Well, this is quite a whale of a rumor. It seems that Kotaku recently heard some supposed details of the next generation XBox (we refuse to call it the 720) from an inside source. While these things tend to happen quite a bit and only have a small chance of actually being true, this rumor goes beyond traditional hardware specs.
On top of a rumored Blu-ray disc drive in the next XBox, DVR capabilities and the launch of Kinect 2, Microsoft is supposedly including some sort of anti-used game component into its next system. Yes, you read that correctly. According to this source, there will be some kind of system in place to keep the next XBox from playing used games.
If this is true, it would make a pretty big splash on nearly every side of the gaming industry. For consumers, this certainly would change the way people purchase games. For publishers, it would certainly affect sales – some theorize sales would go up because used games are rendered obsolete, but others predict they would go down because people would buy less games in general if they’re all at full price. It would also affect retail – how do you think GameStop would react to such an obvious shot leveled at their primary mode of business?
As with all rumors, again we take this with a grain of salt. That being said, it wouldn’t surprise me to see something like this become a partial reality in an industry that is sometimes terribly anti-consumer in its pricing, release schedule and anti-piracy measures. While I typically try to buy games new, this would affect my ability to play all the games I want – I would no longer be able to trade games in, or even rent them if something like this were in place. What does this do to LAN parties? Borrowing a game from a friend? Honestly, it would make me go 100 percent PC gaming, because that’s the way it’s already set up with Steam and other services.
So what do you guys think of this? I know it doesn’t affect you PC gamers, but it certainly would be a landmark moment in the console business. Your thoughts, por favor?
Source – Kotaku
“[…]It seems that Kotaku recently heard some supposed details[…]”
I don’t want to be rude, but I almost stopped reading from there. I can’t bring myself to trust on Kotaku.
Now, on topic, even though I think the commercialization of used games is something that hurts the console industry, this is retarded. Why my friends won’t be able to borrow a game that I bought and that is MINE?
If that is, Microsoft had just gone full retard.
As much as I dislike Kotaku as well, they DID break the MW3 leak, which turned out to be almost completely accurate.
I hate this topic (mostly because IGN has already written an opinion piece that bashed Microsoft and many people on forums have been bashing Microsoft over a damn rumor). That being said I can’t imagine this being true. Used sales are part of every industry, and as someone who works at GameStop, I can say that most of our used games sold are 360 games. However a lot of the people that buy those used 360 games buy them used because they are relative newcomers to the system and are trying to expand their library for cheap. By keeping them from doing that, Microsoft would hurt their attach rate and therefore screwing themselves over in the long run. And if for some reason they are planning this, the hooplah and complaints that will barrage them after the announcement will most likely influence them to reconsider.
I feel like GameStop would lobby to somehow make something like this illegal, citing all the jobs that would be lost if such a thing were to happen.
So soon you might have to enter a CD-Key to prove it’s your game, and not be allowed to resell it / borrow it without the next person being denied access? Which of course could mean the end of trading in games, or renting them at all to begin with. Hmmm… Kind of sounds more and more like PC gaming to me.
Of course it’s a rumour, but kind of sounds like it promotes piracy to me.
PC gaming’s looking more attractive by the day. ¬_¬
Seriously, unless a better pricing structure for gaming is introduced I feel the “people would buy less games in general if they’re all at full price” scenario is more likely to happen.