Topic: PlayStation4 - News/Rumor/Speculation - Over 1 Million Sold on Day 1

[Ian Sane]

I imagine locking out used games would be a hard sell.  Pirating is illegal.  No one but the most devoted anarchist argues that it shouldn't be.  People may dislike DRM but trying to prevent piracy is a legitimate excuse that people will accept in theory.  Buying and selling second hand goods is NOT illegal.  How do you sell the public on this?  "Hi, our system prevents you from doing something that the law has always permitted you to do.  But we earn more money this way so tough ****."  Their best chance is that not enough people will care enough to not buy their products.

But it isn't like used games is some niche thing.  The whole reason the industry is doing this is because they claim that it is so rampant that it is ruining the industry (which I think is complete bullshit).  That means it's widespread.  That means a lot of the target market for these systems buys used games.  And it isn't like they won't notice.  They'll go to GameStop like always and buy a used game and then hit a brick wall when they load the game up.  They cannot NOT notice this.

GameStop doesn't have to shun the PS420 outright, they just have to focus more on the Wii U.  As Nintendo fans we have accused GameStop of favourtism before anyway.  If used games are locked out then GameStop can just not accept trade-ins for PS3 or Xbox 720 games.  That means that the Wii U presence in their stores will be much greater as the Wii U will require extra shelf space for used titles that the other systems will not.  Having a no trade-in policy for those other systems would also effectively expose everything.  They wouldn't have to **** on the PS4 and praise the Wii U, just saying "sorry we don't accept PS4 trade-ins because the systems locks out used games" would do tons to poison the water for the other systems.  Meanwhile GameStop doesn't have to give up the revenue from selling new PS4 and Xbox 720 product.  They have all their bases covered while having an easy way (and one that Sony and MS couldn't get mad at them about) to promote the one system that better suits their business model.

Now if they do sell used PS420 games then the whole shitstorm is likely going to go back at them.  Just not offering it for those systems would make Sony and MS the bad guys instead of GameStop for knowingly selling "incomplete" games.  Knowing GameStop they'll probably **** it up and make themselves look like the bad guys.

[TJ Spyke]

For what it's worth, Pachter is saying that he predicts GameStop will not even carry the PlayStation 4 if the rumors of locking out used games ends up being true. GameStop is a big chunk of the game market, so a threat like that could be a major deciding factor for Sony.

[Adrock]

For what it's worth, Pachter is saying...

[TJ Spyke]

LOL, I know. I hope this is one of those rare times he is right though.

[Spak-Spang]

Well, ok rentals are out...unless they figure out a way to do it digitally with a download, or something...so what does that mean about borrowing games then, or bringing games to your friends house.

As I said the only way I see that working  is if the hardware makes you log into your account to see the game as purchased by you then allows you to play the game a friend's house.  This has huge problems because it means every system must be online to play friend's games or borrowed games.

Yeah, I understand we only own the disc...but that is legalize so that corporations can still hold onto their intellectual property.  So only owning the discs means you don't actually own the content on the discs and then can't say burn it onto other discs or distribute it on the internet.

However, you should always be able to bring your disc to a friends house and play it or use it, and without being online. 

[oohhboy]

All the publishers have to do is give Gamestop a bigger discount on purchasing new games so they have a higher profit margin. Right now, they make, maybe, $10 on a new game purchase. Imagine if that was increased to $25 per new game. That would put it in line with used games, near about, and still sell 'demo' copies where the cost of a new license from the publisher cost from Gamestop is still less than buying new. People bringing in used games would just make less on the deal, but what other alternatives are there... ebay, but thats still the case today.

Completely untenable. I can't imagine any company willing to forgo halve their revenue to a retailer. At that point it would be cheaper to run their own stores. Games aren't a commodity like Coke that can be streamlined and production costs taken only a few cents in the dollar. With every release a one shot deal, not matter how much a retailer pushes a game, they are only a retailer, an on-seller.

