Xbox One

[Vallen Chaos Valiant]

Originally Posted by Shadow5YA

Nintendo managed to pull it off with Wii Sports and Wii Sports Resort.

I think there is nothing intrinsically wrong with trying to reach out to a wider audience, but there is a problem when it alienates your established fanbase. Then it becomes a zero-sum game where no extra profit is actually made.

Specifically, I have no problem with the social networking apps. Sure, I personally don't care for it like I didn't care for Wii Sports, but it doesn't harm me in any way. The used game fees and "always on" Kinect functions do harm, however.

The WiiU is out. But if your suggestion is true, all the people who bought the Wii should have all upgraded.

But they have not, Wii is yesterday's news, and the Casual market have moved on. You can get the attention of the wider audience for a while, but you can NEVER keep them. They are not dedicated to you, and will never be dedicated to you.
The hardcore fans are the repeat customers.

MS knows this too. That's why the Xbox1 will try to make the money through ads and online fees. MS would never convince normal people to buy Xbox1 version 2 in the future, so they had to find money streams that would keep coming long term.

[Jazzrat]

Used games will always be detrimental to the industry because the current market system is solely rewarding the middleman instead of the content producers. There's only 2 way that i could think of when it comes to tackling this issue,

a) Adopt a steam like DRM system which they are doing
b) Take over the middleman role and provide a platform for used game trading

[Vallen Chaos Valiant]

Originally Posted by Jazzrat

Used games will always be detrimental to the industry because the current market system is solely rewarding the middleman instead of the content producers. There's only 2 way that i could think of when it comes to tackling this issue,

a) Adopt a steam like DRM system which they are doing
b) Take over the middleman role and provide a platform for used game trading

So you believe the car industry would improve if we ban used car sales?

EVERY industry that permits used sales are going along fine. What made you think games are an exception?

Game companies are losing money because they made bad business decisions, not because of used games. If you can't make money from selling your game once, you can't make money period.

[synaesthetic]

Originally Posted by Vallen Chaos Valiant

You can't get paid for something that isn't yours. Is that an alien concept to you?

It's apparently an alien concept to software companies because they seem to be of the belief that you don't actually own your software--you are only paying for a license to use it.

This is actually true given software's legal status--when you buy a piece of software (games or otherwise) the law says you're paying for the privilege of using said software, not for the software itself.

Granted, I completely agree with you (even though I think Gamestop needs to die). The biggest reason the game industry is in trouble isn't used game sales or even piracy--it's bloated ridiculous Hollywood-sized budgets and sales expectations in a market that's inherently niche.

You can't expect to spend 80, 100, 200 million dollars on a game and expect to make a huge profit from it. There just aren't that many people who will buy it. Recent trends in the industry have borne this out clear as day; it's completely unsustainable to expect millions of sales just to break even. Even if your budget is 80 million bucks, which seems to be the common range these days for triple-A titles, you have to sell 2 million copies at $60 a pop just to break even and that's being generous, considering retail markup and taxes and marketing dollars spent.

[Jazzrat]

Originally Posted by Vallen Chaos Valiant

So you believe the car industry would improve if we ban used car sales?

EVERY industry that permits used sales are going along fine. What made you think games are an exception?

Game companies are losing money because they made bad business decisions, not because of used games. If you can't make money from selling your game once, you can't make money period.

Car is a terrible example because it's a product that not only degrades overtime but also requires regular maintenance and doesn't cost $60 at walmart.

iTunes, Steam Games, phone apps... the ecosystem model already shown how well it works.

[GDB]

Those are all digital only products. If I purchase a physical copy, why should it be treated as anything but physical?

And if you don't like cars, how about books? Or trading cards? Or any other number of things people regularly sell on eBay?

[synaesthetic]

How about music? The RIAA does a lot of things but I don't see them blaming used CD sales for their poor performance (no, instead they blame piracy--maybe they should stop signing horrible artists, stop compressing the shit out of the music's dynamic range and stop poorly mastering every recording they touch, then maybe they'd make some more money).

[Jazzrat]

Originally Posted by GDB

Those are all digital only products. If I purchase a physical copy, why should it be treated as anything but physical?

And if you don't like cars, how about books? Or trading cards? Or any other number of things people regularly sell on eBay?

I'll conceed that there are products that still abides by the old business model but do bookstore aggressively push for the sales of used books over new? Go to any Gamestop or major game retailers and they'll offer used products over new because the profit margin is higher on those for them and publishers suffer because the only money they get is from new games.

And with the rise of ebooks and online tcgs, I think the traditional business model will slowly decline.

