Sony Bans Pre-Owned Games

[Jose_R.A.M]

[PS3] Sony makes moves to stamp out lucrative second-hand market

Words: Matt Cundy

High street games shops have been told by Sony that there will be no PS3 pre-owned sections in their stores as it will be illegal for customers to sell any next-gen PlayStation games that they've bought, retail sources have revealed to GamesRadar.

It seems that Sony is planning to adopt a licensing system that will mean gamers won't own the PS3 titles that they've paid money for. Instead, they will only be purchasing the licence to play the game and that the software itself will still be Sony property - meaning that the disc won't be the customer's to sell.

We assume that the thinking behind this move will ultimately be to stop PS3 games being resold several times - which currently snatches potential sales away from Sony - and to counter the impression in consumers' minds that games are only really worth their pre-owned price and are not worth buying new.

When we contacted Sony, it issued us with the following statement: "We have made all of the official announcements at E3 and cannot make any further comments at this time. We will be announcing more news running up to PlayStation 3's launch."

I thought that during E3, such a ban on pre-owned games was a false rumour?

[carcomptoy]

Wow that's extreme...although I guess one could argue desperate times calls for desperate measures.

Still, consumers won't like it one bit:cool:

[scythekain]

Wow that's extreme...although I guess one could argue desperate times calls for desperate measures.

what are they desperate to do?

Prevent pretend loss?

or increase profits dramatically? I think the second hand industry should get together and lobby about how much money they are going to lose because of this idiocy. Of course the only one it's going to hurt in the long run is Sony, Some people buy new games knowing that they can beat it and then sell it for about a 60% return... Now that, that is gone who's going to shell out 60 - 70 dollars for the new games?

What if you bought a new Toyota Matrix, then 4 years down the line, you decide you want to sell it... Toyota then tries to sue you, telling you that you only had a license to drive the car and you can't sell it to anyone else.

Fantastic eh?

[carcomptoy]

Well, the thing about your analogy is that it concerns something tangible...technically, a game isn't. I can see where Sony's coming from, afterall developers have been doing that for ages with their software, but that doesn't necessarily mean I agree with it.

[Jose_R.A.M]

If its true its like we're just given the lisence to play the game, not own a copy of it.

If that is so then the games that come out should be cheaper - but we know they won't be because of this Blu-ray kerfuffle.

After buying an item, isn't it our right to do with as we wish? At least in a gamers' context, they should be allowed to resell their own copy.

Maybe people will just work a way around it, like:

ebay listing years ahead: 1 piece of tissue paper, with "free" GTA4 for PS3

I hope its wrong, like the one about PS3 not being backward compatible with PS1/PS2/DVD.

Sony makes such great devices then cripple it with stupid greedy solutions... (I hate my walkman)...

It seems like Sony is making its PS3 as unattractive to potential 3rd generation console buyers as possible.
Make it late
Stick Blu-ray in it (Potential downfall already as so much of the PS3's success is riding on Blu-ray's)
Make it too expensive
Have first release games ...IN DVD
Remove HDMI in the "cheaper" version
Prevent users from using second hand games
+ So much more I cant remember
What next eh?

Maybe there's some divine thought process behind all of this, like are they getting rid of selling via disk format all together and pushing "online" ?

But at the moment it looks like a really retarted decision. (Perhaps someone at Sony was bribed to convince Sony to make these "innovations")

..sigh:confused:

[carcomptoy]

Yeah, unless Sony has something HUGE up their sleeve, they really are setting themselves up for failure:cool:

[zalameh1]

Yeah, unless Sony has something HUGE up their sleeve, they really are setting themselves up for failure:cool:

i wouldnt say its that bad..
there is no way that they can stop the sale of second-hand games, unless they use some online registration crap.

[Shun]

All software in this word are licensed, never sold. Read the EULA for any software carefully, most say in the very beginning something like "The software is licensed, not sold."

In the EULA, there is also a section on transferring of the software, which usually allows user to do so if some conditions are met. In most agreement, the other party has to agree to the EULA before the transfer can be done, which indirectly means you can sell it to an user but not through a reseller.

Sony could be enforcing the license, or to the extreme, alert the license to "non-transferable".

However, it is a licensing system right from the beginning, no user ever own the title. The guy has get the whole concept completely wrong.

[crazyze]

I think Sony are doing this by making sure that when you put a game into your PS3 for the 1st time, it 'locks' it to that particular PS3 system. Really stupid if they do that but it seems it is the only way they could enforce non-transferable games.

[MikeUK]

Yeah, unless Sony has something HUGE up their sleeve, they really are setting themselves up for failure:cool:
Yeah, but among people I've heard talking, ones who really don't read into anything, the PS3 is superior in respect by far, simply because it's got the playstation brading, and people have heard it's going to be more powerful than the other consoles.

[carcomptoy]

I think Sony are doing this by making sure that when you put a game into your PS3 for the 1st time, it 'locks' it to that particular PS3 system. Really stupid if they do that but it seems it is the only way they could enforce non-transferable games.
That would really be extreme cause then you couldn't simply bring your game to your friend's house and let him borrow it:cool:Yeah, but among people I've heard talking, ones who really don't read into anything, the PS3 is superior in respect by far, simply because it's got the playstation brading, and people have heard it's going to be more powerful than the other consoles.But are they actually going to buy it?

[Shun]

I think Sony probably won't go for a "non-transferable" license, seems that it is just going to enforce existing license and stop the wrong practises that shops has been doing.

User to user transfer should still be allowed.

[crazyze]

I think Sony probably won't go for a "non-transferable" license, seems that it is just going to enforce existing license and stop the wrong practises that shops has been doing.

User to user transfer should still be allowed.

I think that is what will happen to. Would it stop the transfer of games via ebay?

[Shun]

Provided that they will be no chance to the license, users should be allow to sell with their online account to another user. Selling with a business account should be illegal.

[dunnymunny]

lol ps3 turning out to be a right joke

[Serifan]

Sony is just giving me more reasons why I refuse to buy their products.