Used game isn't a problem that need a solution. It's a product of ridiculous MBA group think that fail to see pass whatever numbers get generated in the accounting department quarterly report. They see it as use verses them, not as the other side of a complex economic equation. They only see someone buying used games as a non-revenue generating entity, never examining why that person isn't currently a customer.

My life long story with Nintendo started with Dad buying a Famicom and I variably counterfeit games with 50 in 1 etc. Then we moved on to the SNES, we pirated the vast majority of our games. Then came the N64. I knew I couple pirate, but I didn't. I worked hard, saved for every single game some were used for sure, but if you can't afford new, used is the economic option. Having grown up with Nintendo, I had become a life long gamer, had I been locked out of those formative years with DRM or no used games, I would have long given up on consoles or maybe even gaming altogether. I buy games as the economics permit, but more importantly those years had shaped me into an advocate for Nintendo and gaming in general.

Every time some company comes up with another piece of DRM, anti-used game rant or deliver sub-par product that is not much better than a straight scam, it becomes ever harder to support them in any way. It's gotten to the point I am openly hostile to certain companies. They virtually never use a carrot, always the stick. If the horse is dad they drain the blood and sell it to he glue factory instead of examining why it's dead. They collectively run their sections game industry like the US government runs the US. Parading terrorism to cow the populous in a perpetual state of fear instead of offering something better. As long everyone else loses, they consider it a victory as long as the other side loses more.

I wouldn't be surprised if this continued use of scorched earth tactics used by the big companies is the cause of the next gaming crash. It won't be a boycott, it would be people just giving up and moving on to other less hostile pastimes.

[Spak-Spang]

Oohhboy:  Excellent post.  You represent the other side of the equation well...and how the ability to get cheaper games, and even illegal games helped create a gamer. 

However, you do have to recognize, that those initial pirated games created a gaming fan, but also did "steal" or prevent the artists who created the original games from getting some of their profits.  And I know you can argue no the artists were paid, it was only going to the company...but that company provides the artists work...and needs profit too.

I think used games tells an interesting story.  I prefer to buy my products new when I can because I personally want to support the artists, and/or companies I love.  It is a personal choice, and I understand that not everybody agrees. 

I do this with movies, music, and games.  Music has gotten easier for me, because the price of music is relatively cheap, and online stores allow you to buy just the songs you want.  Movies are also fairly cheap to rent, buy, or see in the theater.  Both of these industries are hurting because of piracy, but are managing because many people will still buy the products because they are relatively cheap.

Now, games are become easier and easier to pirate or buy used, and revenue is being lost.  Unfortunately for gaming companies they have two pretty big problems.  The relative market for gamers is small, and games are fairly expensive to create and market.  This leads them requiring high price points to ensure they can make a reasonable profit.  I think it is telling that they measure games only in the millions of units sold.  When a movie or album would be a flop if it only sold a few million. 

The obvious answer is lower the price of games.  The App store has proven if prices are low enough the masses will buy the games.  And more people would be willing to buy new games if the prices were lower and more reasonably in their price range.  However, economics makes that more difficult. 

Look at how much money people save with used games.  Maybe $10, $15 dollars.  I think more people would buy new if it meant that their games would be at that lower price point.  $39.99 is a doable price for consumers for games, it is not too steep...but that $59.99-$69.99 price range is less manageable.  Hence the used gaming market.  Now, you can then argue that used games would just drop in price to $29.99 and again the gaming market just lost its higher profits with no rewards.  But...there are much larger issues to the economics that could prevent that from happening.

Employee overhead,  store overhead, buying back games costs, not to mention the idea of buying new and clean to used and dirty...specially if that $10 difference is still in your reasonable price range.

[oohhboy]

The non-problem remains. Companies keep asserting that Used=piracy as you have and equate it to lost revenue rather than examining why this is happening. Like the RIAA and the MPAA they aren't interested in being fair and the only tool they are willing to wield is a hammer. It leads to ridiculous situation like SOPA/PIPA where companies advocate remove of civil rights without considering why we even have those rights or even if something is remotely feasible from a technological standpoint.

