New Xbox basically kills off used games

[illram]

It will be interesting to see if anyone challenges this as a violation of the 1st sale doctrine. The precedent on this is currently murky. There are a lot of companies who make a lot of money on second hand sales (e.g., Gamestop) so there are well-monied interests with the resources to challenge this practice. (They tried and failed in the 9th circuit.)

 

[Antilogic]

I thought the whole point of buying something first hand is that you gain a legally acknowledged ownership over that product. At that juncture only a few things are restricted (copying and redistributing) but importantly you could sell it a few years later at the fraction of the original retail price thus recouping some of the original value you paid. The ownership is than once again retransferred to another party who could sell it again at another place. It seems that videogame is basically trying to appropriate this value - how big is the 2nd hand market? They probably think the gains of stealing 2nd hand market is greater than the pissed off kids and bargin hunters.

Still, I don't like this move. Competition authorities should do something with this IMO

Yeah, once upon a time when you gave money to purchase something, you actually owned it. Soon enough, even cars are going to have this kind of fee attached for buying at a used lot instead of at the dealership.

Well this could be a good thing if it means steam quality sales coming to consoles. Used games were the biggest barrier to that.

I don't see the logic here. A used game market puts a downward pressure on the sale price of games and thus encourages the original producer to sell at a cheaper price. By undercutting this market, they are putting an upward pressure on game prices. Or, at least, slowing down the rate at which the price will drop in the future.

It seems like the current method is a bad attempt to curb disk-sharing while maintaining disk-transfers. (If that makes any sense at all.) Perhaps Microsoft is just caught in an awkward spot in the transition from hard-copy games to digital downloads.

Sony will no doubt do the same thing,

Now that the barrier is broken, I expect all the big manufacturers to follow suit. Sony, Nintendo, the whole lot of 'em. If Sega still made consoles they would too.



EDIT:

It will be interesting to see if anyone challenges this as a violation of the 1st sale doctrine. The precedent on this is currently murky. There are a lot of companies who make a lot of money on second hand sales (e.g., Gamestop) so there are well-monied interests with the resources to challenge this practice. (They tried and failed in the 9th circuit.)

In the US, at least, the current legal environment is pretty business-friendly and I don't think the first sale doctrine would be upheld in the Supreme Court (don't know about all the circuit courts, it might get through one and be reversed on appeal).

 

[BvBPL]

It will be interesting to see if anyone challenges this as a violation of the 1st sale doctrine. The precedent on this is currently murky. There are a lot of companies who make a lot of money on second hand sales (e.g., Gamestop) so there are well-monied interests with the resources to challenge this practice. (They tried and failed in the 9th circuit.)

There's also some question as to how this will play out in Europe. If I recall correctly, Germany has greater protections for the resale of things like games.

That might just be a moot point though, because the fee, as it is presently described, is not a barrier to sales as much as a barrier to use of a used good on the internet-connected device. That subtle difference might make it legal.

 

[Traitorfish]

Yeah, once upon a time when you gave money to purchase something, you actually owned it. Soon enough, even cars are going to have this kind of fee attached for buying at a used lot instead of at the dealership.

Well, not really. You couldn't legally copy it, for example, let alone sell those copies. The information, the actual content of the game (or book, or album, or whatever) always remained in the hands of the producer. All you ever owned was an unlimited, transferable license, it was simply that the license was constructed as inhering in a particular physical object. What we're seeing here is the object being limited, and transfer being prohibited. What's changed isn't the nature of our relationship to the product, but the technological possibilities of regulating that relationship.

 

[Terxpahseyton]

Dame, spot on.

 

[Antilogic]

Well, not really. You couldn't legally copy it, for example, let alone sell those copies. The information, the actual content of the game (or book, or album, or whatever) always remained in the hands of the producer. All you ever owned was an unlimited, transferable license, it was simply that the license was constructed as inhering in a particular physical object. What we're seeing here is the object being limited, and transfer being prohibited. What's changed isn't the nature of our relationship to the product, but the technological possibilities of regulating that relationship.

I always understood (perhaps incorrectly) that under the first sale doctrine the consumers are largely able to make alterations to the product as they see fit. Thus, you had some degree of ownership over the physical object, even if you were not able to mass-manufacture a copied object and thus violate the patent.

Speaking of which, for objects in which the patent has run out, it could be legal to perfectly copy and sell the information/objects so long as you didn't break the trademark rules (i.e. different brand name, identical product).

 

[Maniacal]

The Xbox One will also require a kinect to always be plugged in and on, and Microsoft is avoiding clarifying whether the console will need to be connected to the internet every day or all the time or what.
http://penny-arcade.com/report/arti...nt-be-turned-off-welcome-your-new-motion-sens

I hope the console (rightfully) suffers from this.

 

[downtown]

Well this could be a good thing if it means steam quality sales coming to consoles. Used games were the biggest barrier to that.

I don't see why it would.

Microsoft already offers a direct-download service for a limited library of Xbox games, and scans your library for recommendations, etc. Nothing is ever cheaper than 20 bucks, and games retain their full retail price long after a used hard copy would drop a little.

One of the great things about used titles is that you can find a game that's older, but still highly popular (say, a Red Dead Redemption, or Mass Effect 2) for 25 bucks or less...and you know that when you're done with that game, you can recoup at least 10 of those dollars on a resale. On the direct download, it's going to be at least 30, and for some games, even 50 or 60.

If there is no downward pressure for hard copy used games, why would Microsoft ever put those games on a substantial sale?

The fair way to get around this is with DLC features, not by obliterating the second-hand market.

