No Pre-Owned PS3 Games?

[General Fuzzy McBitty]

Isn't that how Half Life 2 is? You register your copy to yourself.

The only way to effectively sell it is to sell your steam logon.

All they have to do is write the User Agreement differently for the games.

There's nothing illegal about it, but it would take a good about of balls to do.

IF one company did it though, I think they'd all follow suit.

I think that it's bound to happen eventually as console games become more like PC games.

[hermes]

So you say that the moment you put it into your ps3, the game can only be playable on that machine? What if it breaks? What if you have 2 (fat chance when its 600 quid a piece - but still).... They would really have to lower the price for this not to affect their sales - it's the rootkit-story again - I don't think the customers would stand for it - and I don't think that they would dare do it....

[General Fuzzy McBitty]

I think it would probably be something closer to what steam is like.

Really though, we can say "the customer wouldn't stand for it," but come on, we're all gamers. If the next major OMG 1337 game comes out like that, a horde will buy it.

[n0wak]

So you say that the moment you put it into your ps3, the game can only be playable on that machine? What if it breaks? What if you have 2 (fat chance when its 600 quid a piece - but still).... They would really have to lower the price for this not to affect their sales - it's the rootkit-story again - I don't think the customers would stand for it - and I don't think that they would dare do it....

Yeah, look at all those customers fighting and resisting XBox Live Arcade...

which is also exactly how it works. The system keeps track of your downloads, so if you format your drive or go elsewhere, as long as you have access to your Live account, you can redownload. I think the downloads then sit within your own Live profile on the HDD and can't be accessed by the other users. Or at least not yet

[miffy495]

I assume though, that you can log into your Live account from different machines. THAT'S the important part of it. Not that you can't re-download or anything like that, but that you can't lose all your games simply because you had to trade in your busted PS3 for one that works. Accounts are OK. I, much like Masque, do a lot of research before buying a game and haven't bought a bad one that required re-selling in many years. If it's through online distribution, then it's less likely that I won't be able to find a rare game, as people probably wouldn't bother to take it off the server without good reason. If things go the way of Steam, I'm perfectly happy with it. It's the other ways that this whole thing could potentially screw the consumer that concern me.

[Erkki]

Although despite all this, I still REALLY want to play MGS4. Those bastards.

Assassins Creed, man!!!!

[Moosferatu]

Assassins Creed, man!!!!

I have a very hard time believing that that game is going to stay a PS3 exclusive.

[Duncan]

I have a very hard time believing that that game is going to stay a PS3 exclusive.

Yeah, Steve speculated that it'll be a timed exclusive like GTA used to be, which seems probable. Certainly Ubisoft are being pretty coy about what platforms it'll be on.

[General Fuzzy McBitty]

I assume though, that you can log into your Live account from different machines. THAT'S the important part of it. Not that you can't re-download or anything like that, but that you can't lose all your games simply because you had to trade in your busted PS3 for one that works. Accounts are OK. I, much like Masque, do a lot of research before buying a game and haven't bought a bad one that required re-selling in many years. If it's through online distribution, then it's less likely that I won't be able to find a rare game, as people probably wouldn't bother to take it off the server without good reason. If things go the way of Steam, I'm perfectly happy with it. It's the other ways that this whole thing could potentially screw the consumer that concern me.

If console games DID ever go the way of steam, with games registered to accounts, it would kill the rental industry. It would also make re-selling games difficult, as you would have to sell your login to sell your game.

My main point is that this sort of thing is possible. Denying that it could ever happen seems silly.

[hermes]

true...

[-MaSQuE-]

If console games DID ever go the way of steam, with games registered to accounts, it would kill the rental industry. It would also make re-selling games difficult, as you would have to sell your login to sell your game.

My main point is that this sort of thing is possible. Denying that it could ever happen seems silly.

Yeah, it seems pretty clear that what the public wants from video games is exactly all those reasons they have for avoiding the PC market.

[Twilo]

Well it's certainly do-able in a steam style setup to rent games (like, say, a 5 day licence for HL2 for $5 or whatever), the difference being that Blockbuster or whatever doesn't get in on it. For developers, that would be a good thing.

Blockbuster can go screw themselves.

As for reselling, it's not a major leap to allow transfer of licenses for games (many EULAs and similar agreements provide licence transfer rights to the party) and that is really down to what the retailer is willing to allow.

Maybe if valve had a "secure license transfer" setup where, for example, a user might pay $23 into steam, valve takes $3 of that and gives the other user $20 of store credit.

That's a pretty decent business model right there.