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MCV: Retail sources talk used Xbox One games, £35 for used game in UK [U2: Eurogamer]

So it's looking like trade value is gonna be loose change. Take in your copy of CoD w/e, Gamestop give you $10, they sell it for $55 and make $5 assuming MS is nice enough to make the activation fee $40

Just lol

They're fucking everyone
 

Ammish

Banned
Probably but then wouldn't it apply to Steam, apps, digital music e.t.c?

Good point, but then it gets wishy-washy when physical discs are involved. Plus I know that under EU law, you're allowed to sell your account if you so wish and corporations can't do anything about it.
 

Socky

Member
I am confused. If the retailer has to pay some activation fee and then only gets 10% of the resale value, then what possible price could they pay to the person trading the game in? Obviously there could be some margins where the game is in such demand that a company like Gamestop could sell a second hand game for $50, pay the license fee of ~$35 and still make a profit.

The rumoured activation fee is £35 (pounds sterling), not $35. The dollar equivalent would be closer to $50.

I'm wondering if the £35 figure is the highest level they are considering for the fee, with lower fees possible, or some kind of sliding scale.

I'd also imagine that - as this is a fee they are charging the retailer for a 'service' - they can legally charge whatever they like.
 

chubigans

y'all should be ashamed
Please be true.

I think it's definitely true that Sony wouldn't have the means to set something like this up. MS has been moving towards these kinds of always on/one license things already so they probably have the infrastructure to do that.

That doesn't rule out Sony having some kind of online pass.
 

bomma_man

Member
Steam is being sued in Germany for not allowing gamers to sell their games and the european comission is starting to pay close attention to digital services practices.

The way I see it, Microsoft is on its way to be fined, again, by the european comission for bad consumer practices.

And thank fuck for that. In amongst all the stupid Euro scepticism people always forget that the EU is probably the biggest advocate for consumer rights on earth.
 

RetroStu

Banned
If its £35 minimum for a second hand copy I guess that means standard price for new software is £50. What a steal!

But game prices will go down to the usual 35-40 after a year or so, the same thing happend with this generation when everyone on forums were suicidal over the higher game prices but it didn't last long.
 

Walshicus

Member
People were saying that GAME shouldn't stock it as its anti consumer, the poor GAME staff member was even pushed to the floor in the middle of a scuffle between people sticking up for the X1 and Sony fanboys getting their digs in.

This happened in your head, didn't it? I'm sorry but this is complete tosh.
 

jdforge

Banned
Thank god for Nintendo. I'm so pleased they didn't do this.

I have a very large extended family and we are always swapping and exchanging games between households.

I have lots of disposable income so buying games new Isnt a problem. But some in my wider family circle aren't as fortunate.

This policy and anything like it is downright disgusting and anyone who supports it needs to re-evaluate their thinking.
 

GQman2121

Banned
If the Sony infrastructure report is true in that second update, their conference basically writes itself.

Show the machine; show the games and UI; close with their stance on this practice for this new generation.
 

troushers

Member
Hee hee! Whilst your brother or other close family member is enjoying his Xbone games, go to where he stores the discs he installed from, and go trade them in. You can replace them with old DVDs printed with fake disc art. You'll stroll back home with a pocket full of cash, just in time to see the Bone kick him off and delete all the games off his profile, with no recourse.

As a bonus, you can listen to him spending hours on the phone to Xbone support, before giving up and rebuying all his games. At which point you can repeat the process.
 
That assumes a person is going to reinvest the money into a game from the same publisher, or that all publishers and thus developers will benefit enough to cover their losses.

That doesn't work for a publishing house like THQ.

It doesn't assume the former, but yes, even EA's CFO sees the benefits of the latter. Sometimes someone would trade in THQ game to buy a Ubisoft game, but someone may do the exact opposite the next day. These used games are creating liquidity, enabling people to buy another new game. Once you remove used games, you're reducing the consumer's ability to buy games which will reduce sales overall for everybody.

And you can also bet when the consumer is forced to buy less games overall, they're unlikely to pick up that quirky action-adventure game from a THQ over the big AAA shooter from an EA.
 

RetroStu

Banned
So what's going to happen to Gamefly? That's the big question for me.

Deals will need to be sorted, its not in Microsofts or Sony's interest to lose stockists of their new hardware, its hard enough as it is already with so many stores going bust over recent years.
 