The problem with this is that Microsoft will not:

A) Offer really steep discounts like Steam does
B) Offer ease of migrating between different systems
C) Have mod support
D) Have good and proactive customer service

As someone who does a lot of used games purchasing, there's really no reason for me to buy a console anymore. I don't know what Gamestop's answer to this will be. Sony will probably have something similar. They've been beating the drums on how used games are the "worst thing in the world" for awhile, just so when they finally pull something like this out, they can try to limit the backlash.

Is the mod community really that large in console gaming? Seems to be only the hardest of the hardcore could care about that sort of thing. Migrating between different consoles has never really been very easy either, has it? Except with Nintendo I suppose.

I don't know about deep seated concerns with their customer service, but I'm a casual enough gamer that I might not be aware of them.

The constant requirement to be connected to the internet is a major drag though, for people who prefer single player games. Storing data to clouds etc means that if some reason I'm having internet connectivity problems, I can't save or use my game? I already see this with the most recent NBA2K series and I hate hate hate it.

 

[Terxpahseyton]

I always understood (perhaps incorrectly) that under the first sale doctrine the consumers are largely able to make alterations to the product as they see fit. Thus, you had some degree of ownership over the physical object, even if you were not able to mass-manufacture a copied object and thus violate the patent.

So how come cracks are illegal?

 

[LamaGT]

This new Xbox is a total disappointment. It's ugly, it has a ******** name, it requires the kinect (it's still to see how much it requires it but seriously not everybody has the space to use it) it must be always on, no backward compatability (I imagine that's not really voluntary) and finally there's this deal with used games.
Thank you Microsoft but no thanks, if we let this kind of b*llshit pass through there's going to be much worse stuff coming.

 

[Antilogic]

So how come cracks are illegal?

Because it violates the license you agree to when you are installing the game.

Unless you are referring to a different type of crack.

 

[Maniacal]

Is the mod community really that large in console gaming?

There is no modding community outside of a few games like the forge thing for Halo, because you can't mod them...

 

[Terxpahseyton]

Because it violates the license you agree to when you are installing the game.

I always understood (perhaps incorrectly) that under the first sale doctrine the consumers are largely able to make alterations to the product as they see fit. Thus, you had some degree of ownership over the physical object, even if you were not able to mass-manufacture a copied object and thus violate the patent.

?
5char

 

[hobbsyoyo]

This new Xbox is a total disappointment. It's ugly, it has a ******** name, it requires the kinect (it's still to see how much it requires it but seriously not everybody has the space to use it) it must be always on, no backward compatability (I imagine that's not really voluntary) and finally there's this deal with used games.
Thank you Microsoft but no thanks, if we let this kind of b*llshit pass through there's going to be much worse stuff coming.

Good luck stopping it. Even if you ragequit Xbox in protest, all of your buddies are still going to buy it and all the games. It's not going anywhere.

Unfortunately, as downtown said, there is not going to be any pressure on them to off 'steam-esque' sales of older games. They just won't, ever, because they don't have to because people will pay what they have to pay to play their games. This is really going to hurt a lot of consumers and may drive down the entire industry a bit by stabbing a knife into the resale markets, but the biggest companies (EA, Microsoft, Sony, etc) are still going to make fat enough profits off of what remains that they won't have to change their ways.

 

[SS-18 ICBM]

If this isn't a message to start going PC then I don't know what is.

 

[Loppan Torkel]

This new Xbox is a total disappointment. It's ugly, it has a ******** name, it requires the kinect (it's still to see how much it requires it but seriously not everybody has the space to use it) it must be always on, no backward compatability (I imagine that's not really voluntary) and finally there's this deal with used games.
Thank you Microsoft but no thanks, if we let this kind of b*llshit pass through there's going to be much worse stuff coming.

I like the always on, always connected, always watching you in the living room feature

How many of you have taped your cameras btw?

 

[Antilogic]

?
5char

Whenever you buy games now, you are actually buying a license to install that software on your computer under a particular set of terms and conditions. You do not have the unlimited transferable license that Traitorfish described above.

 

[Terxpahseyton]

Seems like bickering over details/words to me. The point as I understood it was that there is in fact no ownership but a mere license, which is adjusted according to what is practically enforceable.
You in turn said there was some sort of ownership, saying one could alter the software as one sees fit excluding some exceptions. It is one POV that I am now merely bickering over words, yet ownership seems misleading when the selling party dictates how I can make use of the product, as demonstrated by the illegality of cracking.

 

[Antilogic]

Seems like bickering over details/words to me. The point as I understood it was that there is in fact no ownership but a mere license, which is adjusted according to what is practically enforceable.
You in turn said there was some sort of ownership, saying one could alter the software as one sees fit excluding some exceptions. It is one POV that I am now merely bickering over words, yet ownership seems misleading when the selling party dictates how I can make use of the product, as demonstrated by the illegality of cracking.

In my conversation with Traitorfish, we are not necessarily limiting ourselves to just software, but products more generally. Restrictive licenses have been part of software transactions for as long as I can remember and they are only getting more restrictive. But the first sale doctrine, and the concepts we are discussing have existed long before computers and software existed.

Say you purchase a car, you then extensively modify it, put some new tires on, a new speaker system, repaint it, etc., and then you resell it. You didn't need a special dispensation from the original manufacturer to make those modifications and then to sell the car "used" (let's say you drove it for a few years) to someone else. The manufacturer didn't get a cut off your used car sale. Nor, do I think, does the original manufacturer have a right to prohibit your subsequent transaction.

I'll be perfectly honest, I was and still might be really confused by the point you are trying to make.

 

[Crezth]

If this isn't a message to start going PC then I don't know what is.

You know Steam, that bastion of used games.