Report: No Used Games on Next Xbox - IGN:
Marie-Claire also kindly drew my attention to this article on the second-hand games market. This happens to be a subject close to my heart (figuratively) as the limitation of second hand sales in my opinion is an oppression of expression! No more lending a game to a friend to convince them to fork out the 40 odd to buy it, no more waiting out the hype for the game to get to a reasonable second hand price. When I was younger my parents only allowed me to play video games if I had paid for them myself - so the second hand market was the only way I could afford them. Once you buy something such as a game, you own the right to do with it what you will, as long as you don't try to copy the game itself, or try to steal their coding by hacking in! If you then decide its not the game for you, you can sell it on and use the money from resale to buy another game. The returns policy on games is bad enough as it is!
Could there not be a way around it? Rather than deterring resales, encourage buying games new? Nintendo formed a points scheme for every Nintendo item you bought new, you earned points. These points could be saved up and used to buy exclusive content or merchandise. Could this not be an initial option for companies at least?
My initial gripe with the OnLive 'console' was the fact that you had to buy a full game at their desired price from OnLive otherwise you could not use it with their streaming service. The expanse and freedom of the games market gets a lot smaller when you use OnLive and I don't believe that's a good thing.
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