Companies producing computer games have long been against the second hand games market, feeling that they're somehow entitled to extra profit off those used games and have tried various ways to kill or milk the market. Now, it looks like it's Microsoft's turn with their upcoming Xbox One console. Microsoft would be interested in doing this, because they also create games for their consoles and commission companies like Electronic Arts to create exclusives for them.
While not officially confrmed yet, this latest wheeze appears to work by forcing each used Xbox One game to require an extortionate £35 ($53) activation fee to run and limiting the resale price.
On top of this, Microsoft, will be setting up a royalty system on all used games too, which will only serve to discourage the sale of used games further. To be fair, other game delivery systems such as Steam don't allow resales, at all. This is what happens when one outfit, such as Valve with their Steam platform set a bad precedent, since all the others then wade in, pulling the same crap too.
Given the way Microsoft has discouraged, rather than outright killed off the used games market, it looks like it could be a response to a recent landmark European ruling that said customers are allowed to resell their used downloaded software, that we reported on last July. This will likely eventually force Valve into allowing their users to resell their used games. However, I'll bet they set up a strong disinsentive to get around this ruling.
There's more detail about this over at The Register.
While not officially confrmed yet, this latest wheeze appears to work by forcing each used Xbox One game to require an extortionate £35 ($53) activation fee to run and limiting the resale price.
On Thursday Consoledeals.co.uk received a note from a senior member of a UK retailer saying that each second-hand Xbox One game will require a £35 ($53) activation fee to run. The source also claimed that would limit the resale price for used games to 10 per cent off the full retail cost.
On top of this, Microsoft, will be setting up a royalty system on all used games too, which will only serve to discourage the sale of used games further. To be fair, other game delivery systems such as Steam don't allow resales, at all. This is what happens when one outfit, such as Valve with their Steam platform set a bad precedent, since all the others then wade in, pulling the same crap too.
Given the way Microsoft has discouraged, rather than outright killed off the used games market, it looks like it could be a response to a recent landmark European ruling that said customers are allowed to resell their used downloaded software, that we reported on last July. This will likely eventually force Valve into allowing their users to resell their used games. However, I'll bet they set up a strong disinsentive to get around this ruling.
There's more detail about this over at The Register.