For the RIAA, the answer is blindingly simple. People no longer have to buy Albums and collectively chosen not to leading to a direct crash of the mainstream market and a diversecation to non-label music. Piracy is only a symptom of the change initially if it wasn't for the RIAA actions which switched cause and causation.

The market for gamers isn't small and for now continues to grow for now. What isn't right is the self generating dilemma where they have priced themselves out of their own market. Instead of growing with the market and breaking new ground in other markets outside of the west, they decided to "Build it and they will come". It's a great idea if you hold some sort of unique local advantage like Vegas when it first formed or Macau where it's primary function is to launder money. But none of the publishers have such an advantage. Everyone is building unlimited budget games, trusting in the computer models that they will pan out. Numbers are sexy because if used correctly they can be a form of hard evidence. Everybody is using the same model and that model makes no concessions that there are other games are out there, that the market like house prices will will always grow or that the models all share the same flaws.

Every time the industry flattens out, scores of developers go out of business and more importantly, this isn't the customers fault. It's no longer about risk assessment, it has devolved into gambling. You have the ridiculous situation with Factor 5, a developer with an unbeatable history, punching way above their weight class with a fraction of the resources, lay low by one game. Activision had Scorched Earth the music game genere which has taken years to even start recovering. Dragon Age is now a dead franchise directly killed by the very MBAs that believe in unlimited ability for the market to absorb BS.

Watch this video to the Wasteland 2 kick starter. If even halve the stories are remotely true, it paints the games publishing business as an industry ready to collapse from it's own demented ignorant hubris the next time the wind direction changes or the market momentarily depress. They have set fire to the very house they built and blaming the firefighters for the fire. I am sure that all the public libraries and used book markets had killed the an industry that has existed for millennia.

[Chozo Ghost]

LOL, I know. I hope this is one of those rare times he is right though.

If he ends up being right, let's not forget I called this earlier in the thread, so he probably stole it from me.

[Spak-Spang]

Just for the record.  I wasn't trying to apply that used game is pirating software or stealing software.  Just that companies may view it similarly because it can result in less money received from their game.

Now, I am all for change in pricing of games, how games are made, what games are considered, and respecting the fan and the player.  The market is actually moving away from that.  And yes the gaming market is getting larger...but it is nowhere near the size which can handle how many large studios are creating high budget titles to compete for our hard earned dollar. 

Most gamers would be lucky if they could buy 12 games a year...I know I would consider myself lucky...one a month.  However, the market is filled with many, many more games than that each month.  Well, maybe my number of 12  a year is low, but say we increased it to a higher number of 15-16 that is still low number compared to how many games are released a year. 

[oohhboy]

We actually know what would happen is a game console was to lock out used games. We only have to examine the blow back Capcom received with Resident Evil: Merecenraies. The results were unequivocal. Sales for it crashed, Capcom forced to admit and apologise for their fragrant failure in policy. It didn't help they were caught in their own bold faced lie. Technically the saved game wouldn't prevent you from playing the game on another machine, but the true purpose of the save structure was clear and gamers collectively rejected this soft second hand lock out.

I would imagine any console maker placing a second hand lock out is effectively committing suicide.

Used games will happen and we all know vilifying it isn't a solution. Japan shows even declearing a valid economic activity renting illegal is hopeless. What they should be doing is getting in on the action themselves by setting up a portal that accepts used games to on sell to other gamers, supplanting Gamestop's parasitic function. At the minimum publishers should be encouaging used sales directly between one gamer to another bypassing the middle man. There will never be a solution since they are effectively forbidding a valid economic option. It's called prohibition and history shows it doesn't work.

Game budgets are an internal failure. As discussed before they all believe they hold a unique advantage that allow them to bypass the physics of the market when none hold any sort of advantage. Star Wars the Old Republic is the testament to the direction of failure the game market is heading towards. They built it and barely anybody came. Of those who did come most were sightseers, not residents and the vast majority were not new gamers. We dislike the casuals, but they did postpone the budget bubble from popping for a generation. Unfortunately, that means the bubble has gotten bigger. When it pops we will be losing a lot of devs and publishers on the top end.

