Microsoft/Sony Patent to Prevent Pre Owned Game Sales?

[Mankey]

Apologies if this has already been posted. But I'm curious what peoples view on this are.

Article 1 - http://uk.ign.com/articles/2012/01/25/report-no-used-games-on-next-xbox
Article 2 - http://www.at7addak.com/en/Articles/226627/News/PS3/Sony-Just-Patented-its-Own-Downfall

Basically, if you can't be bothered to read it, this patent allows them to install an RFID chip into every disk created which, when inserted into the console, LINKS that disk to only be played on that console. That's right. No trading games with friends anymore, no buying preowned games. If you wanted to lend a mate a game, you'd have to lend them the game with the console.

Surely, as consumers, we have every right to do what we want with what we purchase? When you purchase a book, you can lend it to someone or you can sell it on. Surely by passing this patent they are preventing us, the consumers, from getting a full use of the product we've paid about £30-£50 for. That is not fair.

Also this will destroy shops such as GAME or HMV as most of their money is made from reselling games.

Yes, the developers have every right to profit from games but this way Sony and Microsoft are surely shooting themselves in the foot? Especially considering valve are supposedly releasing a "Steam Console".

I dunno... Thoughts guys?

 

[Tom]

Disgraceful, but hopefully it'll be short-lived go the way of that copy protection rubbish that was on CDs for a short time stopping them working on PCs.

 

[Stelios]

The PSN Hackers can do good for once. This will really hurt CeX the most as most of the DVD's they get are worthless anyway and I only see people buying games. It will be interesting to see if seventh preowned games prices go up slightly to consolate. It's just as bad as that adverts between levels rumour floating a while ago. Sony and Nintendo are in financial turmoil so it would make more sense for these two to do it but at least Microsoft have a ever-thriving computer business to fall back on.

It isn't needed and if it's to stop piracy, someone will find a way anyway. To quote Tom; Disgraceful. It totally drains the fun out of discovering new games and having spontaneous multiplayer fun, I have discovered many a game from my friend bringing it over.

 

[Adam]

If this happens, it's just another fine example of corporate greed imo. Hope it doesn't happen, and if it does I won't be too keen on getting a PS4/720 anytime soon.

 

[Jonathan]

Whilst I'm not an avid gamer, this is frankly stupid, and another disgusting example of corporate greed. :

 

[Fredward]

I do not think it's disgraceful, but badly implemented.


I think lending games to friends and selling games privately is fine and acceptable, but what Game, Gamestation, HMV ext. do is harm game industry's they actively take all profit from away from game developers and only the store gains. They actively advertise pre owned games as a more appealing prospective. I think they should of made a method of cashing in from pre-owned games rather then preventing them, at least then the dev's get something rather then nothing.

I think steam is better, games are bound to an account rather then a console. You can't re-sell games or lend them, but with steam sales every season you don't care as games as new games cheaper then a pre-owned disk copy and the profits are sent to the developers and Valve rather then a brick and mortar store who don't help towards developers.


As for the method of what they are doing so a game is stuck to a console... that's BS, what happens if you get the equivilant of the xbox 360's red ring of death on the new consoles? you have to buy your library all over again.

The steam console will triumph at this. Cheaper games (games are often £10 or so cheaper on steam then there disk copy console counterparts) locked to a count to use on all your PC's and Macs (if compatible) all you like.


It's a grey area. Calling it disgraceful is narrow minded as you don't know the whole picture, game dev's earn no where near as much as film makers and media reps of that ilk. so saying it's greed is not necessarily true.

They way they are doing it is just stupid though, I'm surprised that don't just copy Steams DRM methods, it's unobtrusive and fair.


As a blanket dramatic conclusion, I'll make a bold statement. The reason this is here is because as far as developers are concerned pre-owned copy's of games are worse then piracy. There are several studios who have spoken out and said they lose more money from pre-owned Xbox 360 games then pirated copied games given out for free.

Maybe due to me being a PC gamer I'm used to not being able to buy pre-owned games, But whether you like it or not pre-owned games is essentially the equivalent of pirating a game, but paying for it, from the benefit it causes you may as well illegally download a game rather then buy it pre-owned.

 

[IanB]

I am not to fussed to be honest, most pre-owned games sale for £3 or £4 less than new ones these days anyway.

You have not been able to trade in your games on Steam for years, and there has been some bad games released on there.

At the end of the day, who do you want to make money. If you want the people who make the games to make money, so they can make better games, or be given bigger budgets to make games you need to buy them new.

If you want places like CeX, HMV, Game and other pre-owned shops to make money, you buy pre-owned games from them.

Ian

 

[Fredward]

I am not to fussed to be honest, most pre-owned games sale for £3 or £4 less than new ones these days anyway.

