Thread: The End of the 'Used Games' Era?

This is just one reason I'm starting to like consoles less and less for games.

I'd assume the majority of people would just start to buy everything online. Even now you can get a brand new copy of a year old game for about £20 on play.com. Older games go for as little as £10, that's roughly the same as most pre-owned games.

To say it in as few words as possible: I call bullshit.

Seriously. Microsoft would have to be begging to lose console sales.

The new consoles are jokes. The 720 will supposedly be 6 times more powerful than the 360, but it will still be very obsolete once it is released.

-_-

Another way to screw gamers over, its bad enough paying £40-£45 on xbox/ps3, yet the same game is £20 on PC.. like wtf? and now I can't even buy it used?

Whilst I dont mind paying rrp for a decent game I want, theres always the few you dont want THAT much, which is when used games come in.

I want classic pc gaming back, with the big shoebox boxes they came in, and a manual as thick as the bible that told you EVERYTHING about the game, not an advertisement for an expansion pack of extra guns or some shit when the game ONLY just came out and you spent £40 for it. I hate that.

You guys remember the PSP GO? We see how far that went. One key factor that has always been an advantage for consolers is the ability to resale and trade games. If they take that away...then it's over. I really don't see Micro$oft trying to screw over EB games when they bring in so much money for presales. Sure they buy back old games for pennies, but really ask yourself...how many games are worth full price? Even if it does happen, they will hurt themselves leaving a percentage of their market in the dark.

[Mega64]PSP Go uses UMD - YouTube

Originally Posted by Auron

You guys remember the PSP GO? We see how far that went. One key factor that has always been an advantage for consolers is the ability to resale and trade games. If they take that away...then it's over. I really don't see Micro$oft trying to screw over EB games when they bring in so much money for presales. Sure they buy back old games for pennies, but really ask yourself...how many games are worth full price? Even if it does happen, they will hurt themselves leaving a percentage of their market in the dark.

[Mega64]PSP Go uses UMD - YouTube

Yeh that was a horrible flop, doesnt the PS Vita use the same thing aswel? You have to pay some high price to download the game, plus a 'PS vita memory stick' ..

I have some games downloaded through PSN on my PS3, but it doesnt feel like I actually OWN them, you know?

The memory stick was probably to keep the price down (even though SD cards are really cheap)...I think it's going to have both physical and digital media for it.

http://www.blogcdn.com/www.joystiq.c...09/img3109.jpg

Nah it has to be an official playstation one from what I see.. they're not overly expensive, £15 for a 4gb, though im guessing the games take at least 1-2 gb each.

@ your link- interesting.. maybe it will use both then? im not sure, either way i think its likely to die out like the psp did. psp could have had a shot if they just implemented dual thumbsticks from the very begining.

Originally Posted by ShadowOfSelf

-_-

I want classic pc gaming back, with the big shoebox boxes they came in, and a manual as thick as the bible that told you EVERYTHING about the game, not an advertisement for an expansion pack of extra guns or some shit when the game ONLY just came out and you spent £40 for it. I hate that.

Unlikely to happen. Steam has dominated the PC market with cheap digital downloads. Tbh i love steam, I bought Fallout New Vegas for £7 with DLC and got a cool little Pipboy for my engineer in Team Fortress 2 <3

There's no reason to have used games on PC anyway. Everything is so damn cheap and if you want to buy crap used, you might as well pirate it.

Originally Posted by Quietus

Unlikely to happen. Steam has dominated the PC market with cheap digital downloads. Tbh i love steam, I bought Fallout New Vegas for £7 with DLC and got a cool little Pipboy for my engineer in Team Fortress 2 <3

Yeh it won't happen, i miss it though. And I disliked new vegas.

There's no reason to have used games on PC anyway. Everything is so damn cheap and if you want to buy crap used, you might as well pirate it.

True, I believe we are talking about the future xbox though. PC games are always cheap, but sometimes double the price on consoles, and for a worse version (dumbed down graphics, no mods, console etc).. And how long will pirating last anyway with this new sopa/acta/pipa ballshit.

I'm kind of ambivalent about it. It's really kind of necessary with how things are advancing; the ownership of physical copies of a game doesn't really make any sense any more. When it gets to the point where you can effectively instantaneously transfer games rights over the web, that really necessitates this kind of system. Otherwise they will only sell a tenth as many copies, which will suffice for the original number of people, as the rights for an 'individual' game are just passed about automatically as needed. And that would make videogames unsustainable. At the very least it's not really Microsoft's fault, all they're doing is giving developers the ability to use this form of purchasing if they would like to. That may sound terrible to you if you're just thinking about Sony or whatever, but when you think about startups and indie developers, it's really important for them to have this choice.

I buy pretty much all of my games on Steam nowadays, which has essentially the same setup. Anybody who plays on the PC knows that the 'used games era' is already ending, and the system in its place seems sensible. This is just consoles catching up.

Xei's right.

Besides, with steam you can get most games for 15 dollars or less within a year of their release if you're the type who doesn't like paying the premium. In fact, I got Portal 2 and New Vegas for about 7.50 each during the Steam sale. That's much less money than a good used game would cost at a retail game store within a year or more. I've seen Resident Evil 4 for going for 10-20 dollars used at places like Gamestop.

Edit: What everybody else said

I'd be so pissed if this happens, I never owned an Xbox but it sounds really stupid if you ask me. Microsoft loves to piss people off... Also I don't think the new Xbox is going to be named "Xbox 720". Probably something different. Thats just silly.

Originally Posted by ShadowOfSelf

And how long will pirating last anyway with this new sopa/acta/pipa ballshit.

Piracy will never stop.

We all know that buying games at a retail store is going to be a thing of the past, but my concern is: Will they keep the prices low once the middle man is cut out? There's an obvious advantage for both the consumers and producers of videogames to offer their products online. Although it's pretty sweet at the moment, I've got this cynical feeling that once people stop buying games in retail stores, prices will shift due to bandwidth loads. Who knows.

Valve say they want 30% of the sales or some such, which basically means that prices are about the same as retail, but technically you could probably sell games online much cheaper.

See I don't mind paying full retail price if i know the game is going to be good. Mass Effect 3 and Final Fantasy XIII-2 are both on my "release day buys". It's just with the amount of rubbish we get these days, it's hard to justify paying £40 - £50 on a game. What's worse, is games that the store know they'll sell (the Call of Duty series etc), will be price tagged above average. £55 i think was the original RRP for Modern Warfare 3 =/

Oh well; if somebody tries to sell a mediocre game for far too much money, don't buy it from them.

No need to go to the Hague.

Originally Posted by Marvo

Valve say they want 30% of the sales or some such, which basically means that prices are about the same as retail, but technically you could probably sell games online much cheaper.

Cheaper because they don't have to pay to produce the disks and packaging, usually.