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[Speedy Blue Dude]

Why do people think Microsoft won't do good sales like Steam does? Have you seen the past few Xbox Live sales? Microsoft stepped up their sales last year, amazing sales all around.

How do you know they won't do that with Xbox One? They continue their weekly sales, Summer Sales, and Winter/New Year sales + Rewards Program. I'm sure Xbox One will have amazing sales tonget games cheap.

 

[Snubbers]

Understood. I just think it's an important to note that a lot of us are okay with DRM as along as the perceived value is there.

We don't know all of MS's plans, but it's fair to be skeptical.

That said, if you are okay with Steam, than DRM is a perceived value issue, not a moral one. I think it's an important distinction lost on a lot of posters here.

Totally agree with this.

I've no issues with iOS/Android/Steam or any other digital app/media/game delivery system as long as the perceived value is there..

So far, I've been told I can sell my games second hand (to participating retailers), and I can have the benefit of no disk swapping required when playing the games..

I also assume that games will get cheaper over time and that all major game e-tailers will still sell games at discounted rates as they do today (shopto et al)..

And I think it's been said that games will be available for DD day one if I'm lazy and can't be bothered..

I wish we never had to change, but I'm not seeing the vitriol being valid at all.. Hell people are dragging up stupid patents, and even claiming MS are going to kill the environment..

MS do have it all to lose, but christ, people need to chill and wait for E3, and see exactly what MS's policies are going to be, including indie support and then vote with their wallets instead of acting so salty..

 

[Doodis]

How is a digital download the "EXACT SAME THING" as a physical disc with a case and what-was-once-called a manual?

Hint: It isn't.

How is the actual game different? Does the digital download game do something that the game streaming from a physical disc doesn't? That's my point. The product or game you are actually playing on your machine is the same whether it's put on your screen via the Internet or via a disc.

 

[awm8604]

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/First-sale_doctrine

I hope, if this gets implemented, Microsoft and/or Sony if they're on board get taken to court over it ASAP.

 

[SRTtoZ]

So this fits in line with Phil Harrison's "It's like buying a new game" line.

And completely defeats the point of buying used games over new, which in all fairness is what they are aiming for.

Exactly. There will be no more "used" since its all digital anyway. There's no such thing as a used digital game so the prices will be normal game costs.

 

[Zen_Arcade]

I find this a bit hypocritical. It's literally the EXACT SAME THING you're getting, but the delivery of that thing is different. So you're okay not reselling the first but it's suddenly amoral to not resell the second? Seems like a double standard.

I'm just discussing this from a publisher point of view. Again, I rent tons of games and won't be able to with this new model, but I understand that maybe it's a necessary evil.

We've seen countless devs go out of business the past few years. If this helps
eliminate that and people get to keep their jobs and more games are available, I see it as a good thing.

Then just do an all DD system. Every other type of physical media doesn't have these restrictions. The entire reason I buy retail is because I can do whatever I want with it. Don't even make physical media available if all you're going to do is take away the benefits of physical media in the first place.

When you can look at every other entertainment industry and see that this is the only one that limits what you can do with what you buy it smells like shit. Especially when your own industry has had these benefits since its inception.

 

[Akey]

Seems fair? Are you kidding me? Lets face it this is 100% not owning what you buy. They control how much you can sell a game for and they control how much you pay for a used game...yeah how great. The next step is when you turn it in used they destroy it and sell "used" codes because who wants to deal with testing if a scratched disk works. Once retailers are out of the way then used games are gone for good.

Oh but pc....is not a excuse. I like most people wait for fire sales for pc unless I know its going to be a great game I never blind buy pc games.

 

[BlastProcessing]

Why do people think Microsoft won't do good sales like Steam does? Have you seen the past few Xbox Live sales? Microsoft stepped up their sales last year, amazing sales all around.

How do you know they won't do that again?

