The second hand in XO

[Xpider_MX]

Retailers will be free to charge whatever they wish for pre-owned Xbox One games, but both Microsoft and publishers will take a percentage cut of every sale.

Retail sources have told MCV that Microsoft has this week briefed key retail partners on how it intends to take ownership of the pre-owned market.


This is how we?ve been told it will all work:

A gamer walks into a retailer and hands over the game they wish to sell. This will only be possible at retailers who have agreed to Microsoft?s T&Cs and more importantly integrated Microsoft?s cloud-based Azure pre-owned system into its own.

The game is then registered as having been traded-in on Microsoft?s system. The consumer who handed it over will subsequently see the game wiped from their account ? hence the until now ambiguous claim from Phil Harrison that the Xbox One would have to ?check in? to Microsoft?s servers every 24 hours.


The retailer can then sell the pre-owned game at whatever price they like, although as part of the system the publisher of the title in question will automatically receive a percentage cut of the sale. As will Microsoft. The retailer will pocket the rest.


Unconfirmed reports on ConsoleDeals.co.uk suggest that retail?s slice will be as little as ten per cent. That?s a significant cut from what it has become accustomed to from pre-owned sales and more in line with what they would receive from the sale of a new game ? hence, the value of the pre-owned market to the retailer is effectively destroyed.


These same unconfirmed reports also suggest that the activation cost for consumers buying or borrowing pre-owned software will be ?35.


When contacted by MCV Microsoft responded with the following statement: ?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.?

Source: Publishers to receive cut of Xbox One pre-owned sales at retail | Games industry news | MCV

 

[Narse77]

So it will be impossible for me to trade my games with friends or sell them on my own? I cannot see how this will be anything other than bad.

 

[Xpider_MX]

So it will be impossible for me to trade my games with friends or sell them on my own? I cannot see how this will be anything other than bad.

Only with some retailers, registered at Microsoft.

You will be able to trade games with friends only if your account is in their console.

 

[Mystictrust]

Only with some retailers, registered at Microsoft.

You will be able to trade games with friends only if your account is in their console.

we don't know exactly how that will work though. It has already been officially mentioned that a game can be installed to a second Xbox, logged in with a different account, for a fee. What if you can completely deactivate it yourself from the first Xbox? What if there is an option to permanently deactivate and ban that game from your Xbox so you can then sell/give to your friend for no fee? What if you can temporarily deactivate it in 24hour or longer intervals to be able to lend to a friend? We don't really know at this point... Which really sucks... But I guess they are still finalizing details or whatever.

 

[Xpider_MX]

we don't know exactly how that will work though. It has already been officially mentioned that a game can be installed to a second Xbox, logged in with a different account, for a fee. What if you can completely deactivate it yourself from the first Xbox? What if there is an option to permanently deactivate and ban that game from your Xbox so you can then sell/give to your friend for no fee? What if you can temporarily deactivate it in 24hour or longer intervals to be able to lend to a friend? We don't really know at this point... Which really sucks... But I guess they are still finalizing details or whatever.

I hope they explain in detail everything about the drm at E3.

 

[link68759]

They know people own multiple Xboxs, they'll allow you to share within reason.

This is a step in the wrong direction for consumers, but this is more of a bait for publishers than a consumer screw over. They're hoping more games and exclusives will come to the platform because of this, and thereby improve the overall experience.

Although I do think eliminating the used market is incredibly stupid and really just a greedy corporate scheme ( libraries loan books out for free, you don't see authors/book publishers demanding libraries be burned to the ground). Moreover the game will become unplayable after the entity no longer exists or if they update the way their infrastructure works, leaving the game unable to be unlocked.

However... The market appears to be moving to all digital distribution, and this system is actually an improvement in that sense: you can give/transfer ownership of your digital games to your friend who has to pay a minimal fee. Otherwise he would have to have full access to your profile at all times to play (under the current system) or he would have to buy it at full retail value from the store.

edit: I am of course of the opinion that we should have as much fidelity with digital content as we do with physical distributions, but that will never happen.
Sent from my RM-824_nam_att_101 using Board Express

 

[Keith Wallace]

So more unconfirmed, sky-is-falling speculation? Great.