You have not been able to trade in your games on Steam for years, and there has been some bad games released on there.

At the end of the day, who do you want to make money. If you want the people who make the games to make money, so they can make better games, or be given bigger budgets to make games you need to buy them new.

If you want places like CeX, HMV, Game and other pre-owned shops to make money, you buy pre-owned games from them.

Ian

Essentially my point in a much easier to read condensed format!

 

[Mankey]

I think this will only be pulled off if they take steams tactic tbh. No one will complain if the game prices are dropped. If the new consoles release their newest games for £25. Fine whatever, I can deal with that. It's when they release games for £40 and you cant even borrow one to try it out, that's taking the mickey. :

This year is going to be VERY interesting. We've got the 2 big consoles essentially shooting their feet, Nintendo are going hardcore to try and entice more gamers in, we have a modern ZX Spectrum (Ouya) and the Steam Console all to be announced/released.

The steam console will be powered by Linux too, as apparently Windows 8 is more unstable than Vista, which is hilarious. Valve are aiming to move evening to Linux... LMAO!

I hope Sony and Microsoft don't do this. Not in the preowned games sense, but more in the freedom sense. I pay for something I want to use. EA did the same, and made the biggest loss in gaming history with Spore.

Honestly, I think all the bigwigs need to meet up with game stores that cash in on preowned sales. Maybe even get some sort rights payment, similar to music royalties...

 

[Fredward]

I think this will only be pulled off if they take steams tactic tbh. No one will complain if the game prices are dropped. If the new consoles release their newest games for £25. Fine whatever, I can deal with that. It's when they release games for £40 and you cant even borrow one to try it out, that's taking the mickey. :

That works. Perhaps a system where if you don't like a game you can delete it from your account and get a portion of your money back.. though that can only work with digital editions.

This year is going to be VERY interesting. We've got the 2 big consoles essentially shooting their feet, Nintendo are going hardcore to try and entice more gamers in, we have a modern ZX Spectrum (Ouya) and the Steam Console all to be announced/released.

The steam console will be powered by Linux too, as apparently Windows 8 is more unstable than Vista, which is hilarious. Valve are aiming to move evening to Linux... LMAO!

Thats an interesting one, as Valve are still being very vague, though Gabe has said he indeed is hoping to have hardware available by the end of the year or so, The Linux thing is also a rumour, but they are not moving over. They will still sell games on Windows and Mac as it's the primary computer markets. Linux has been recently available on steam and their "Big Picture Mode" is a test to see how well the market likes the idea of moving PC gaming from the desk to the living room. It has been successful enough for Gabe to unofficially/kind of officially announce the Steam box.

Rumours have it as Gabe also hinted a Steam Linux-Based OS, similar to Ubuntu, but with Valve and Steam behind it. Either for computers or likely the Steam box. Which makes sense, the steam box will be a closed hardware enviroment so it can be reliable. Though I believe I am very much going off topic...

I hope Sony and Microsoft don't do this. Not in the preowned games sense, but more in the freedom sense. I pay for something I want to use. EA did the same, and made the biggest loss in gaming history with Spore.

Honestly, I think all the bigwigs need to meet up with game stores that cash in on preowned sales. Maybe even get some sort rights payment, similar to music royalties...

That won't work. Why would game stores agree to this when they have been making lots of money off of pre-owned games for ages. I don't think dev's are happy to make a deal with Game anyway given the dirty underhanded tactics they have pulled off...

 

[Tim]

In case no one has realised this doesn't just apply to games. They (or more specifically Sony as the creator of BluRay) want to implement it for all digital media; films, music and maybe even digital books. Games are just the easiest market to implement it on as the hardware is the same per person (an Xbox or PS).

 

[Mankey]

That won't work. Why would game stores agree to this when they have been making lots of money off of pre-owned games for ages. I don't think dev's are happy to make a deal with Game anyway given the dirty underhanded tactics they have pulled off...

That's true, but something needs to be met. All it's going to take is something like the Ouya to come along and sales on the Xbox and PlayStation are going to fall drastically. People like buying preowned games. Given the choice, I'd always buy a game new to give to the developer. But seeing as I can't really afford to, I tend to buy preowned.

Having got my PC, however, I rarely buy console games. If I do its usually preordering new releases, but back in my first year of uni I invested in a lot of preowned games as it worked out better for me as a gamer. So, in that sense, I can understand why many would be opposed to the idea.

In case no one has realised this doesn't just apply to games. They (or more specifically Sony as the creator of BluRay) want to implement it for all digital media; films, music and maybe even digital books. Games are just the easiest market to implement it on as the hardware is the same per person (an Xbox or PS).