I get the feeling they are looking right now. From the chatter I've been hearing Sony are working on a completely offline system for authorisation and deactivation and users will be allowed to deactivate games for resale themselves. I think it is related to the patent they filed early last year. I think games will be allowed an activation on up to 3 consoles like PSN games are atm. After you reach the limit it will ask you to deactivate the game on one of the three consoles. When you want to sell the game you can deactivate all of the consoles and trade it in.

At least that's what the chatter is right now. Obviously none of this information is from Sony, just chatter and rumours...

How would that work without requiring online (which they said they would not do...due to outside markets)?

If I install the game, and then sell it/trade it and then that guy installs it, and maybe one more.

Basically 3 people get a game for the price of one. I doubt people would like that.

Unless the disc is required...and if thats the case...then what is the point?
If anything goes against my beliefs/hopes that Sony won't do this is that I can't think of a system that would do anything outside of online passes/activation codes...which are virtually the same thing minus the always online part.
 
I think it's definitely true that Sony wouldn't have the means to set something like this up. MS has been moving towards these kinds of always on/one license things already so they probably have the infrastructure to do that.

That doesn't rule out Sony having some kind of online pass.

yeah, but I think calling it an online pass might be a bit misleading. It'll probably be a activation code that's gives you access to the game. Selling/trading the game will require the buyer to buy their own activation key/code from retailers or from the PS Store.

Essentially CD keys on consoles. This was something I originally expected as I didn't expect either to go as crazy overboard as MS have.
 

Spartaner

Banned
Hee hee! Whilst your brother or other close family member is enjoying his Xbone games, go to where he stores the discs he installed from, and go trade them in. You can replace them with old DVDs printed with fake disc art. You'll stroll back home with a pocket full of cash, just in time to see the Bone kick him off and delete all the games off his profile, with no recourse.

As a bonus, you can listen to him spending hours on the phone to Xbone support, before giving up and rebuying all his games. At which point you can repeat the process.

you could also grab his disc while hes away if your going through all that hassle
 

Papacheeks

Banned
I think it's definitely true that Sony wouldn't have the means to set something like this up. MS has been moving towards these kinds of always on/one license things already so they probably have the infrastructure to do that.

That doesn't rule out Sony having some kind of online pass.

I would rather have an online pass like Sony has been doing with PS3 then not being able to trade in my game, or take it over to a friends house.

The fact that Microsoft and Publisher's not the Developer's are double dipping is fucking stupid. So if customer X buy's brand new game that's let;s say 59.99, and after their done want to resell it. They get less for trade because of the fee the retailer has to pay to MS and the Publisher. WTF!

So they are getting double paid essentially for one new purchase.

It's all bullshit!

Rather have an online pass from Sony. At least when the person buy's a used game, they have the option of buying a pass to play online or not.
 

RetroStu

Banned
This happened in your head, didn't it? I'm sorry but this is complete tosh.

No not at all. They had the Microsoft conference on the big screens on the walls and the store was pretty full at the time, people were arguing between themselves, the staff got involved and it all got a bit heated for a few seconds.
 

F#A#Oo

Banned
I will not be supporting MS with this console...and I usually buy all the console's. It ony takes one game to pull me in but ethically I cannot support MS if they are turning my favourite hobby into something worse.

If I buy a game physically I should be able to trade it or borrow it or sell it as I wish. If I buy digitally that's a different story...but a physical copy is mine to do as I wish.
 

mrklaw

MrArseFace
First, if the retailer cut really is that small, some retailers may not bother.
Second, if the retail cut is that small they'll pay you even less an that when you trade in. So you might as well just keep the damn game.
Third, this can't be absolute amounts of money. Surely it has to be a percentage of resale cost. Otherwise you risk the retailer being stuck with stock they can't spend because their used games will be more expensive than new after a whole on the shelf.
 

ajjow

Member
This is so stupid.... People will rub away from this console. Microsoft is in big trouble.

Used games is a big part of the industry. I believe that used games in ebay and other online shops accounts for more than 40% of used games sales. All this people will run for sony and nintendo.

The idea of charging a fee for online gameplay as sony does with ps3 makes more sense, bur even the this is completely anticonsumer. If apple or nintendo create a new system with super graphics without any bullshit with used games, they win the console war by default.
 