 

[smoledman]

I don't get this idea of throwing games around between yourself as though they were Hershey bars. You do realize there is DRM to manage.

 

[Reflexx]

So it will be impossible for me to trade my games with friends or sell them on my own? I cannot see how this will be anything other than bad.

I'm predicting that there will be some sort of process for that. Maybe an online marketplace of some sort.

 

[MerlotC]

Sounds like they are working out some creative solutions. Having the convenience and performance of direct hard drive install/operation does by necessity limit other use. They could have just taken the approach that the One is a PC/Steam which would have prohibited sharing and resell, so I think what they are doing is a good middle ground. Also reports state that there will be some kind of sharing of a gold account by different gamer tags for a family so sounds like they are trying to make up for some limitations in other ways. Hopefully after E3 we will have all the data.

 

[smoledman]

Hard-core gamers who are used to trading in at Game Stop will not go for this.

 

[CaptDjob]

Hard-core gamers who are used to trading in at Game Stop will not go for this.

Go for what? Any confirmed info?

 

[Reflexx]

Go for what? Any confirmed info?

Exactly.

People are freaking out over their own imaginations and the imaginations of tech blog writers who want page views.

 

[Coreldan]

Btw how is this done on the 360? I recall that you can install games from disc to the HDD so that you don't need to hassle around with the DVDs every time, so what if you install the game, deny the 360 internet access and just sell the game?

 

[Wacft]

Btw how is this done on the 360? I recall that you can install games from disc to the HDD so that you don't need to hassle around with the DVDs every time, so what if you install the game, deny the 360 internet access and just sell the game?

You can install on the 360 to make the CD drive shut up and decrease load times. The disc still has to be loaded to play.

 

[Coreldan]

You can install on the 360 to make the CD drive shut up and decrease load times. The disc still has to be loaded to play.

Ah, that explains.

 

[Reflexx]

More speculation by me...

I've expect that you need the disc for installation. But you may have the ability to play without the disc inserted after that as long as you are connected to the net and the XBOX van verify that you're the only one using the CD key.

I imagine that it would be possible to lend your game to someone if they never connected to the internet and they had the CD in their tray every time they played. But if they ever connected online it would see that the CD key was being used on two machines and it would switch the key to the machine that last had the physical disc.

 

[SnailUK]

Personally I've always wished I could just install my game, and never touch the disk again, so to me the One looks awesome.

being that every game is controlled by codes, it makes me wonder where this could go. If I can sell/trade a retail game with a code, then surely the same will apply if I buy a digital version.

not only that, but who says a code is permanent? Surely having temporary codes has to be possible, so I could rent games straight through the console.

 

[Mystictrust]

More speculation by me...
I imagine that it would be possible to lend your game to someone if they never connected to the internet and they had the CD in their tray every time they played. But if they ever connected online it would see that the CD key was being used on two machines and it would switch the key to the machine that last had the physical disc.

It's probably more likely that you will have to have some sort of internet connection at some point during/after install to verify the CD key and ensure unique installation.

I think of it this way: Microsoft won't be able to assure developers with 100% certainty that one game CD can't be used for multiple installs. Perhaps somebody keeps a spare Xbox One lying around completely disconnected from the internet at all times? It's entirely possible - either because someone just doesn't care for anything but single player games and local media/TV functionality, or extremely intentionally with willful intent to install any game they want by simply borrowing a friend's disc. This would work perfectly for Skyrim. Or, someone could just borrow from a friend, stay offline until they beat the single player portion, and then connect online again. People will do anything to not pay for stuff.

Of course, as you mentioned in your post, this is all just speculation. I just think that MS would want to assure devs that games on their platform are 100% secure and every disc is paid for. After all, this is how they assured partners for XBL games - showing off their "must be signed in to play on another console" system that ensures only one arcade game per person (or per console it was first downloaded to)