Sony: Stance On Used Games Isn't Final

[baho]

There's no way both Sony and MS do this. Actually, there's no way even one of them does this. It would hurt them badly if they were to do this. They are just testing the waters with these interviews, see what the general opinion is. As long as there is Nintendo and PC gaming, they wouldn't dare do this.

[Shibby]

The classic trick of spreading shitty rumors so that when you shoot them down it'll be considered good news instead of no news at all.

[ElieKatzQueer]

The classic trick of spreading shitty rumors so that when you shoot them down it'll be considered good news instead of no news at all.

Yup.

[admartian]

I think MS and Sony do actually want to do it, but they aren't willing to do it alone.

This.

Sony are probably keeping it vague until MS makes a commitment otherwise.

[ps3freak18]

What if both systems end up doing this bullsh^t?

I'm absolutely ready to drop $500 on a PS4 day one. If this happens...price drop wait it is. They better not fuck up all the awesomeness with this BS.

[podsaurus]

Sony stated they won't BAN used games. They didn't say they wouldn't charge a $10 fee to unlock a used game to play it. Technically thats not banning the game.

In the end, why do people really care? When have you ever saved a ton of money buying used?

I don't know about where you guys live, but where I live if you buy a 2 weeks old game off the used shelf you save $5? Who cares? $5 isn't worth getting a game that may or may not be complete in package or mishandled.

Wait a few months and buy it for $20? $30? $40? In some cases the game is old enough already that it has naturally dropped in price by that much and its still new.

I don't know about you guys. But buying used has no value in my opinion these days.

There's no way I would pay $10 just to unlock the game. And of course you can save alot buying used. Buy an older game for maybe $30? Plus tax so lets say $35 instead of $60. Save $25 per game and if I were to buy 4 games for that same price? That's saving $100! Maybe other people have money to burn but I do not.

I'm wondering what this would do to rental stores? Would something like this shut down that portion of the store? I like to rent movies and sometimes I'll rent a game but I haven't lately.

[John25]

If this happens then both MS & Sony can go fuck themselves as they will have already been paid for the game once, No way should they be paid more than once for a Game.

You don't hear Car manufacturers or House builders getting any percentage from a re-sale of a car or House so why should the Gaming industry be any different ? after all you paid for the console to play games on & now you pay an online pass fee for the server upkeep there is no real need to try and charge again.

[Cyn]

If this happens then both MS & Sony can go fuck themselves as they will have already been paid for the game once, No way should they be paid more than once for a Game.

You don't hear Car manufacturers or House builders getting any percentage from a re-sale of a car or House so why should the Gaming industry be any different ? after all you paid for the console to play games on & now you pay an online pass fee for the server upkeep there is no real need to try and charge again.

TRUTH

The day I can't take my games round a mates or swap something I bought and wasn't keen on is the day I exit console gaming

Thing is both MS & Sony are clearly desperate for a digital only future so they can have complete control over this stuff but the world hasn't caught up yet. So we may, just may have one more generation where we can do what we like with our own property.

The problem with game trading isn't the act itself, it's that vendors like CEX, GAME etc take far too big a cut. Buying your games for a quid or two and putting them on shelves for £10, that is not on. And yet they still nearly went out of business.

[ps3freak18]

If this happens then both MS & Sony can go fuck themselves as they will have already been paid for the game once, No way should they be paid more than once for a Game.

You don't hear Car manufacturers or House builders getting any percentage from a re-sale of a car or House so why should the Gaming industry be any different ? after all you paid for the console to play games on & now you pay an online pass fee for the server upkeep there is no real need to try and charge again.

Absolutely! I don't understand when people try to justify that used games should be banned. Just because you don't buy used games doesn't make it right to ban the sale of them. You are essentially controlling the market completely. That's BS! Much of the reason why I hate DD on consoles. You don't own the game. Because you can't take the game outside of your system.

This system is pretty much all sales are final. Don't like the game, tough shit. You bought it and it's useless if you don't like it.

[Completely Average]

the article clearly states this as before the announcement which it says of course. However, I wouldn't look to much into this. This isn't worrying to hear and I doubt Sony is going to ban used games. This sounds more like something Microsoft would do because they always want to control everything.

And yet it's Sony that holds the patent for the tech to do it, and MS doesn't.

So either MS would have to pay Sony for the tech Sony has a patent for or MS would have to plan on using some tech which they haven't bothered applying for a patent for, which means anyone else including Sony could effectively steal it, patent it themselves, and then charge MS royalties for using it.

Seems extremely unlikely that MS would do either to me.

[MjW]

I wouldn't be surprised even if used games didn't work when the console is out.

If corporations kept their word every time, it would be a whole new world we would be living in.


Sent from my iPad using Tapatalk HD

[Completely Average]

I wonder what would happen to companies like Gamefly and Redbox if used games don't work.

There are a lot of companies that make money off of game rentals, and those companies pay the publisher royalties every time a game is rented, so it seems that publishers could also lose some money if used games do not work.


As for myself, I usually rent 2 games a month. If that's taken away from me by console manufacturers then I'll be spending a lot more money on PC gaming where the games are significantly cheaper.