[Ceric]

In reality both Piracy and used games sell make the same for the Platform holder.  Nothing.  The difference is that used games do make Retailers Money and Money can = Leverage over the Platform Holder, so in my mind Used games would be worse as a Platform holder.

As for SWTOR what they made was a WoW clone with a Bioware twist.  Unfortunately they cloned Vanilla WoW instead of Modern WoW w/ advancements made in Newer games like Rift, which WoW is moving its behemoth of a ship to incorporate.  I think they would have been better served just totally rethinking the genre.  If you going to be story based MMO you need to regularly continue the story well end game.  /rant

Anyways back on topic.  It may be time for smaller cheaper games.  Instead of 40 hour games why not have 4 10hr games at $15.  Allow you to move your character throughout them.  If done well they could be easily done.  The point is to be flexible enough with the pricing.  It needs to be to the point where it "so what if I can't buy used.  There only X" where X is a number that would be considered reasonable to most.  Digital is already forced to go that way.

[Adrock]

What you're basically suggesting are episodic games which sound great on paper but sales typically decrease with each new episode until the game is eventually abandonned. That seems less conducive for profitability because even if sales are low and cost is saved by on the back end by ceasing development, most of the cost is spent on the front end with dev kits, pre-production and so on. More people may try it at $15 for the first installment but if it doesn't resonate with people, they won't be back for the next round. With a $60 game, publishers get the most back on their investment up front.

I remember reading somewhere that with inflation, we're paying less than we did on games than before despite the increased retail price. Couple that with rising development costs and it's easy to see why game companies are trying to protect their profits in addition to the simple fact that they're businesses that want to make money.

[Ian Sane]

Many industries have to deal with a used market but only the videogame industry acts like it's as bad as piracy and that their whole industry is going to die.  Used bookstores and libraries are everywhere and no one ever said that either of those would kill the book industry.  And it's a good analogy because books are largely just IP and have a "one and done" life cycle like a videogame.  Many people will read a book once just like they will beat a game once.

The used market is just something that any industry has to work around.  They either have to provide some extra value (EXTRA value, not formally routine feature removed from the used copy) for owning new or make games with enough replay value that people want to keep them or price them in such a way that buying used is less worth it from a financial perspective.  They're also making games with production values that require the game to be a big blockbuster hit with no room for error or the company goes under.  And EVERYBODY is doing that.  That's just stupid business sense.  If you can't sell enough games to justify the budgets then lower the budget.  That's how businesses not run by idiots do things.  You don't go whining about something beyond your control, you adapt to it.

[Chozo Ghost]

The difference between a book and a video game is development costs. A single person can write a book, and the only equipment required is a typewriter, computer, or a pen and paper. The person writing the book probably isn't even being paid to do it. So the cost to write a book is extremely low, and almost free really. But video games are a very different story. Have you ever sat through the end credits at the end of a video game? There can be hundreds of names of people involved. All or most of them are being paid a wage to do it, and some of them like well known celebrity voice actors and composers are probably getting paid very well. So the amount of money required to develop a major game is not very different than the huge amount of money required to make a major motion picture.

That's why a used game market could be more problematic than a used book market. A lot of game developers/publishers seem to be teetering on the edge of bankruptcy, and many have come and gone over the years. Clearly its not a very easy market to thrive in.

[broodwars]

Many industries have to deal with a used market but only the videogame industry acts like it's as bad as piracy and that their whole industry is going to die.  Used bookstores and libraries are everywhere and no one ever said that either of those would kill the book industry.  And it's a good analogy because books are largely just IP and have a "one and done" life cycle like a videogame.  Many people will read a book once just like they will beat a game once.

I don't necessarily disagree with you, but here's the problem with your analogy: books degrade in quality and value over time.  Pages get torn, covers get bent, ink gets faded.  A used book has a much lower value over time than a new one.  With used games, though, the case; manual; etc. degrade, but the discs are pretty resilient these days and the actual content of the disc (being digital) does not degrade in an appreciable way.  The frills around a game may degrade, but the value of the game itself is more or less constant.  So when a person goes in to buy a game, unless they really care about the packaging there's really no quality difference between buying a New or Used copy of a game.  Thus, people often buy Used instead of New in a much larger percentage than in other industries, and New sales suffer.

