Exec confirms second hand purchase plans; Retail partners 'were part of the process'

Microsoft's Phil Harrison has moved to clarify the company's plans for pre-owned games on Xbox One.

Speaking to CVG this afternoon, the corporate VP confirmed that Xbox One players who activate a pre-owned retail disc will need to pay the same price as the original buyer in order to access its content.

"Our plans are very consistent with the way the world works today, which is if I buy a disc I can install it on my machine, I can play it and anyone associated with my machine can play it as well," Harrison told CVG.

"I can give that disc to somebody else - maybe my son who has his own Xbox One somewhere else in the house - and he can install and play it on his machine. I can come to your house with that disc, I can install it on your machine and we can play it and while I'm with you we can have all of the capabilities of that game.

"The moment I go home and notionally take that disc with me, you no longer have the ability to play that game. But the 'bits' are on your hard drive, so if you want to play that game you can buy it - you can go to the online store, buy it and it's instantly unlocked and playable on your machine. All of the privileges I just described in my house would now apply in yours as well."

The former Sony figurehead insisted that the Xbox One system is "exactly the same as owning a physical disc", adding that it's "just the method of distributing the 'bits' [that] slightly changes".

Microsoft has held high level meetings with its international retail partners on the subject, Harrison said, and Microsoft will later discuss plans for a system that will allow players to trade game ownership via Xbox Live.

Pushed to elaborate on his comments earlier today that Xbox One will require an internet connection once every 24 hours, Harrison said Microsoft "has not made a specific announcement on the details of that".

He commented: "Xbox One is designed to have an internet connection - it does notrequire an internet connection to be on at all times, but many of the great features and capabilities of the system are unlocked via a connection to Xbox Live or the cloud so that all of the things you expect become unlocked.

"If your internet connection is interrupted because of a local outage many, but not all of the features of the game content you own you will be able to use, but not all because some of them are uniquely online experiences. BBC iPlayer of Netflix won't work if your internet connection goes down, as you would expect.

"Blu-ray movies and other single-player games that don't require an internet connection to Xbox Live will work. I think it is pretty rare of an outage of local internet connectivity to be more than a few seconds or minutes, so I don't expect it will ever impact on somebody's ability to use the system."

http://www.computerandvideogames.com/408116/microsoft-xbox-one-pre-owned-plans-consistent-with-way-the-world-works/

It seems like EA and Activision had something to do with this whole thing as well. Still, Microsoft could have stood their ground, i mean if neither Nintendo, Sony nor Microsoft give in to pressure from the third party developers they'll just be forced to accept it, after all they are the one's who need to release their games on the big 3's systems.

He fails to make the distinction between separate accounts.

It's been confirmed that you need to buy another copy of the game to play it on a different account

Actually its not the same as real world because it's tied to an account.
If it was tied to the disc that would be different.

For example, I can let a friend borrow some chairs and still use the chairs I didn't let him borrow because the chairs aren't tied to some single commitment, each chair is individually owned. But if I want my friend to play a borrowed game, I can't play my other ones because tehyre all tied to one account that my friend would be using, necessitating that I cannot use it concurrently

You have to pay full price for a used game??  So basically, that used disc become WORTHLESS. Much like a used disc of Diablo 3 on PC.

I thought it would be a nominal fee. 

That actually isn't bad. Basically you can take it to another machine and play it as long as you have the disc with you. However they cant play it without the disc like you can.

So... you can't buy used games anymore. The second-hand market is dead. Consumers who couldn't afford *new* games before aren't going to magically be able to afford them now, Microsoft. They'll leave.

And then the money they were supplying to your more premium consumers is gone (premium consumers sell their old games to them, recoup some of the cost, and go buy new games). Now there are less new games people can afford.

Geegee. Well played.

I'm pretty sure in the real world, you can sell something once you are finished with it

Bolded X 1000.  Well said.  I fit the latter.  I don't want to spend 60 per game if its money down the shitter.  Some game are not worth 60!  You want me to keep my game, give it replayability (online multiplayer)!

Ugh.  NOW this pisses me off.