - look at the state of Nintendo these days. And the sales for most motion control games are laughable. I appreciate that companies are trying to attract a wider base of customers, but you know, Zynga...

* And sort out a controller designed by Jonny Ive

I think that the real problem is price and iOS and Android games solve that problem. Sony are going to alienate users with their war on pre owned games. Good games will sell but they need to priced properly and subscription models could be a good way forward for really expansive games like World of Warcraft, but the games industry I suspect is in a transition phase.

If Sony kill 2nd hand games, then people will refuse to pay as much for them in the first place. Sony don't seem to understand that concept.

I think it will also make people a lot more cautious about purchasing. If you know you can trade in a game for a small loss if it turns out you don't like it you're far more likely to have a punt on something. If you know you're forking out £40/£50 without any recourse if it doesn't turn out to be something you like, you're naturally going to curtail spending.

If Sony do anounce the next PS console before MS, and Sony say they're killing 2nd hand games, MS could get a marketing coup if they later announced their new console would support 2nd hand games. I'm sure people would buy it just for that option.

Sony appear to be announcing their next console on Feb 20th, if recent press coverage is anything to go on. MS need to get a shift on then.

It'd be a weird announcement actually, kind of like 'Our console doesn't not support second hand games!'

I can't honestly see Sony going through with the 'no second hand games' thing to be honest with you. It's not as if the second hand games market does Sony that much harm anyway. Sony doesn't make a lot of money from actual game sales (most of the profit goes to the retailers and the publishers) and the number of people who simply wouldn't buy their console would massively outweigh that, especially now Sony are transitioning to online services like Playstation Plus and that music streaming service which make the actual console hardware more profitable. The only logical reason they'd do it would be if the big publishers refused to support their platform if they didn't, in which case you'd have to assume Microsoft would be given the exact same ultimatum.

No second hand games = no new console for me, I think, especially with the prices of new games at the moment. If I did replace the PS3, it would probably be in mid cycle where games start to get discounted.

Don't Sony get a royalty from each game? More of a hangover from the cartridge era. They might have patented the block on 2nd hand games to ensure that they can control it. They may have no intention of using it. Though I doubt that they would announce it at the launch as that might be the only thing that the public hear about and that would have killed their launch.

They get a licence fee. But it's really not very much. OK, it adds up with all the copies of all the games bought but it's still a relatively small amount of money compared to how much the publishers and retailers make.


They control how much the fee is (it's negotiable depending on expected sales etc, but it's never big) but they can't ask too much because they want people to make games for their console, which if they charge too much won't happen. The developer will just make it for another platform.

In the end, they want their platform to be popular. Because (for example) they want people to pay them £40 a year for Playstation+. And to buy peripherals (the markup on peripherals is ludicrous) and so on and so forth. Chucking away a large part of your potential platform sales in favour of licensing fee on second hand games doesn't make sense, as far as I can see.

Yes but what about games developers? They might insist on this block on second hand games be used to get them the sales that they want.

As I said, if they do that with Sony they're going to insist MS do it as well. Otherwise there'd be a massive restraint of trade issue.

Jon

But would Microsoft comply if they have to pay a royalty to Sony for the right to use that technology?

Well, you're getting legal now .

I don't think the publishers would require MS to use the same technology, I just think they'd require MS to support some means of locking or using up a game at install. You could do it just as easily by providing some sort of licence code in the box which had to be typed in the first time the game was run.

Gabe: Just hurry up with the Half Life 3 already.

While I do understand the reasoning for it to stop piracy. Though for people like me who buy only genuine copies and usually second hand it excludes us all. Though if they want the extra revenue they should offer better downloadable content. Then they could get revenue every time the game is sold. Though if they did that too much people would expect the game to be much cheaper. So the offset might still not satisfy the developers or the customers.