I get the feeling they are looking right now. From the chatter I've been hearing Sony are working on a completely offline system for authorisation and deactivation and users will be allowed to deactivate games for resale themselves. I think it is related to the patent they filed early last year. I think games will be allowed an activation on up to 3 consoles like PSN games are atm. After you reach the limit it will ask you to deactivate the game on one of the three consoles. When you want to sell the game you can deactivate all of the consoles and trade it in.

At least that's what the chatter is right now. Obviously none of this information is from Sony, just chatter and rumours...

It's actually two activations on PS3. Pretty sure it's one for the PS3, one for Vita. (I think, but there was talk of Vita having its own activations, so I'm not 100% sure)
 
If the Sony infrastructure report is true in that second update, their conference basically writes itself.

Show the machine; show the games and UI; close with their stance on this practice for this new generation.

Either that or they are "forced" into having an even worse policy (from a consumer perspective) than the one MS is going to implement.
 
Yea, no thanks. I thought they'd ease up after the nerd backlash but it seems they're staying the course. Giving MS this much control doesn't sit well with me.
 
How would that work without requiring online (which they said they would not do...due to outside markets)?

If I install the game, and then sell it/trade it and then that guy installs it, and maybe one more.

Basically 3 people get a game for the price of one. I doubt people would like that.

Unless the disc is required...and if thats the case...then what is the point?
If anything goes against my beliefs/hopes that Sony won't do this is that I can't think of a system that would do anything outside of online passes/activation codes...which are virtually the same thing minus the always online part.

RFID? The disc would have be to be in close proximity to the console for the game to work.
 

Subxero

Member
Thank god for Nintendo. I'm so pleased they didn't do this.

I have a very large extended family and we are always swapping and exchanging games between households.

I have lots of disposable income so buying games new Isnt a problem. But some in my wider family circle aren't as fortunate.

This policy and anything like it is downright disgusting and anyone who supports it needs to re-evaluate their thinking.


I couldn't agree more. Same with my family. Honestly I'm going to miss a lot of the MS exclusives I enjoy. Here's to hoping Sony doesn't do the same.


RFID? The disc would have be to be in close proximity to the console for the game to work.

So. Do people really have that big of a issue with swapping discs? This would allow collecting, rental, and lending/borrowing to continue.
 

see5harp

Member
I don't think the 35 pound fee is right but if anywhere close to even $10, this will be suck so much. I'd basically only be buying games when CAG or Wario 64 posted a crazy deal. Even then I'm talking like $15 for Halo 4 kinda deal.
 

gofreak

GAF's Bob Woodward
I think it's definitely true that Sony wouldn't have the means to set something like this up. MS has been moving towards these kinds of always on/one license things already so they probably have the infrastructure to do that.

Any infrastructural demands would really be retailer side. I mean the backend stuff to do this would be well within Sony's capability. If they really wanted to do this I think they would make the retail side investment to do it too.

What I think they're going to end up doing is just purely leaving it up to pubs to do what they want to do.

Sony has already said 1) the console doesn't need an internet connection (Michael Denny) and 2) any issues around activation codes are up to publishers (Shu Yoshida).

So I think some large pubs may themselves roll and infrastructure around this, but that will require them to do their own thing and push their own deals with retail.

So if that's the case I think you might have a couple of big pubs trying this on PS4 and the rest not really bothering. Sony can say to pubs 'we won't get in the way of you doing this via a licensing clause', while also saying 'but it's up to you to do it'. I think that's possibly going to be Sony's middle ground on this.
 

borghe

Loves the Greater Toronto Area
Those industries don't have the endemic problem that the games industry does, though, in that costs to create this entertainment keep rising, and yet more and more people are choosing to buy used and cut the content creators out of the equation.

Used sales are legalised piracy, essentially. Not from the consumer's perspective (they certainly aren't guilty of anything), but from the end result.

I feel like there's a huge contradiction here on GAF. People are appalled by this, which is a move to cut out the used game problem that is killing off developers and even publishers, yet they want increasingly diverse and original entertainment.

That's not how it works. If the only games people buy new are shooters, then that's all people will make, because the fear of two big budget, original titles failing and tanking a huge company is very real. People might buy these off the wall, original IPs, but they're more likely to do it used at half the price.