Originally Posted by synaesthetic

How about music? The RIAA does a lot of things but I don't see them blaming used CD sales for their poor performance (no, instead they blame piracy--maybe they should stop signing horrible artists, stop compressing the shit out of the music's dynamic range and stop poorly mastering every recording they touch, then maybe they'd make some more money).

When was the last time you bought a CD let alone a used CD? Big company can blame whoever they want but in business, not making money is always detrimental to you. It's might not be business breaking but it's still something any businessman should fix.

I think before everyone reply, put yourself in the business side of perspective as well and look at the issue from both side. How would you choose if you are to provide content for a platform that can generate long term sales income and another platform that can only provide initial sales income because everyone else will just buy used.

Not saying it's good for consumer because obviously why would anyone give more money to content producers and when they can give less money to the middleman but it's a business model that needs to change if we want more game developers instead gamestop employee.

[Vallen Chaos Valiant]

I think before everyone reply, put yourself in the business side of perspective as well and look at the issue from both side. How would you choose if you are to provide content for a platform that can generate long term sales income and another platform that can only provide initial sales income because everyone else will just buy used.

And what about a third platform that sucks all the money from everyone's back account into my wallet? You can't just dream up a scenario where you get someone else's money without doing any extra work. The initial sales is THE sale. It's where you earn your money. If you want to get a cut of 2nd hand sales, you are trying to get money that isn't yours.

Yes, it is wonderful for a Business to get more money. But it's not us as consumer's duty to give them our cash. They have to EARN our money. And if they aren't earning enough to cover costs, it is not our problem.

[Duo Maxwell]

Originally Posted by Jazzrat

Not saying it's good for consumer because obviously why would anyone give more money to content producers and when they can give less money to the middleman but it's a business model that needs to change if we want more game developers instead gamestop employee.

You're right about the business model that needs to change. Whatever they are doing now is just stupid, and blaming customers and used games sellers are also as stupid.

Well, I don't care at this point anymore. If they push that used game DRM on me, I'll actively go for piracy screen or just stop buying games on the whim, but just wait for it to drop the price, or not buying it at all.

[GDB]

Originally Posted by Jazzrat

And with the rise of ebooks and online tcgs, I think the traditional business model will slowly decline.

Those aren't rising because of used sales. They're rising because of the lower number of sales overall compared to the overhead required to print them. In other words, they're doing what others in this thread have said the video game developers need to do: lower production costs and sales projections.

[synaesthetic]

Last time I bought a CD? Last week. I don't buy MP3s because I want lossless.

I'll download MP3s if I can't buy the physical disc, like EastNewSound because their stuff is only sold at Comiket and some Japanese sites that I can't buy anything from (seriously ENS, get a Bandcamp page or something SO I CAN THROW MONEY AT YOU).

I'll buy digital only copies ONLY if I can get it in FLAC.

My partner buys lots and lots and lots of used CDs and vinyl because she likes older music.

The reason Microsoft's approach is bad is because they're using negative reinforcement rather than positive reinforcement. They're penalizing you for attempting to be thrifty, and this is going to piss off a lot of gamers--it already has pissed off a lot of gamers and it's not even out yet! But you can't sell used Steam games, either, and nobody cares because Steam Sales are fucking awesome.

You give up the ability to resell your games, but in return you get lower average prices. Sure, triple-A titles are still 60 bucks on Steam when they come out, but that doesn't last forever, and there are tons of older games that you can pick up for next to nothing. All those games you looked at and wanted to play, but not badly enough to pay $60 for, people are buying those on Steam when the prices go down or they go on sale. That's money the developers and publishers are getting--if we were instead buying used games, those developers and publishers would get nothing and Gamestop would laugh all the way to the bank.

eBooks are the same way, especially with textbooks. Yeah, I'll pay $80 to RENT a textbook for a semester. I can't sell it, and I only get to use it for six months, but it's still a better deal than paying $170 for a new dead-tree book or $100 for a used one, only to turn around and sell it for $12 after the semester ends. You think Gamestop is bad, look at places that sell used textbooks. Hoo boy.

[cronnoponno]

Used game sells doesn't really do as much damage as you'd think, the reason Gamestop makes so much money on used games is because games these days are mainstream and casual, a mother who doesn't care about what to give her son but wants to give him a game regardless to shut him up is going to walk straight over to our 3-5 year old games that have long since went down to 5$ and wouldn't possibly be restocked as a new title, and think they're getting more by buying 10 of those types instead of 1 game for 60$ that they NEVER would have bought otherwise.

