Well great then the book industry is doing exactly what I said in the whole thread: adapting to new business models and selling to new markets instead of torturing its costumers So the book industry just proved my point, how cool is that? Why can't the gaming industry adapt to new markets too instead of trying to squeeze as much money out of its customers as possible? One of the biggest gaming companies already proved that it can work.

Oh and back to the cars. Again: "If you force customers to buy your products new this will increase the sales of your product." That's all I tried to say with my example but somehow everyone is jumping on the "cars are no videogames" thing even though that wasn't really my point. So... why is everyone focusing on that? People are buying new cars. They are also buying new cars from other private persons or private investors so my point stands.

And why are we talking about "annoying little pieces" in cars now that you have to buy from the manufacturer if they stop working? If the game DVD you bought used brakes you'll have to buy a new one, too. If you liked the game you can even buy an original copy but... that is really only remotely related to what we are talking about (squeezing money out of your customer instead of adapting to new markets)

Let's hope the trend catches on, everyone can argue about how it's the developer's fault and they have a right to buy used games, but in the end it's Sony's product until it's sold to you. Until you pay for the product they can do whatever they want to it, you have the freedom to choose if you want to buy it or not.

^

1/ This will hurt the new sales of the title, and in the end - Sony will make less revenue, not more.

2/ Less people will play it online.

And what is the logical next step for this:

a) You buy a new game at the store
b) The game box is an empty shell - it just contains a one-time code for downloading a game
c) Once the code is used, its worthless

I'll say it again: Sony has to get over this - they have to start chasing NEW consumers, and sell more copies of games - rather than squeeze more money out of the limited consumers they have.

How is it squeezing their "limited consumers"?

The ones that buy it new are already giving their money to sony. The ones that don't buy it new (i.e. not even giving sony money) will 1) be forced to buy a code => giving sony money they otherwise wouldn't have gotten 2) won't buy it then (no problem for sony as they didn't see any money from it anyway / might hurt things like Gamestop  more, which doesn't annoy sony at all in this regard).

Good idea. I bet that FTB3 won't sell that well though

I see your point, too. But in the end this is only going to save them short-term but not long term.

If a customer sells his game to get some money back that most likely means he didn't like the game. So quite a lot of those FInal Fantasy copies you can buy used exist because one of the customers just wasn't happy with the game. Granted some people are also selling it because they only play through games once or because they try to re-sell it for profit or anything but a big bunch of those games comes from customers who didn't enjoy the game. In the short term stopping people from reselling their copies may help the developer (Square in this case). But what about their next Final Fantasy game? Customers who didn't like Final Fantasy XIII most likely won't come back when the next main game releases so they will lose money anyways. And that's exactly what currently happens in Japan with Final Fantasy sales decreasing with each new release.

So instead of trying to find short-term solutions developers should try to look at the long-term effects and take the huge used gaming market as what it is: A sign that a lot of people just aren't happy with the current games. (Especially in Japan where software sales decreased dramatically during the Playstation 2 era... which was probably what Iwata was talking about when he said the gaming market was shrinking. I have a graph somewhere to prove this, by the way).

So instead of seeing their sales decrease further they should try to adapt to new market segments. This is where the whole "hardcore vs casual" thing comes into play, by the way. If the industry stopped popping out "casual games" and instead developed games everyone can enjoy not only the "casual gamers" but also the hardcore gamers would profit.

Basically the current business model is hurting hardcore gamers the most because hardcore gamers have never really been shy to try out new and intense gaming experiences. The whole "core vs casual" thing has a lot to do with companies being afraid of new markets and change in general and they are using core gamers to fight this one out. If they would just adapt to the new markets and business models and support Nintendo it would help the industry in general. Sure it would be bad for fans of Sony and Microsoft, I know that and I don't want anybody to feel like they bought a console that doesn't get a lot of support. But in the long term Sony and Microsoft would adapt to the new markets and business models, would rank in way more profit again and developers, too. Thus we, the core gamers, would be getting more games and even better: When you have games everyone can play being a core gamer is not bad anymore but actually cool because other people will look at you in awe and ask you "Heck! How did you just get through world 8? That was awesome!" That's how it was back in the NES days when people thought being a great gamer was pretty cool. Today they'll just look at you and say "well yeah, you're crazy..."

So again what I'm saying is this will help us core gamers to get healthier companies, better and more games and a more socially accepted hobby you can be proud of. Because it IS possible to develop games core gamers and casual gamers can play alike.

Hmm, it would be nice to see a chart about why people sell their games. From my experience as a site operator, it's mainly "game is finished, I want money for the next game".

That is a huge market that cannot be accessed as a developer. This Socom voucher is a way to counter that, in order to bring in added money from the exact game you've been selling.

If anything, this (and that's what I think Sony is targetting most) should hit retailers who re-sell games the most. If they can relay this tactic to their biggest games as well, then retailers will be quick to make a deal with developers where they cut them in on the second hand sales-pie. Retailers are now reluctant to do that as it is pure profit for them.

Over here, there has been a debate about how they could possibly make renting possible again (by doing some sort of DVD-like expensive rental copies for the stores). Retailers apparently backed out of it, as it would mean they had to cut their profits in that sector. Devs and publishers responded by making it illegal.

THAT is the point where a consensus has to be reached between retail and devs. If that can be reached, this will probably all go away.

Who says its Sony attacking used game sales. Seems that if the code came along with the game, then even second hand you should still have access to online so long as the code comes with it. Unless I'm missing something.

As for the used car analogy, in the real world used car sales help new car sales by lowering the cost of ownership of a car. Lets say person A buys a $30k car. 3 years later he decides he wants to purchase a new car, which is also $30k. Now with used car sales, person A could sell their first car for $15k to person B, who could only ever afford a $15k car. Then person A goes and buys the new $30k car. Total cost = $45k.

In an alternative world where second hand cars were either banned or financially crippled (or taxed off the road like Japan), person A would have to greatly reduce the price of his 3 year old car to sell it, due to any potential owner having to spend big on whatever financial road blocks a company may put in. End result is person A pays more overall to purchase a new car, so they either buy a cheaper car that the car company makes less money on, or they purchase cars less frequently, making the car companies less money.

Its tempting to think that if used cars were banned, people would have to purchase new cars and so more money is made, but people only earn so much money each year, so for many if they couldn't buy a used car they would have to purchase a new cheaper car far less frequently, which flows onto richer people purchasing fewer cars because its more expensive for them to replace their current cars. End result is car companies make less money.

I don't see how game sales would be any different.

The codeis single use only and links to a PSN account.

Lower game retail prices to reduce used game margins, not this duck move Sony.