Sure, they could be forced to buy new games. Or maybe they'll decide that paying $60 for 8 hour games isn't worth it (on top of a console for hundreds of dollars) and just stop playing games. I'm thinking someone who stops playing games permanently hurts the industry a lot more than people who buy used games once in a while.

That's to be expected. I won't make a long post explaining myself, because I don't even want a situation like this to ever take place, but I have a hard time seeing the industry being hurt by people who weren't contributing to it in the first place. 

MW5 leads the way. Bump up the price for the 1st week buyers (£55) who will buy it anyway and let the rest of us get it used.

Hardly, People are more apt to buy games if they know that they can sell them down the road. Also, as a true gamer, I realish that fact that more people can afford to game. 

Not suprised with current economical situation. Plus retailers really should cut the price of older games, why should i buy crackdown for 20 pounds when i can get it for 8 pre-owned?

That's fair, but try a site like ebay then. You cut out the middleman and both sides benefit from it.

The industry as a whole might be perfectly untouched, should an unfortunate situation like that arise.

However, there is also a chance that the developers will not only take less risks, but actually produce less games as a result of losing those people. At this point in time, there are 51 million wii owners, 31 million 360 owners, and 22 million PS3 owners. That is what developers, and publishers, are looking at now in addition to the demographic of those owners.

What happens when you simply remove the people who buy solely used games, due to how expensive games are? Those numbers drop. Developers/Publishers now see a lower number of console owners. I would think that that would be a huge factor in not only determining which of their current projects will be completed, but what future projects they decide to do, such as what consoles they will appear on, what budget they are allocated, and what ideas go into the game.

I'm not going to make an estimate on the number of people who buy used games...really, there's no way to know. However, I'm sure that you'd agree with me that in today's financial climate, the higher cost of entry into the ownership of a console (looking directly at dollar values, and not adjusting for inflation, like the layman does) the higher cost of games, the success of used game retailers, that the number is quite high, if not the highest that it has ever been?

In a future, where the console numbers are lower than they should be due to those people bowing out, do developers/publishers bother taking any new risks? Take, for example, a game that is being made for the PS3. Right now, developers/publishers only need to 2% of the base, the average game will easily break even. What happens when they see that the PS3 is X amount of units lower - they now have to hit a higher %. Can they do it......sure. But when the first creative game falters, they'll start to get wary. I believe that this wariness will lead to less risks being taken, and thus less games because of it.

They'll go the yearly release route, or make a FPS and everything chugs along fine......until gamers that get bored of playing the same game year in and year out eventually bow out of playing console games as well. Gamers like me and you. I don't ever want it to come to that.

Yes, I realize that this is the absolute worse case scenario. It might, as you have suggested, not hurt the industry. I think that something like that could be a possible future, although it won't (in my opinion) happen very quickly - the actions/reactions would probably take a generation or two after being instituted, to ever come to fruition. There is one important thing to remember though - those who have a console and buy used games will always have the potential to buy a new game.......people who don't have the console, won't ever buy a new game.

Yeah well maybe more people would buy new games if the prices were cheaper. I would glady buy 9 new games if not more a month if they were priced at $20 at full retail. Instead games are $60 out the gate (atleast most of them are on the PS3 and 360) and my monthly limit is $115, which means I am over my budget from just buying two new games a month.

To top it off most new games go on sale a few months later or end up real cheap used.

Also, how is buying a game new on clearance at say Target for $15 or at Gamestops gameday sales for $15 any different then buying used? If your buying new that cheap it doesn't matter because while the developers sales go up, the game was already sold at such a low price that it is VERY UNLIKELY the game would be restocked by Target/Gamestop in the future in new condition. Why? Because it sold like crap and went to the bargain bin.

Bottom line is developers need to figure out ways to reduce the costs of games, and if that means not supporting next gen consoles to reduce costs or go all out XBLA/PSN so be it.

This made me lol pretty hard.

Also on used cars I gota LOL. The dealers pay off say $3,000 to a guy who trades in his car and try to sell it for $6,000. Dealers always make money off used cars and you don't see them complaining. Plus most new cars are quite expensive. Why should I buy a new car at $20,000 when It's value drops to $16,000 in less then a year? It's doesn't make sense.

Maybe Congress should put into place the banning of the used market. Then lets see how low companies have to price their games/cars before we start buying them with the great credit crunch :P Oh, that might be stealing to considering we are borrowing money we don't have!