[my_retributions]

With ps4 talks circling around ,if there's no backward compatibility and ability to play old games & used games then no matter how shiny and sheeny ps4 & its features may look any genuine gamer with his head over his shoulders would think many times b4 blindly plunging into the ps4 gig discarding their old ps3 game cd's and ps3 console itself,besides shelling out 70$ for a game well not many can afford to gift sony with that kind of a gift month aft month + the psn subscription fees may be sony is planning to bankrupt all its gamers and get richer along the way.
BOTTOM LINE- Sony p.s- pls dont force ur loyal gamers to bend over backwards coz *loyalty is a fragile attribute at tyms esp when the gaming company decides to get greedy*.

[Syphon_Filter]

Ops thats mean something is coming up.

[emmerich]

What if your console breaks and you have a library of about 20-30 games and you need to buy a new system.

All those games won't work on it cause they are watermarked. They surely can't afford to let a disaster like that happen.

I would be absolutely pissed if my system broke and all my games were now rendered useless.

Same deal if you want to upgrade to a slimmer model that will no doubt come out in the future.. what happens then? All your games will be useless on that other system cause they are tied to your original?

It's a really bad move no matter which way you look at it. If one or both companies do this they are making a huge mistake. There needs to be better thought going in to it first.

[MjW]

Good point there emm. Maybe you'll be able to download a digital copy to your account.

[PeanutButterMunky]

Used... games... will work. And your system breaking is irrelevant since you're changing your system, not your PSN ID.

Sony isn't as immensely retarded as people are assuming them to be.

[shepard]

And of course you can save alot buying used. Buy an older game for maybe $30? Plus tax so lets say $35 instead of $60. Save $25 per game and if I were to buy 4 games for that same price? That's saving $100! Maybe other people have money to burn but I do not.

Back to what I said though, in many if not all situations I've experienced. By the time I'm ready to buy that old used game for $30, the unused version of it has already dropped to $30. Perhaps not all stores are doing that, but ones in my area have been.

[ps3freak18]

I wonder what would happen to companies like Gamefly and Redbox if used games don't work.

There are a lot of companies that make money off of game rentals, and those companies pay the publisher royalties every time a game is rented, so it seems that publishers could also lose some money if used games do not work.


As for myself, I usually rent 2 games a month. If that's taken away from me by console manufacturers then I'll be spending a lot more money on PC gaming where the games are significantly cheaper.

Yep. I'm sure after a few years they would go under. Not so much red box but GF for sure. One the current gen dies out they would be screwed. It really boils down to how they block the used games. Completely or partially.

[MonkeyClaw]

Yep. I'm sure after a few years they would go under. Not so much red box but GF for sure. One the current gen dies out they would be screwed. It really boils down to how they block the used games. Completely or partially.

They could always put out a special 'rental version' of the game like you sometimes see with blu-ray discs that can be played on multiple consoles and just have it include in-game ads between load screens, etc.

[Beardy]

I think it will be a bad move by Sony if the decide to block used games on the PS4. I usually lend games out to friends and pick up games from CEX. I thought that the online pass was a bad move as well because you can no longer lend your friend the game as they won't be able to play online.

[ps3freak18]

They could always put out a special 'rental version' of the game like you sometimes see with blu-ray discs that can be played on multiple consoles and just have it include in-game ads between load screens, etc.

Yeah that would be a nice workaround if they decided to do this BS. I just don't think these companies are naive enough to think they won't lose buyers because of this. Especially with all the doom and gloom surrounding consoles futures. This would be even more of a reason for people to do away with consoles. Not to mention this is one thing that has always separated consoles from PC gaming. Would be a good reason for gamers to jump on PC solely.

[*goo]

I'm already concerned about my PS3 games next generation, particularly those ones I've got on PSN. What's the point of building a digital catalogue (or any, for that matter) if you can't actually take it with you as the hardware progresses? I guess giving the PS3 compatibility then taking it away and selling digital PS2 games showed Sony they can make money that way.

Adding to this the fact they're probably looking at implementing something to limit the second hand market, we could be looking at having a back catalogue we can't play on the new console without subscribing to some sort of cloud service and retail price points staying higher for longer due to reduction in competition on disc based games.

Couple all that with things like the proprietary memory cards in Vita, we could see proprietary storage for PS4 driving the hardware costs up for storage. It could all get very expensive indeed.

/tinfoil hat rambling

[ps3freak18]

I'm already concerned about my PS3 games next generation, particularly those ones I've got on PSN. What's the point of building a digital catalogue (or any, for that matter) if you can't actually take it with you as the hardware progresses? I guess giving the PS3 compatibility then taking it away and selling digital PS2 games showed Sony they can make money that way.

Adding to this the fact they're probably looking at implementing something to limit the second hand market, we could be looking at having a back catalogue we can't play on the new console without subscribing to some sort of cloud service and retail price points staying higher for longer due to reduction in competition on disc based games.

Couple all that with things like the proprietary memory cards in Vita, we could see proprietary storage for PS4 driving the hardware costs up for storage. It could all get very expensive indeed.

/tinfoil hat rambling

I just thought about how they would do the banning. Provide codes just like online passes that you have to link to psn. But that makes the system online dependent. There would be 2 shit storms all at once for Sony.

[*goo]

Yeah, they could pretty much restrict every game via expanding the online pass to be required to access the whole game. For that, they'd need an 'always on' console (like you say) so I'm not too sure it's here; yet.

You can bet there's some executives paying people right now to figure out how to do it, though.

Just a thought, if restricting games via user account locking became the normal course of action; I'd predict there becomes a massive spike in the amount of users registering for the platform (i.e. PSN). Simply create an account for every game and when you sell the game; give over the account details.

Come to think of it, why aren't we doing it with online pass games now? Might start doing just that.