Friday 24 May 2013

Xbox One resold games will give both Microsoft and publishers a cut?


   A new report today has surfaced on MCV which offers some 'retail sources' information on how used games will work on Microsoft's new console. This issue has been one which has seen gamers particularly concerned about whether or not second hand games will be things of the past!

   According to MCV retailers will have no restrictions on the price that they can charged for second hand Xbox One games, but they will however, have to give both publishers and Microsoft themselves a cut of the final sale price.

   The reason for this is that when games are sold back to stores gamers will have to take them to a store which has signed up to Microsoft's trade in program and have Microsoft's Azure pre-owned systems up and running within their own company systems. This will allow the company to tell Microsoft that a game with a certain registration code has been traded into a store and the game will subsequently be wiped from the console of the people who traded the game back in! This seems to confirm that the Xbox One will have to connect itself with Microsoft's servers once every day to ensure that people are only playing the games which they're 'allowed' to. 
   As for the price of games MCV report that the guys at ConsoleDeals.co.uk have already suggested that second hand games will have to be sold at £35, but that report isn't confirmed at the moment and that would completely reshaped the pre-owned games market. If that isn't the case then MCV says that retailers could see their earnings from each game sliced to just 10% of the final sale price! 
   Microsoft issued the following statement to MCV saying:
“We know there is some confusion around used games on Xbox One and wanted to provide a bit of clarification on exactly what we’ve confirmed... While there have been many potential scenarios discussed, we have only confirmed that we designed Xbox One to enable our customers to trade in and resell games at retail. Beyond that, we have not confirmed any specific scenarios. Another piece of clarification around playing games at a friend’s house – should you choose to play your game at your friend’s house, there is no fee to play that game while you are signed in to your profile.”
   As you can see Microsoft either haven't thought of a way of dealing with the issue yet, or they are keeping their cards close to their chest until they hear what Sony plan to do. Either way we have a horrible feeling that pre-owned games are going to be made a thing of the past as far as possible with Microsoft's new console. Hopefully we're wrong though and remember that nothing is confirmed yet as Microsoft keep reiterating! Let us know your take on the situation in the comments below!
MCV Via Engadget.




Share

Twitter Delicious Facebook Digg Stumbleupon Favorites More