This site may earn affiliate commissions from the links on this page. Terms of utilise.

XboxE3

When Microsoft announced the Xbox One, it unveiled a vision of the future in which all games would essentially be digital and could be shared between multiple people via a friends and family account. This vision failed to catch fire with the public for a number of reasons, including Microsoft'southward insistence that the console must remain e'er-on, and the disability to resell games. Information technology's interesting, therefore, to see a rumor that Microsoft might revisit the concept of a digital market from an entirely different angle — one based on explicitly allowing gamers to resell their used games, albeit at a pittance of the purchase price.

The rumor comes from a NeoGAF user who claims to have seen information technology on Reddit. Obviously it'due south rather far from official, and it doesn't offer much in the way of detail. Heck, it could even be fake.

Microsoft survey

We've seen companies endeavour to launch used markets for digital products before, albeit non with much success. At the aforementioned time, still, there'southward no intrinsic reason why a 'used' marketplace for a digital product couldn't be created.

First, let'south look at things from the retailer'due south perspective. In the concrete world, when GameStop or your local bookstore sells a used product, the retailer earns all of the profits on the auction. Sales of new products, in contrast, are carve up betwixt the publisher and the retail outlet. In theory, GameStop (or whatsoever provider) could buy a "used" digital product, then resell it again at a discounted price, making money in the procedure.

The counter-argument against this, of course, would be that there's no difference betwixt a new and a used digital game. Then again, if GameStop does its chore properly, there's not supposed to exist a difference between a used and new re-create of a game, either. Truthful, the box art and manual (if any existed in the beginning place) may not exist provided to the buyer, but the bodily data on the physical CD is the aforementioned in all cases.

From the seller's perspective, a digital game sale would be identical to selling a used physical re-create. Yous'd concur to sell a championship back to the store in question, yous'd earn store credit, and access to that championship would be removed from your library. Store credit earned from reselling used titles could be applied to the purchase of new games, and the net effect would exist like to what it is now — people resell titles and purchase new ones.

At that place are two potentially sticky points for any vendor that wants to take this arroyo. First, publishers would want a cut of any titles that were "resold," since the last difference between a new re-create and a used one would take but gone out the window. Second, there would be a question of whether or not a "used" copy of a game might lack rights that a "new" copy offered. We've never actually seen games push this kind of tiered access model, but a "new" version of a game might be available to share through a Friends and Family unit part while a "used" copy wasn't. DVR functionality, in-game currency awards, and Day 1 DLC bonuses could also be tied to purchases of "new" digital games while used games might lack this feature.

Finally, of course, there'southward price. Ten percent trade-in value seems awfully low to me, absent-minded the discussion of everything else. Then again, if you had a library of several hundred games yous never intended to play again, 10% back on the $60 base price would all the same add together upwardly to a thou dollars or more in shop credit.