The cynic in me would say that they have begun pushing sales now, at the end of the console cycle, because they knew that the next Xbox would not be backwards compatible. Get a last bit of cash off your users as they walk out the door.

I don't see why a publicly traded company would feel compelled to pass thier new found profits on to the customer. When Exxon has record profits they don't respond by lowering gas prices.

 

[equippedwithtowel]

I find this a bit hypocritical. It's literally the EXACT SAME THING you're getting, but the delivery of that thing is different. So you're okay not reselling the first but it's suddenly amoral to not resell the second? Seems like a double standard.

I'm just discussing this from a publisher point of view. Again, I rent tons of games and won't be able to with this new model, but I understand that maybe it's a necessary evil.

We've seen countless devs go out of business the past few years. If this helps eliminate that and people get to keep their jobs and more games are available, I see it as a good thing.

Because when the duality exits as a consumer I can choose which medium I want. Each carrying their own benefits.

Homogenization does nothing for me as an individual.

 

[Moonstone]

UPDATE: Many readers are asking whether the £35 will be additional cost on top of the price of buying the game. No, we believe that the £35 figure – which is not our number, incidentally – would cover the entire transaction.

Fun fact: Average retail price for a PS3/360 game in uk is about 27£.

 

[SneakySneaks]

How is the actual game different? Does the digital download game do something that the game streaming from a physical disc does? That's my point. The product or game you are actually playing on your machine is the same whether it's put on your screen via the Internet or via a disc.

In theory with a retail disk you're paying for the manufacturing and shipment of the product, it has inherent value. It exists in physical space, not over an interconnection and on a hard drive, which costs the company next to nothing in comparison.

 

[kinoki]

The only thing I care about is being able to borrow games from friends. Last weekend I was at a flea market and saw some old Disney games for SNES, this will be impossible for our children. Just imagine the conversation:

"Your daddy used to play this game as a young man. it's really odd they're selling it here because it has to be resold at a licensed store in order to be played and the last of those went bankrupt in 2035."

 

[syllogism]

Lets take a look at the EU case that is being touted here. Putting aside other considerations (ECJ may very well decide to rule differently next time, in particular if the circumstances are even slightly different. There is no stare decisis), the ruling itself can't without reservation be interpreted as prohibiting what MS supposedly intends to do

In order for a resale not to infringe, the original licensee must render his own copy unusable at the time of its resale. The ECJ said that it would be permissible for the copyright holder to make use of technical protective measures (e.g. product keys) to ensure that this is the case. This preserves the right of reproduction of the program which is not exhausted by the first sale.

The question of exhaustion does not arise in the case of services and on-line services in particular. This also applies with regard to a material copy of a work or other subject-matter made by a user of such a service with the consent of the rightholder. Therefore, the same applies to rental and lending of the original and copies of works or other subject-matter which are services by nature. Unlike CD-ROM or CD-I, where the intellectual property is incorporated in a material medium, namely an item of goods, every on-line service is in fact an act which should be subject to authorisation where the copyright or related right so provides.’

It must be observed that the exhaustion of the right of distribution of a copy of a computer program under Article 4(2) of Directive 2009/24 only concerns copies which have been the subject of a first sale in the European Union by the copyright holder or with his consent. It does not relate to contracts for services, such as maintenance agreements, which are separable from such a sale and were concluded, possibly for an unlimited period, on the occasion of the sale.

Now, the obvious retort is that MS should allow consumers to deactive their license at will and for no fee. The problem would then be whether there would be a service/maintenance contract between the person who bought your copy and MS. Would MS be obligated to provide access to their multiplayer servers? DLC? Achievements? Nope, nope, nope. How about future patches to the game? What happens when the game requires a patch to run, and you aren't entitled to the patch because there is no service contract? The physical copy would be rendered essentially useless.

 

[DjangoReinhardt]

Why do people think Microsoft won't do good sales like Steam does? Have you seen the past few Xbox Live sales? Microsoft stepped up their sales last year, amazing sales all around.

