News and Reviews....

    SONY May Require Registration PS3  July 2006

    The video game industry in an uneasy truce with rental dealers making money off its product, is now up in arms over used games sales hurting new game sales. Retailers have been selling used games for some time. (POINT 1) Now, industry observers believe SONY CORP. may be trying to spoil their fun. Speculation is SONY may combat used game sales with a new technology on PlayStation3 this fall. SONY has a patent, granted last November, that allows it to create a registration for games. This would allow the game to be played only on the PlayStation3 to which it is registered. This is similar to technology PC software makers use for PCs. SONY has publicly said it has no intention of using the technology for PS3, but that hasn't ended the discussion. 

    (POINT 2) This move could force retailers and game makers to agree to an unofficial window of one to two months before games may be sold used. This would provide software publishers an exclusive time period to push new game sales without competing against pre-owned copies of the same product. The industry believes that anything short of an industry wide solution and support will likely not work, and will have broad implications for gamers.

    The used game sales market generates about $990 Million in annual revenue, chiefly through sales at GameStop and EBay. SONY used games generate approximately $620 Million. Unlike the rental business, which can drive sales of games through a Try-Before-You-Buy strategy, consumers who purchase used games are getting a discount. While used game sales could potentially open up new consumers to sequels, those cost conscious consumers likely aren't going to pay full price for a sequel. Despite all the uproar, used games provide currency for new game purchases and as a practical matter, not many hot games get traded in right away.

Comment .....  We believe that GameStop and Ebay provide a service to gamers using the materials at hand. Why is it that when things get going well for outsiders of the powers that be (SONY), a wrench gets thrown into the gears. What happens when the machine fails. We all know of SONY repair and parts history. Do we get hooked with a stack of unusable software? In PCs its the Operating System that is secure to the machine, not the plethora of unique and custom features we add. It is one thing for the market to be manipulated for the good of all, but when the market gets manipulated to allow a window so that a not so good game has a chance to rake in more funds then it is worth, is WRONG. Marketing of a game should not have an unfair advantage over the consumer. The sales and rentals of new and used games allows the GAMERS to critique the products on the market. It allows the market to qualify the good and the bad. Display the many borderline products from the few cream of the crop. Hey, I think SONY should provide a hood with each new PS3 game in registered format.

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Past Articles on Subject:

SONY BMG HIDES THE PEA    December 2005