A working dpad on my 360 controller? who would've thought!

Also, the DLC will feature no new terrain as I predicted months ago. Go me!

Actually I was totally shocked by the ridiculous volumes of used copies of GTAIV and MGS4 at my local EB Games too. Like 30 copies of each. Sure they sold huge amounts but still. Guess the online play for either isn't compelling. There were a few CoD4 but nothing compared to those two.

What shocked me most in there's this entire rack full of used GTAIV and they are all still priced only $5 cheaper than the new version. WTF? You'd think with so much supply they'd lower the sell price to move them off the shelves.

MGS I can understand, it's linear and once played lacks replay value. But what happened with GTAIV folks? My son still plays GTA:SA. And I don't see many copies of that on shelves.

That's one thing Saint's Row does much better... there's much more to do in the city. But I digress.

I actually regret buying GTA4 on the hold........ the game was not near as awesome as I thought it would be :(

It's a great game, but they trimmed all the crazyness from previous GTA's.

Also, after Saint Row's amazing array of side-activities they failed to deliver something similar. Well, they do have the activities with your buddies (pool, bowling, live shows...) but it's not the same.

I left it on hold a few months ago (always the same with GTA's, I get frustrated with a mission and dump them for a month or two before picking them up again) and recently started playing it again... it's a very nice game.

and..? ive seen a bunch of halo 3 used copies at my local gamestop, dose that mean the halo 3 map packs are selling poorly?

There are over 10 million people living in the NYC area so seeing 45 used copies of any one game at any particular Gamestop is no big deal. Plus the NYC area is very population dense so I would expect a good amount of every recent game available used easily.

EB Games/Gamestop rather sell fewer games at a higher profit then more games with a smaler profit thats how they operate.  Also they usally don't lower their prices on used games until they pay significantly less to people selling their games.  Consumers are better off selling their unwanted games through ebay, craig's list or their friends then to EB Games/Gamestop.

The thing about the DLC is that Rock* still generates revenue by selling it through XBL, which is something EB or GS can't buy or flip used.

Even if people interested in the DLC buy a used copy, they're still going to have to buy the DLC off XBL.

If it works well enough, that may be a way for developers to circumvent significant sales losses to the secondary market in the future. If you figure that most of GS profits are generated through sales of used merch, those profits represent sales that were effectively taken away from new game sales, which are all that matter in determining the commercial success of any given game.

The only downside is that it does require a continued investment of time and development resources to support a game in such a manner.

If it only generates minimal revenue, then this isn't much of a profit generating solution so much as it is a form of fan service to the players who particularly enjoyed a game and don't want to wait another two years or more for the next release.

Selling empty boxes with a code inside is a brilliant idea: they get the visibility from retail, they don't piss off the brick'n mortar stores and they kill the used market sales.