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Sony Profits Conundrum
Alice, over at the Wonderland blog, has an interesting post wondering about the state of Sony's finances when put in contrast with their view on second-hand game sales, and new title prices. From the article: "Yet it turns out that discounting new releases also results in higher sales. MCV continues: 'BVG's The Chronicles of Narnia jumped ten places up the ChartTrack top 40 last week, thanks to a 16 per cent sales increase, following its slashing to £19.99 at most High Street retailers.' My question: what the hell are they complaining about? Why curtail the perfectly reasonable and legal second-hand market if they're making money hand-over-fist with the current situation?"
Simply because a corporation seeks to maximize profits doesn't mean it shouldn't keep the customer's interest in mind. It's in Sony's interest to keep the secondary game market alive so that PS2 console owners remain happy and come back for the PS3. But yes, this also obviously hurts the primary game market. There's an obvious tradeoff here, which makes a console maker's decision whether or not to support or squash a secondary game market an interesting decision. Simply calling it "greed" marginalizes the whole conversation because it's obvious and insufficient at the same time.