Wednesday, January 25

Why not allowing second hand games to run on the new Xbox would be plain wrong.

Why not allowing second hand games to run on the new Xbox console would be plain wrong. 

Kotaku is suggesting that the new version of the Xbox will potentially not allow used or second hand games to be played on the console. While closed units and IPR rights and DRM is all the rage in some quarters, it would seem to be a shitty move by Microsoft if they are trying to stamp out trading in second hand games .

Their motive of course would be enourage the purchase of new games either off the shelf from bonafide retailers or by download through the XBL service (which also would encourage the purchase of gold XBL member accounts).

And that’s fine. Microsoft is there to make money.

Publishers are there to make money too. That’s why you have to pay for DLC – and if DLC is free, you can be sure that there’s a marketing incentive behind it (such as goodwill to fans to keep a community active etc). 

What I do not like is Microsoft’s attempt to thwart something that is perfectly legal – in NZ where I live for instance, it is perfectly legal to sell second hand software. In the form of an Xbox game, it is absolutely legal to sell your copy of Halo 3 to the kid down the street.

Arguments about raising revenue aside, there should be no other reason to prevent such a transaction from occurring if it's a genuinely legal activity.

All this huffing and puffing is of course only a short term concern as it's bloody obvious we're heading to a 'download' only gaming world - it's just hard to say how long it will take us to get there? NZ is soooo far behind in the internet world we still have very low data caps so downloading full games is out of the question.

In the end, I suspect Kotaku's sources will be full of crap and if there is some kind of intiative, it will be more along the lines of tying a game to an account in some fashion. The mind boggles.

What's your view? Should Microsoft block second hand games from running on the new Xbox console?


Joshua said...

If Microsoft does go through with this idea, it will be about as despicable as Sony dropping backwards-compatability for their Playstation 3. And for people like me that don't necessarily have the coin to shell out and often rely on services like EB Games to get my title fix, well, they can bet I'll look elsewhere.

Sure they're out to make money, but if money is all a company can make, then they're doing it wrong. Plus they'd just be dicks.

Jimmy Jangles said...

" Plus they'd just be dicks."