Gaming Will the Xbox 720 kill off second hand gaming?

Microsoft, the Xbox 720, and the war on second hand gaming.

http://www.bit-tech.net/gaming/2012/03/09/xbox720nodisc/1

 

I cant see Microsoft going to Sony to ask them to strike a deal which sees them using BluRay drives & discs as the physical media, and DVDs was the medium for the LAST gen, not current (then 'next-gen') so i dont see how they could release a console with a DVD drive again. Are they going to come up with some sort of flash drive type storage??

Its all very self serving while shooting themselves in the foot, they'll all but destroy the retail market they rely upon, and bit-by-bit force the digital distribution route, and before long they'll have you paying for XBL access, full RRP for games, rarely seeing sales (price reductions, at least on par with brick store sales)... full control over the market. All because some people buy & sell used games.

You dont get this fuss over DVD/BDs being sold, developers have added their own 'project $10' that film makers cant do, but thats still not enough for them.

 

Interesting. They must be looking closely at the success of Steam and wondering if they can emulate their success I suppose; with the talk recently of Valve releasing a 'steam-box' that cuts both ways of course. I feel wary about a console with no optical drive, but then - I haven't installed a PC game from a DVD in quite some time so... It's not impossible to make it work I suppose

 

More likely they are looking at Origin, and the Blizzard store whilst thinking: We can set the RRP, keep prices high as we see fit, and have no competition. Perfect~

 

Xbox 720? Did I miss something? I thought this week belonged to Apple??

Oh and yes. Of course everything is going digital distribution only. I have only two words to to that...

"Woo" and "Hoo"

 

Games consoles? They sell those at mothercare don't they?

 

digital distribution is lovely, but how many people in the word have 100Mbit or faster internet access at home?

i really doubt MS would ever consider launching a console without a bluray drive, it just does not make sense. maybe in 10 years the bandwidth is there, but definitely not in a year or two.

Steam is a good example - it is great and works great, but during peaks the download speeds are not the maximum they could be (talking about not maximizing my 50M connection at home).

One thing I have always thought about: they bitch and moan about the 2nd hand market, but have they ever considered that many people would most probably not buy a new game at €60+ if they could not sell it later? In the days where many games are way too short.
I assume a big percentage of new console games that are sold, are bought with the idea to sell them later and recoup some of the price that was paid.

 

hmmm, theyre always harping on about making more money. Funny how games is seen as big business now and the people that runs these things are buisness people, all this B$ how they love the medium etc. pffft. simple thing is in between all these profit margins I never see any numbers between production costs and final sales after say a 12 month period.
There is a simple equation in all of this good games = mo` money. Theres quite frankly a myriad of titles on offer and alot of the time there`s just no substance there yet they still charge the full retail 45-60 quid which IMO is far too much.

 

I can't imagine the 720 will lack any kind of optical drive: if it's supposed to be an all-singing-all-dancing home media machine, how would you play CDs or movie DVDs on it?

I just can't see it happening, but I could see Microsoft making a huge push for online distribution as the primary method for getting games.

Something like having the retail release of a AAA title a few weeks after the digital release, that kind of thing, would make the difference without screwing over one of the main functionalities of the device.

 

I think they may be missing how they make profit from used games. There must be a significant number of gamers, who trade in their used games, in order to purchase new games. From this transaction, the usual profit of the game will be paid to the publisher, by the store. Without this option, these people may not be able to afford to buy as many games, resulting in a decline, unless games are priced lower.

 

Unless storage is upgradeable digital download is no good, I have near 200Gb of stuff on my PS3, 32Gb of stuff on my phone both are near capacity meaning I have to resort to deleting stuff, its no good.

Look at the Vita, I love Sony kit but where is 32Gb max memory card going to get me, I've filled that on a smartphone never mind something with better quality games.

Its unlikely consoles will ever come with enough space, high quality video and audio on some games take up 10s of Gbs never mind the extra texture detail the next consoles will need for higher res game play, you are going to need mega bandwidth, no many ISP can offer or offer quick enough.

Only way I can see digital working is the Onlive/.gaokai method where big datacentres hold everything and you just stream stuff and pay a subscription but need really good internet for that.

 

Saw this months ago.

The only thing I can see them doing is introducing a system like Steam and Origin where you have a CD key which is linked to your Xbox Gamertag, and then when you buy a 2nd hand disc all you have to do is buy another CD Key.

If they get rid of the Disc Drive fully and expect people to download the games then it will fail because, the UK is not ready for a download only service and probably won't be for another 5+ years.

They could introduce something like Flash Card's but still that would fail I think because of the price of the card's, 32gb SD card is around £35+ so I could only imagine the games for the console would be around £60 for each game, not to mention the read/write speed's when you start getting high resolutions and textures all trying to load of a card.

I stopped buying allot of games when nearly all the games started being released with no option to sell them on, simply because I now refuse to buy a game that I don't think is worth paying the money for.

I have Battlefield Bad Company 2 and Medal Of Honor, which are both £30 drink coasters because I don't like the games and I cannot sell them to purchase another game because they are both linked to my Origin account.

I mean if it means that developers have to start making games better in order to sell the games then fine do it stop the 2nd hand, market completely because kid's will stop buying the copy and paste Call Of Duty games and only buy them when they are worth it and that, can only be good for gamers because it will mean developers have to work for more than a few months on a game and actually, think about the content in the game rather than just saying "copy what we did last, give it a few tweaks and add a new name and we will sell millions".

 

Backwards compatibility matters a lot to people and probably more with the xbox owners than others. When you consider their reliability problems I would think most Xbox users will jump at a fully Backwards compatible xbox.

 

What about using old console games with the next gen optical drivless consoles?

Does this mean they are going to ignore their back catalogues and expect users to either buy only new games or pay again for downloads of old games?

 

While it's very unlikely I'll be getting one, I think getting rid of an optical drive is just stupid.
Downloading games at home can take days, literally. We also have severe issues with the PS3 since it's on the wireless, having to download everything we wanted to play would be horrible.
I would far rather have a physical disk for the same cost.

For me, not being able to sell on games is easily Steams biggest weakness though, L4D2 is my biggest gaming regret easy, what a waste of money.

 

This just doesnt make sense to me. I dont game on an XBX or PS3, but my bro does. If he had to download every game he bought, over the internet our speed would be going along at snails pace!! Look at the PSP Go! that never sold well due to the download only option.

 

Very true, my capped connection is so bad that the copy of Portal 2 (PC) I purchased in the Xmas sales still has 2GB left to download, over 2 months since I bought it!

 

Well it looks like it might be true that they are doing away with the Disc Drives fully.

http://www.itproportal.com/2012/03/09/xbox-720-durango-wont-use-disc-drive/

 

How would renting games work under the new system? Lovefilm, tesco and blockbuster would all be hit hard.

 

You know Sony don't own BD don't you? The Blu-ray disc association is made up of many companies, the most prominent being Sony, Panasonic, Pioneer, Philips, Thomson, LG, Hitachi, Sharp and Samsung.

Also Sony and MS have products which use each others technology anyway - Vaio laptops use Windows for example and it's not like the companies haven't worked together before (http://www.sony.net/SonyInfo/News/Press_Archive/199911/99-1115D/)