I'm not thrilled about not being able to borrow Call of Duty from my friend when I fancy the odd game of zombies, but I'm not distraught about it, either. I'd be more bothered if my favourite developer went under or every game that game out involved killing things in some capacity, which is where this industry's going.
certainly you see that THEIR COST isn't OUR problem.

James Cameron went so ridiculously over budget on Titanic that he gave up his pay on the film for BACKEND royalties. He didn't say "well this shit costs money to make. Just charge $35 per ticket to see it!!" (of course that move ended up making him to the tun of over $100M.....)

You know you are going to charge $60 for a game. In today's climate a HIT is like 700K. A massive hit with serious legs is maybe 2M. CoD and Madden numbers or unrealistic unless you are CoD or Madden.

That Square needed to sell 6M (or whatever) copies of TR to break even was fucking bad business. Whoever approved that budget, or approved the game going over budget, should be fired. Not because I'm a cold heartless bastard, but because in today's climate, REQUIRING 6M copies sold on a game is just a horrible business decision.
 
They could have special rental games, that install and only work for 3 days or something then deactivate.

do you really want one company to have the monopoly on that?

do we really want any company to have monopoly on anything?

food industry is fucked up especially because of it.

dont make game industry do this too.
 

Woggerman

Banned
This is just not the case at all. This narrative has gone on for so long because it seems feasible, but isn't actually based on hard facts.

I had to make a post about this yesterday. It includes a quote from EA's CFO:

http://neogaf.com/forum/showpost.php?p=58889465&postcount=843

Here's the quote from Gamestop's CEO:

http://www.forbes.com/sites/johngau...-one-playstation-4-used-games-and-pre-orders/

What Gamestop's CEO is NOT telling you that reselling those used games is garnering them a 40%-60% margin versus their 20% margin for new ones.
Here is how it works:
When a game comes out for a retail of $59.99, the store buys it from the publisher for $48.
The consumer buys it for full price and the store makes 20%.
(Just to let you know, as I was a Manager for Electronics Boutique for almost 8 years and a buyer for 3 for them, the min margin for a store to stay profitable was about 35%)
From here on out the publisher made their $48 on the first purchase.

A month later, the consumer brings back the game to trade in toward a new game. he/she gets $25 for a game they will resell for $49.99 or $54.99 dependent on the popularity. This equates to a 50+% margin that the store makes. The publisher makes nothing.

When I was there as a buyer, it was discussed that each used copy was traded in an average of almost 4 times during the life of the game.(It may have gone up or down since then, but I will use 4 as an example)

Due to the declining price over the life of the used product, each game would make approx $50+ for the store in profit. It would take an additional 4 copies of that game to be sold new at the full price for the store to make that profit.

To a Publisher and Console Seller that is $192 in license fees and developer/publishing/marketing costs that are lost.

This is just to put in perspective what really is going on here. I'm not saying that I don't think you should have the right to sell the game on your own. I actually do think you should have the choice to. But please don't feel bad for stores like Gamestop or Best Buy. They have been exploiting and making far more money than anyone realizes. That over $1 billion dollars in sales of used product is more than 30% of their bottom line.
 

ymmv

Banned
I can understand how some are pissed about this but it doesn't really bother me too much seeing as I buy new and never trade my games.

You're sticking your head in the sand. This system is just a huge inconvenience. I buy 95% of my games new, but there have been times when I bought second hand games. Usually when I got a new system and missed out on a couple of games that had gone OOP and were only available used.

The same goes for the Always Conncted DRM. I've got a 50Mb internet connection, my consoles are online, but I still don't like how MS forces me to be online. Two months ago my internet connection failed and it took two weeks and two visits by an engineer to get it fixed. But even though my internet connection was down, I was still able to play console games and even Steam games (in Offline Mode). In Microsoft's Brave New World, I wouldn't have been able to play a single game Xbox One I bought.

This thing doesn't benefit consumers at all, only big business. I'm astonished people give away their consumer rights without thinking through the ultimate consequences.
 
Cheapest used price for Tomb Raider (360) on Amazon right now is $29.87 shipped.

Legit Tomb Raider Steam codes are selling for $13.60.

If you are willing to live in a world with non-transferrable content, there's a better place to do it than on consoles. Join me on the dark side. Soon you will see the Big Picture.
 
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