How do you know they won't do that with Xbox One? They continue their weekly sales, Summer Sales, and Winter/New Year sales + Rewards Program. I'm sure Xbox One will have amazing sales tonget games cheap.

How do you know that MS won't shut down its servers for Xbox One and remotely kill all of the games at some point? Like, say, when they have a new box to sell you in five years? If Nintendo goes out of business tomorrow, I can still play my SNES games just fine. If I want to play Xbox One games, I'm completely subject to the whims of MS executives and shareholders from the start.

 

[StevieP]

It is entirely conceivable that the next console 8 years down the road could be ARM based.

It's entirely conceivable that they switch to Qualcomm snapdragon as well, sure. But that's not going to happen and not why the switch happened.

 

[terrdactycalsrock]

It sound convient, but wont the consumer being paying more for used games? I find it hard to believe that retailers will just take a hit on that extra fee.

 

[mafuchi]

Because now you're not a guy buying a box and occasionally buying a thing that goes in the box, you're a monthly paying subscriber with a library married to your account.

How long can they do this before the courts shut them down? Until the digital age, companies have never had anywhere near this kind of control post point-of-sale

 

[iavi]

Indeed it does.



No but it makes sense.

Exactly. I wasn't saying that it was good, at all. These are the kind of limitations I'd accept for DD titles, being a PC gamer used to Steam, but physical copies should be no strings attached.

 

[Last Hearth]

How do you know that MS won't shut down its servers for Xbox One and remotely kill all of the games at some point? Like, say, when they have a new box to sell you in five years? If Nintendo goes out of business tomorrow, I can still play my SNES games just fine. If I want to play Xbox One games, I'm completely subject to the whims of MS executives and shareholders from the start.

Your Xbone games can go into the same box where you store all your DivX discs.

 

[deadhorse32]

Notably it also concludes that if products are priced optimally, you can eliminate the used game market and also increase profits by 11%, but this would entail actually lowering the price of console games significantly.

This is so logical and yet ... here we are.

 

[Latvian Hitman]

How is the actual game different? Does the digital download game do something that the game streaming from a physical disc does? That's my point. The product or game you are actually playing on your machine is the same whether it's put on your screen via the Internet or via a disc.

One is a physical good, the other is not. The expectation level from those two types of purchases is different. This paradigm has existed for some time now, I'm not sure what's confusing about it for you.

 

[Corleth the Fey]

If they went with PPC they probably could have put BC in the box. They didn't. Emulation of the 360 is not feasible. Their future consoles, should they exist, will continue with x86 and BC.

Matrick called BC - 'backward' and stated only a small percentage actually wants it. There's no guarantee that X86 will be the norm in 7 to 8 years time. They can't be trusted to put BC in any future console in anyway what so ever.

 

[StevieP]

Matrick called BC - 'backward' and stated only a small percentage actually wants it. There's no guarantee that X86 will be the norm in 7 to 8 years time. They can't be trusted to put BC in any future console in anyway what so ever.

PRs position changes depending on the requirement. That's universal. I don't see x86 going anywhere.

 

[BlastProcessing]

How do you know that MS won't shut down its servers for Xbox One and remotely kill all of the games at some point? Like, say, when they have a new box to sell you in five years? If Nintendo goes out of business tomorrow, I can still play my SNES games just fine. If I want to play Xbox One games, I'm completely subject to the whims of MS executives and shareholders from the start.

You don't buy Xbox One games. You only rent them until the servers go down.

 

[Last Hearth]

PRs position changes depending on the requirement. That's universal. I don't see x86 going anywhere.

Again you missed the point, just because it's feasible doesn't mean they'll do it.

 

[TheMasterGoblin]

In all of these discussions one thing that I have not seen is the change this will cause to your trade in value itself (I admit I have not completely read the thread so I could have missed this from earlier).

Under the new scheme for Xbox One, you are not going to get anywhere near the same trade in value from your game as you would have before.