That's the general theory, anyway.  Personally, I like Used games being in the marketplace because I like the consumer having choice when it comes to purchasing a version of a game, rather than having a company dictate to the consumer what version of a game they will be allowed to own.  It also forces companies to compete to make their New games have greater value, in theory at least.

[lolmonade]

So....this is when I finally cross the threshold from "enthusiastic video game purchaser" to "tenative, wary last generation patient gamer".  If the claims on Sony & Microsoft locking out used games is true, they better adopt the Steam model of offering sales throughout the year, because I think they will alienate the majority of their potential customers in this.
 
....I don't think they realize the rammifications of doing something like this. 

[Ian Sane]

I don't necessarily disagree with you, but here's the problem with your analogy: books degrade in quality and value over time.  Pages get torn, covers get bent, ink gets faded.  A used book has a much lower value over time than a new one.  With used games, though, the case; manual; etc. degrade, but the discs are pretty resilient these days and the actual content of the disc (being digital) does not degrade in an appreciable way.  The frills around a game may degrade, but the value of the game itself is more or less constant.

Well discs can get scratched so the game itself can get damaged but I agree that people will care more about a book that remains readable but has some tears or folds than they will a game that runs fine but has a beat up case.

The industry was never cool about used games to begin with but I never heard this "we're all going to die because of used sales" nonsense until THIS gen when everyone starting going for Call of Duty level blockbusters with every release.  Seems more like a scapegoat.  They also didn't get this extreme about it until the technology existed to implement stuff like online passes and such.  They never liked it and never would even if they were all making money hand over fist.  They have the technical ability to try to block it but they can't just do it without some excuse so they claim that this is ruining their business.  If Nintendo doesn't do it it will be because they're smart enough to realize that potential backlash about could hurt them.  It won't be because they're not pissed off about used games.  The industry is pissed off that I can lend a game to my friend for the weekend or play local multiplayer without each player forking in.  Any possible chance, legal or not, of someone enjoying a videogame without some money coming towards the publisher eats them up.  It extends to all entertainment industries.  Multiple people watching on one TV.  Multiple people listening to one stereo.  "ARRGH!  All those freeloaders that could be giving us dough!"

If the videogame industry felt they could charge us every single time we loaded up the game like some arcade machine they would.  Some person will play the same game longer than someone else with neither person trading it in.  That's no good because if you play your one-time purchase game for months and months you might not buy another game in the time between.  Replay value is killing videogames because people don't need to buy a new game as frequently to get their fix!  Sounds crazy but if their were no trade-ins, I can imagine them bitching about this.  Trade-ins encourage them to try to make a game have lasting value so the person keeps it.  But without that what incentive is there?  It's better if the player gets bored of that game quickly so that they'll buy more.

It is their best interest that we pay as much for each hour of videogame play time as possible, whether it be through subscriptions, pay-to-play, DLC, or frequent purchases of new games.  Anything the interferes with that is "lost revenue".

[Chozo Ghost]

discs are pretty resilient these days and the actual content of the disc (being digital) does not degrade in an appreciable way.

I assume you probably take good care of your discs. Not everyone does. When you buy a game used it can be beat to hell with scratches and other problems, and it really does effect the content on the disc. If a disc is beat up too bad it will damage the data and cause problems. Maybe blu-ray discs are more resilient than DVDs, and maybe that's what you're referring to, but being resilient doesn't mean being invulnerable. You might think your disc is resilient, but try giving it to some 10 year old kid for a week and see what happens.

In the end, all game discs really are is just a flimsy piece of plastic. Plastic as we all know is far from being a durable material. Plastic is used because its cheap, not because it lasts.