When Gamestop sells POPULAR used games, they are often desperate to restock, one thing that is deterring producers(especially when translating JRPG's) is lack of reserves, every used game you see equals one new game that was purchased, and Gamestop buys their new games from the producers. When a new COD comes out Gamestop(and other companies) will buy about a million copies or whatever and the producers get that money, then when customers who paid for them and are done with them want to trade them in they can, by the time a steady used inventory rises for a game, it's already been out for awhile and it's not as popular or widely sold as it used to be, and restocking would be rare regardless, not to mention the price of pre-owned games for AAA titles are often like...4 dollars cheaper than a new copy.


Lack of reserves is something that does damage to the gaming industry, you guys all wonder why Call of Duty 20 is so overstocked yet you have trouble finding new copies of ''JRPG X'' that doesn't conform to the evil mainstream market, yet fail to see that every Gamestop alone gets around 300+ reserves for COD before it's even out, if you combine every Gamestop and every non-Gamstop store that can do reserves, that totals to thousands of guarenteed purchases before piracy has a chance to infect their sales, before review companies can slander it with their terrible reviews, before general awareness is out of the game to deter uninterested people, ect.

Buying used games helps the consumer more than it helps the company, but it can also be good for companies, used games give security to a buyer, they can buy a used copy of a game, play it to see if they like it, then return it and buy a new one if they ended up liking it(this happens all the time), or sometimes they'll buy Oblivion because it's like 4$ used, then return it and buy Skyrim(or keep it and get Skyrim anyway), it's not ''used games= TEH PROBLEM'', it's more complicated than that and probably one of the weakest ''threats'' to the gaming industry, any REAL damage that the used market can cause to a specific game(in case any of you have a specific scenario) can almost always be traced down to very bad marketing or just the game being absolutely horrible.

[synaesthetic]

They could also make more money off used games if they'd make better DLC, using positive reinforcement (more content!) rather than negative reinforcement (locked out of multiplayer unless you pay a fee).

Fallout 3 and New Vegas DLC are a really good example of this. The DLC added some extra content, but you still had a complete game without them. If you bought a used copy, you had to pay for the DLC if you wanted it, and the DLC was really good on average (though Mothership Zeta sucked).

[cronnoponno]

Also, I don't know how Steam works, but I'm pretty sure most ''purely gaming'' stores cannot stand on new sales alone, they make like 4-5$ profit on new games, if they kill the used game market the majority of their sales would likely come from misc sections of general stores, like going into the gaming section at walmart, if they are going to kill used games like this making a bunch of misc functions and removing the purely gaming part of their console is actually...a good move, kinda, they can cut used games and go the way of Nintendo? This is just me guessing...

[Urzu 7]

Originally Posted by Vallen Chaos Valiant

Yeah, I find it crazy for MS to think used games is some untapped cash cow. The gamers end up using that money to buy more games anyway; making used games more expensive would not inject any wealth into the system. People aren't going to suddenly become richer.

It ain't really MS. It is the publishers, especially the big ones. MS is just trying to please the publishers in hopes that if they are restrictive on used games, they'll get the best support of any platform.

Originally Posted by synaesthetic

Granted, I completely agree with you (even though I think Gamestop needs to die). The biggest reason the game industry is in trouble isn't used game sales or even piracy--it's bloated ridiculous Hollywood-sized budgets and sales expectations in a market that's inherently niche.

You can't expect to spend 80, 100, 200 million dollars on a game and expect to make a huge profit from it. There just aren't that many people who will buy it. Recent trends in the industry have borne this out clear as day; it's completely unsustainable to expect millions of sales just to break even. Even if your budget is 80 million bucks, which seems to be the common range these days for triple-A titles, you have to sell 2 million copies at $60 a pop just to break even and that's being generous, considering retail markup and taxes and marketing dollars spent.

(Jazzrat, take note of the following)

I saw this point made earlier in this thread and you are absolutely right. Publishers have the wrong idea for thinking every used game sale is a sale lost, for one, and also, I posted something in this thread about how gamers pay for a lot of new games with used game trade-in value (something like 1.8 billion dollars pumped into the industry in a recent year alone). But yes, they have hollywood blockbuster budgets for games but then on the other hand hardcore video gaming isn't really mainstream and they are stupid to think "Hey, all we need for our expensive games is to sell 2-3 million copies!". A lot of games don't do well because publishers need to operate things better. They need to have more realistic sales expectations and lower production costs.

Originally Posted by Jazzrat

When was the last time you bought a CD let alone a used CD? Big company can blame whoever they want but in business, not making money is always detrimental to you. It's might not be business breaking but it's still something any businessman should fix.