You're joking?! What so you wouldnt be able to lend out Blu Rays? I live in a student house, and that's a standard way of life! We borrow each others DVD's/Blu Rays if we want to watch something!

God, come on guys!

EDIT: Tim do you have a Source for that? I'd love to read it!

 

[Jonathan]

In case no one has realised this doesn't just apply to games. They (or more specifically Sony as the creator of BluRay) want to implement it for all digital media; films, music and maybe even digital books. Games are just the easiest market to implement it on as the hardware is the same per person (an Xbox or PS).

You have got to be joking. That's going to put the DVD rental industry completely out of business!

 

[Fredward]

In case no one has realised this doesn't just apply to games. They (or more specifically Sony as the creator of BluRay) want to implement it for all digital media; films, music and maybe even digital books. Games are just the easiest market to implement it on as the hardware is the same per person (an Xbox or PS).

You have got to be joking. That's going to put the DVD rental industry completely out of business!

Not really, as rental business's already have to buy a special rental copy anyway. The rental copy will just probably be without restriction. or with a special restriction.


Just to point out I'm not completely for this, only making a point. I don't mind and I'm all pro fair DRM such as steam, but I view the way Sony and Microsoft are going about this with unfair DRM.

 

[Tom]

What these fat cats and rear end wipes don't realise is that preventing sharing if media doesn't increase purchases, it decreases them. In the past ten years, most if the albums and games I've gone on to buy, I've sampled for free in some way beforehand. Those that don't buy legitimate games or music but download it, will most likely not buy legitimately if you try and force them.


-Sent from a mobile phone-

 

[Tim]

Just to add to what I said above It's not a certainty that Sony will implement it in this way. However from what I understand of the Patent it doesn't specifically say games but media in general. People have just jumped to the conclusion that they are only talking about games because it tends to be gamers that stumble across this news.

 

[TheMan]

I'd never considered this second hand games market in the way I think it was Fredward put it across.

It's a great point, once it is out on the market, these people are making a lot of money from reselling, with the original creators out of the loop completely.

That being said, on many occasion I have picked up a game cheap, I thought would be crap, preowned, found I enjoyed it, and then bought a new one from that developer later on. It works both ways. Also, once something is on the open market, it's down to licensing. The best way they found around this with games, was to sell the original with online rights - and if you buy second hand, you purchase online rights later - and why not? It costs to run those servers.

There is still the other point though, even as a producer/musician, I cannot abide the big labels, as they have done more than most to decimate content and quality, for quick sale garbage!!

Respecting product/licensing etc, boils down to value. They need to change an entire generations perspective, that they damaged in the first place with their endless guff and tat they released!! People have always copied/lent things to each other - it's easier with the net admittedly, but this isn't even about that.

I have no answer to this problem, but one thing that makes people respect them even less, is over the top strong arm tactics! When you buy a table and chairs/settee etc, you don't buy it as a license, so you cannot sell it on - what are these people doing?

They live in la-la land they really do.

 

[Tom]

Bring back Bill Gates now!


-Sent from a mobile phone-

 

[Tim]

I've just been talking about this with my brother and he's found out something quite interesting. Apparently by EU law it is the consumers right to be able to resell or lend a product. He was telling me that there was a case where someone sewed Steam for not being able to sell off their game and the court ruled in their favour. Afraid I don't have any more details though.

EDIT: Tim do you have a Source for that? I'd love to read it!

It might have been worth putting this edit in a new post, I only spotted it because of the lovely new notification system

The information all comes from the Patent that Sony published. An on-line version can be found here but it is very wordy. If you do read it you'll notice that while games are used a lot as an example the section labelled as claim never once refers to a gaming devices specifically just media in a recorded medium which could refer to anything digital.

I did a bit of research into this after watching the below video where the commentator specifically noted (at about 1:10 to 1:35) that it was weird they didn't specifically limit it to video games. Then around the 3:30 mark he gives his own theory about BluRay's:

Content Patch - January 4th, 2013 - Ep. 026

Total Biscuit (the videos creator) studied Law when he was at University so knows this stuff better than most.

 

[Fredward]

I've just been talking about this with my brother and he's found out something quite interesting. Apparently by EU law it is the consumers right to be able to resell or lend a product. He was telling me that there was a case where someone sewed Steam for not being able to sell off their game and the court ruled in their favour. Afraid I don't have any more details though.

Afraid I don't think that's possible. Sorry for calling you out. But You don't buy games on Steam, you buy licenses, essentially permissions to play the games. In all purposes you own the game, you don't have any less rights, but you do not own the content of the game. you have permission to use it and access it. Which means Steam is exempt from the laws to resell or lend a product because you haven't purchased any product.