GameStop (or anybody else) are not going to give you value greater then what they bring in on the trade after they "sell" it.

The larger the fee Microsoft and the publishers take, the less value you will receive from your trade in (which could be significant - imagine trading in your one week old game for less then $5 of value - yes, this is likely according to the numbers & percentages from the OP).

In the end, retailers lose a good revenue source, and consumers lose value.

 

[Anticitizen One]

You mean XO, gofreak.

Fixed

 

[Woggerman]

I'm sorry, but your argument is extremely poor. Determining, whether used game sales are a negative or a positive in regards to total sales is impossible to determine, as it is not just simple qualitative data, but consumer behavior too i.e. how many of them would have bought a console/game to begin with, if if weren't for used games. Which brings up the two obvious points:

1. What does 'It may also be toward a game for another system or other publisher.' even mean? Honestly. This is 3rd grade statistics; these things average out for each publisher in the long run.

No, they don't. And I am stating this from experience. I was a buyer of Electronics Boutique and I know the practices and tactics used to ensure they were circumventing certain issues. The fact is that larger publishers with more releases saw more purchases from trade ins from smaller publishers with less releases. It doesn't average out. And if I can find some of my old price books with sales data, I would be glad to show you. MAybe I'll look when I get home later tonight.

2. You completely ignore that an extremely large number of people purchase games on the basis that they can later sell it to a second-hand store and receive much of their initial investment back.

This is partially true, though IMHO I don't think the number is truly as high as you think it is. Regardless, I believe the publisher or console maker should not limit you from selling it to make most of your initial investment back. Profiting from it over and over again though is a different story.

 

[RobbieNick]

So, you still can't rent, borrow or privately sell the games on E-Bay. Not only that, but as far as I know, once the XBone goes obsolete, so do your games....

HOWEVER, lemme play Devil's advocate for a sec.

If I'm getting this right, X-Box decides the price of the used game and the retailer only gets a 10% cut. That's bad for Gamestop, but possibly good for us.

A.) There's no confusion in the market. Halo 5 will not be $55 used at this store and $45 used at the other store, it will be the same price statewide causing less confusion in the used marketplace.

B.) This possibly means more value for your trade. Since Gamestop is stuck with a measly 10% profit, they will probably give you even more for store credit. (Cash will probably be even less though.) If they are forced to sell an XBone game at $45 used, no matter what they give you in store credit, they are only making $4.50 on that game. Instead they make it more attractive to buy other used games and new by giving you $35-$40 in store credit since the value of that trade is $4.50 for them no matter what, they'd want you spending money on other games in the store. Wait, does that make sense?

Actually, fuck Devil's advocate, I'm stating to think maybe the opposite would be true. since they make such little profit off your XBone game, they'd give you a lot less credit. Maybe if it was "sell one used XBone game for another used XBone game" you'd see a better value, but otherwise yeah, probably a lot less.

I dunno, can we get a economics major in here to tell me how Gamestop would probably handle it? I'm totally confused on the matter.

This should teach me to never post sleepy. ;-)


EDIT: I just realized MS will be responsible for the used value of all XBone games. This is the same company that still has X-Men Origins: Wolverine for $29 in their digital store! WE'RE ALL FUCKED!

 

[TimeKillr]

I should make the most, because I should have the option to sell my game to a random guy from Craigslist for 2x the amount GameStop would offer me.

I never said the opposite. I don't like MS's system because it effectively removes this, person to person sales.

I have no idea how they could possibly know that. Here is a recent study (PDF) that concludes the exact opposite, that profits would fall 7% if prices stayed the same.

Notably it also concludes that if products are priced optimally, you can eliminate the used game market and also increase profits by 11%, but this would entail actually lowering the price of console games significantly.

That link isn't working, but I'm very curious to read the study. It actually matches with a lot of what I was thinking about a few years back, and is closer to the Steam model (lower prices but no used games makes more money!)