That said, I also know someone who had a copy of Borderlands for their PS3 and for no reason at all the game cracked. I don't know if it was due to humidity or temperature (they live in Florida) or some manufacturing defect, but it wasn't due to abuse of any kind. It just spontaneously cracked.

If anything, Books are actually more resilient. A book can be beat up pretty bad and still be readable, but even minor scratches on a disc can severely ruin the data or at least the ability for the laser to read that data.

[broodwars]

I assume you probably take good care of your discs.

Yep.  I wouldn't be surprised if GameStop took my traded-in games and sold them as one of their mysteriously common "display copy" New games, because I keep mine pretty pristine (including case, etc.).

Maybe blu-ray discs are more resilient than DVDs, and maybe that's what you're referring to, but being resilient doesn't mean being invulnerable.

Blu-Ray discs were on my mind at the time because I've never seen a scratched Blu-Ray disc and I buy Used PS3 games with some regularity.  I haven't seen a moderately-damaged Used 360 game in a long time, though.  It's not like last generation where I could flip a coin on picking up a Used PS2 game and if the coin landed on a side the disc was probably damaged beyond repair.

[Chozo Ghost]

Yep.

But we are talking about used games. Its great that yours are kept in pristine condition, but many if not most used games will have some wear such as scratches on the disc. A few light scratches usually aren't a problem, but a lot of them or some deep ones will likely cause some issues, if not outright ruin the game.

But whether light scratches are a problem or not, they are something most buyers will want to avoid even if it doesn't effect the gameplay. So the quality and therefore value is compromised even if there is the slightest of wear. And a lot of buyers do want the games to be in the original case and with the manual and so on. If those are missing, even though the game is still perfectly playable, the value is lessened.

[Spak-Spang]

Well this is the first generation where HD graphics and games with real story lines, voice actors, and basically movie level productions were required for big games.  So this is the first generation where the risk is greater in many ways than the reward....the reward is still there and when you strike gold, you are very, very happy. 

I believe a lot of publishers and developers believed the hype that the industry would just continue to grow and more and more people would buy games.  But as I said earlier there are limited resources to buy games, and games are probably the first on the chopping block when economic pressure hits a family or individual.  So, when you have 2-3 Mega blockbuster games coming out every month or two months.  At least one of those games isn't going to sell well.  Add to that all the other games coming out and you see the dilemma.  The market expanded just not enough for the types of games being created. 

[tendoboy1984]

That is very wrong. Graphics can do much more. The problem is that it will cost far too much in both time and money to achieve them. PS360 leapfrogged in tech over the previous gen and cost skyrocketed because of it. We should just now be getting to that level of graphics in the console space if we want to keep things affordable, so it makes sense to slow things down a bit.

Agreed, just look at Battlefield 3 on a high-end PC. Clearly EA was targeting high-end graphics, which is what the next generation of consoles will finally offer.

2 PS3's duct taped together will be a very capable machine. Especially if they stick a well thought out GPU in there this time.

Assuming this is true though, that really does leave the ball in MS's court.
Do they continue with the tech arms race towards real-time movie grade CG in hopes that Sony will continue to spend and compete? Or do they continue on their current path of expansion towards the casual market?

MS is on deck to show it's hand at E3 2012, Nintendo is already all in, but I'm not sure if Sony will be at that table too.

Also agreed. Though why can't MS target both causal and mainstream gamers at the same time? You know, like they've been doing with the Xbox 360 for the past 7 years?

[tendoboy1984]

So....this is when I finally cross the threshold from "enthusiastic video game purchaser" to "tenative, wary last generation patient gamer".  If the claims on Sony & Microsoft locking out used games is true, they better adopt the Steam model of offering sales throughout the year, because I think they will alienate the majority of their potential customers in this.
 
....I don't think they realize the rammifications of doing something like this.

Sony does offer sales on PSN. Most of them are for PS Plus members, but that's just a $49 a year subscription. Cheap!

[Adrock]

It still wouldn't be worth it for people like me. The sales are the only thing I would use Playstation Plus for so I would need to make up the cost of the service in sales before it actually start saving money. I don't buy that many games so I'd probably end up losing money.