While I'll buy lossy AAC and MP3s sometimes, I actually buy a lot of used CDs and some new CDs (I'll mostly buy used CDs off of Amazon for very cheap prices). Some music I want in lossless so having CDs is good for that, and most music I buy as CDs I put into my music library as 320 kbps AAC.

[Dextro]

Sign me up as another person who buys CDs for music. I usually buy CDs for cheap on sales on Amazon and local stores and rip them to 320kbps MP3 files. I keep the physical copy as a backup and use the MP3 for usual listening. Only rarely do I buy MP3 files (usually when I can't get the CD for a decent enough price).

As for Steam people are forgetting one tiny detail: Steam works because it has competition. Green Man Gaming, Amazon, Gamersgate, Gamefly, Gametap and even Retail are constant competitors that force Steam into regular sales to keep costumers coming back. The value added features like being able to redownload games and save game sync obviously help quite a bit but the real reason for the constant sales and cheap prices is pure and simple competition. I regularly cross-shop steam with other sites that sell digital game downloads for example and many others do as well. It's what keeps Steam honest.

On consoles on the other hand these digital storefronts don't have any competition aside from Retail and given that they need those retailers to actually sell the devices themselves there's virtually no incentive to get into a price war with them (remember the PSP Go?). Microsoft (and Sony and Nintendo) controls 100% of the market and can only lose by lowering prices. Granting them an even greater control by removing the only real competition they have (used game sales) will only result in increased prices and even worse forms of consumer-hostile measures like extra limits on where and how to play their games (because DRM essentially turns a purchase into a rental).

While I'm all for digital distribution of goods I understand that it only works if there's several different sellers to keep competition up and prices down. Just because something is digital it doesn't mean that the laws of supply and demand stop working.

[Tong]

I take that after all the negative thoughts and discussions about the XBONE, and this generation, most of you are not going to get one, right?

But is this really practical or possible? I bet most of you couldn't live without certain exclusives titles (Believe me, they WILL appear).

Sure, you wouldn't buy the console in launch and maybe wait for better prices... but in the end, is this boycott really feasible?

[Dextro]

Originally Posted by Tong

I take that after all the negative thoughts and discussions about the XBONE, and this generation, most of you are not going to get one, right?

But is this really practical or possible? I bet most of you couldn't live without certain exclusives titles (Believe me, they WILL appear).

Sure, you wouldn't buy the console in launch and maybe wait for better prices... but in the end, is this boycott really feasible?

If the exclusives are anything like what the 360 got I can honestly say that I won't even consider the bloody thing. I'm more tempted to get a Wii for the few exclusives it had than I am for a XB1.

Do note that I seriously doubt Microsoft is going down the "throw cash at the Japanese" route again. Don't expect a new Lost Odyssey or Blue Dragon this time.

[cronnoponno]

Originally Posted by Tong

I take that after all the negative thoughts and discussions about the XBONE, and this generation, most of you are not going to get one, right?

But is this really practical or possible? I bet most of you couldn't live without certain exclusives titles (Believe me, they WILL appear).

Sure, you wouldn't buy the console in launch and maybe wait for better prices... but in the end, is this boycott really feasible?

The only thing that has pressured me into buying a 360 is that it seems to have a better framerate for multi-console games, but I have always enjoyed Sony and Nintendo(which I stopped after I bought the wii and I feel it was my biggest waste of money, only ever actually using it for Brawl and a bit of Skyward Sword), exclusives are one thing but what I'm more interested in is the frame rate between non-exclusives, playing Dark Souls on the ps3 is very trying at times, especially in areas like Blight Town, and if the PS4 can play games with the proper frame rate AND do everything I want it to do, be a gaming console, I certainly won't be touching the One.

I might have considered it otherwise, but I do believe that people like me are inconsequential in the long run, I honestly think this has a very large chance for success, there has been some comments about ''alienating your given customer base and that leads to bad sales'', I think this is untrue, if we view Microsoft as a company that wants money and money alone(or any company), there is almost ALWAYS a chance to sell out your loyal fans and make more money, and I think what they're doing is really going to rake in casual sales and will pressure some people into buying it.

However, the 3ds and the Vita have dropped in price, and I believe this wasn't due to age limitations or anything, I'm pretty sure it was ''Our sales suck....we gotta do this'', and I wonder if The One will follow this as well, I personally hope some sort of impact occurs in their sales that makes them realize this is terrible, but realistically I highly doubt things will go that smoothly.