Because now you're not a guy buying a box and occasionally buying a thing that goes in the box, you're a monthly paying subscriber with a library married to your account.

Yeah, I would imagine that would be useful if they feel it can push gold subs.

There is no *should* in this scenario, the free market is all about what the market will bear. If Microsoft thinks the Gamestop B&M is so profitable they can buy up all the Gamestops, they have enough money to afford it. The reason they don't is because it's not as easy as you imply. The Gamestop have to keep a store open, pay rent and utilities, hire employed to stock the game on the shelf, check it out at the register, pay the person trading in the game, restock the game inventory it, etc, etc. You think all that is free?

I don't think it's free, however I do think that the costs of running a retail location is much lower than the costs of running a game studio (in fact I know it is).

 

[Snubbers]

It sound convient, but wont the consumer being paying more for used games? I find it hard to believe that retailers will just take a hit on that extra fee.

Retailers have been pushing the price of second hand games up, right now in game, for most new to newish titles, the difference between new and secondhand is surprisingly marginal..

The best way to get cheaper games is private selling/buying.. which of course will presumably disappear.

 

[BillyBats]

Wrong.
The other problem with your reasoning is that you think publishers deserve a cut of second hand sales. They don't. No legitimate market in the world operates that way. It's like an Amway pyramid scheme combined with a VAT.

Isn't gaming one of the ONLY (many will come with examples, I'm sure) where the prices for the product have actually gone DOWN in years past but the price for production have drastically INCREASED? I'm still surprised we have console gaming at all at this point. I think MS (and Sony, we will soon see) are trying to come up with ways to sustain this unheard of type of business where production costs go up while the price of the product goes down. While writing this I'm trying to think of other products that fit this category and I can't think right now.

 

[Last Hearth]

Since Microsoft controls your resell value, there is no way they will give you $30 for your used game.

Heck, they could give you $1 for them, what can you do, you can't sell it to anyone else, and a dollar is better than nothing.

This is about killing the used market, not facilitating it.

 

[Doodis]

One is a physical good, the other is not. The expectation level from those two types of purchases is different. This paradigm has existed for some time now, I'm not sure what's confusing about it for you.

It's not confusing, it's just a different way to look at things. In my mind, you're buying the GAME, not the way the game is delivered to you.

 

[Marvifom]

The motivation for buying this way would be to throw your friend who is selling a bone. That's it really.




I think giving it to your son to play on his machine will require logging into your account on his machine...unless licensing will now be tied to IP Or you can setup a sub account under a master Live account.

That's exactly what i was thinking. I think people are misquoting Harrison on this.

 

[smokeandmirrors]

It is entirely conceivable that the next console 8 years down the road could be ARM based.

Performance wise? Absolutely not. AMD and Intels work with improving x86 means it will be the go to for heavy processing in the future.

 

[AzaK]

How is this model different from Steam or any other digital sale? You can't trade back in your Steam games or lend them to a friend, can you? The only difference I see is that the physical disc is the means of transferring the digital data, and it's something you can actually trade back. Aside from that, it's just like making a transaction in a digital marketplace, is it not?

This comes from someone who rents tons of games via Gamefly. I'm not happy about this personally, but I understand it from a business and developer/publisher viewpoint.

It's simply the Steam model but with perks (trading the disc back in).

It is and steam sucks too. The day all systems move to DRM'd digitally controlled content is probably the day I stop gaming. It will suck.

 

[SRTtoZ]

It's going to be great watching the casual gamer (you know, the ones MS are catering to) get home with their new game to find out their physical game is digital after you install it. Then to find out it can't even be installed because its not connected to the Internet so the mom takes her 8 year old back to the store to yell at customer service because her son can't play.

 

[ascii42]

It sound convient, but wont the consumer being paying more for used games? I find it hard to believe that retailers will just take a hit on that extra fee.

I'd guess it be more likely the trade-in value suffers.

 

[StevieP]

Performance wise? Absolutely not. AMD and Intels work with improving x86 means it will be the go to for heavy processing in the future.

There is nothing heavy about a jaguar. It's very much in the same realm as an a2/atom/arm core though better in some ways in terms of floating point. It's not the strength of the chip that will allow MS an Sony to continue with them. It's the fact that they will continue to be the industry standard.

 

[Zen_Arcade]

It's not confusing, it's just a different way to look at things. In my mind, you're buying the GAME, not the way the game is delivered to you.

So you'd be OK with a book publisher telling you you can't let your friend borrow your books?

 

[Marvifom]

Have fun paying $50 for a used game that's been on the market for three years and getting $5 (in credit) from Gamestop for a game that's been three weeks on the market.

I suppose it's true when NVIDIA said this would be the last Console Generation. To be truthful PC gaming has never seemed so appealing until now.

 

[Snubbers]

EDIT: I just realized MS will be responsible for the used value of all XBone games. This is the same company that still has X-Men Origins: Wolverine for $29 in their digital store! WE'RE ALL FUCKED!

I think MS don't tread on retailers toes, they don't sell games day 1 (IIRC?) and they keep prices high so only the very laziest people would buy them..

If they where the same, or undercutting retail, It'd kill the retailers, which despite the saltiness is not in their best interests.. because MS aren't that stupid to realise that very few people can download Blu-rays...

In other words, don't base anything off the fact MS charge over the odds (as do Ninty and Sony) for DD..

 

[ascii42]

No, they don't. And I am stating this from experience. I was a buyer of Electronics Boutique and I know the practices and tactics used to ensure they were circumventing certain issues. The fact is that larger publishers with more releases saw more purchases from trade ins from smaller publishers with less releases. It doesn't average out. And if I can find some of my old price books with sales data, I would be glad to show you. MAybe I'll look when I get home later tonight.

Would you happen to know if the smaller publishers with fewer releases also had proportionally fewer of their games traded in? Because if fewer used games are being traded in toward them, but similarly fewer of them were traded in, then it would average out.

 

[SRTtoZ]

Or how about when you get home with your new "product code" just to find out its invalid. Then you go back to GameStop then GameStop tells you to call MS. That's gonna be fun!

 

[Marvifom]

The best way to combat this is to not preorder or buy new games. Wait at least until the first price drop. If they are not going to give you any resell value, then do not pay $60-$70.

We need to advertise this to every gamer from now on, But i doubt the gaming the community will even comply.

 

[Woggerman]

Would you happen to know if the smaller publishers with fewer releases also had proportionally fewer of their games traded in? Because if fewer used games are being traded in toward them, but similarly fewer of them were traded in, then it would average out.

I can't go on record as saying that hasn't been the case, but I can remember quite a few instances when it has happened where a disproportionate amount of a smaller's publishers games were traded in for a similar game from a large publisher. You really could make the argument either way.

 

[Marvifom]

People saying this is good are out of their minds. This move is beyond idiotic.

They basically want to kill the private second hand market, and finally achieve what some publishers have wanted for some time : make money on second hand sales. Meaning making money multiple times with the same copy.

It's fucking insane.

No other cultural product works like this. Not the books, not the music, not the movies. Why would video games should be any different? I've been fearing this for years and it seems they finally have found a way. This sucks on so many levels regarding consumer rights... There's no way this works in Europe.

I completely agree with you. I actually wasn't aware there were that many anti-consumerist in NeoGAF until this used game issue.

 

[bitoriginal]

If new/used prices stay high for a long time, then expect this to flop badly in the UK. We're used to brand new games dropping in price relatively fast. GAME have been selling brand new Wii U games for £45, and used for £40, and we know how well that policy is going down. Seriously, I hope this shit backfires on MS.

 

[Marvifom]

I don't think Sony's network technology is good enough to do what Microsoft wants to do, lol.

Lets not be to sure about that. Sony might actually pull a fast one us.