Sony Refutes 'No Used Game Sales' Rumour

Eurogamer reports that the possibility of no used games sales for the PS3 has been vociferously refuted by Sony. From the article: "'We have definitely not been communicating that,' UK spokesperson Jennie Kong confirmed. 'It's false speculation. We don't have any further knowledge about this topic - either officially or unofficially, to be frank. ' It would appear that the report is based on the resurrection of a much earlier rumour in this regard, which surfaced most recently last November with claims that PS3 software would 'bind' to the first machine it was played on, and would be unusable on any other system." We discussed this possibility on Wednesday.

Comments

Interesting

[flooey]

It's interesting the way they phrased their comments. The quotations in the article from the present never say they aren't planning on it, they only say that the rumors about them telling people they're going to are false. The one quote in the article that says that every PS3 will be able to play every disc comes from a November statement (though the PR person does say "there has been no official comment on this since the story that came up a few months ago - it hasn't changed since then").

Re:Interesting

[dbhankins]

Even the way the previous comment was phrased leaves loads of wiggle room.

"It won't be copy-protected to a single system". Well, it's not copy protection that's being contemplated here, so that doesn't make them liars if they nodelock.

"Any PS3 game will be playable on any PS3 system." Again, this would be true even if they nodelocked it. A nodelocking game disk will play on any system you put it in...once. And if you take "game" to mean "title" rather than "disk", it says even less; it only says that PS3 systems will play PS3 games.

And we all know that "We have no plans to do that" is bureaucracy-speak for "We're working feverishly on our plans for doing that but haven't finished those plans yet. But when we do have plans, we'll do that thing as quick as we can." The statement they made was even weaker than "We have no plans." It's "We don't know about any plans."

In other words, their denial is a non-denial that actually communicates no information, besides "I hear nothing, I see nothing, I know *nothing*!", or at best, "I never said *that*!"

Re:Interesting

[Bogtha]

It's interesting the way they phrased their comments.

You can say that again. Is that what passes for English these days? Here's a handy translation:

We have definitely not been communicating that

We didn't say that.

It's false speculation.

It's not true.

We don't have any further knowledge about this topic - either officially or unofficially, to be frank.

I don't know anything else.

It sounds like she needs to read Orwell's Politics and the English Language.

RE

[Alex P Keaton in da]

When it becomes illegal to sell used products, we will know that teh corporations have won. Wouldn't Ford/GM other car companies love it if you could only buy new cars?
Sony would also like us to only sleep with virgins too, right?

Re:RE

[voice_of_all_reason]

Sony would also like us to only sleep with virgins too, right?

It's not like there aren't any countries where that is pretty much how it is. Durka durka!

Remember...

[SoCalChris]

This is the same company that basically said "Most people don't know what a rootkit is, so it doesn't really matter." and "The PS3 would sell 5 million units, even if we didn't release any games."

I'm taking everything they say with a large grain of salt.

What's true is a lot more scary for Sony...

[ofcourseyouare]

Okay, so this story seems to be an urban fairytale. Like the one that Sony faked the BluRay demo a couple of weeks back.

But together these stories reflect something real and very scary for Sony: that since Rootkitgate or maybe E3, they've fallen into every PR guy's worst nightmare - a black hole where people resent a company so much that they believe anything bad they hear about it. This is the real story, and Sony needs to be very worried about it...

Right of first sale Vs. Service fee

[Anonymous Coward]

Attacking used/rental game sales is not the right way to increase profit. For a long time to come, there will be other consoles that support used/rental games and the consoles that don't will be at a disadvantage for adoption.

The method that will be used to increase profit is to continue the trend of associating a "service fee" with online playing. That way, even if the user has a second hand game, the company still continue to collect if the user wants to take advantage of the full functionality of the game.

Very interesting times

[TommyBear]

OT, but what the hell. I've been sitting back watching all this fuss directed at Sony with some interest. What seems to be happening here is that Sony is the whipping boy of the month. There is so much FUD, and yes it is FUD, being spread by Sony's competitors and fanboys of other systems that's it not funny anymore.

This particular FUD which ./ has seen fit to propagate in previous stories, is based on some patent Sony filed in PS1 days and pertains to CD-ROMs from all accounts. Why the hell would Sony want to attack users and their retail partners? While appeasing publishers, moves like this would hurt adoption. No adoption, not content investment.

I'm not impressed with any of the consoles at the moment, but all this FUD being thrown at Sony is unfair, and the ./ crowd know what it feels like more than anyone else, so how about giving it a break.

Sounds good!

[jpardey]

That means that once she is no longer a virgin, she is nodelocked to me!

Then again, that is already enforced in some cases, with shotguns. We must think through the terrible possibilities of our policies before making any such blunders.

Re:Any other clarificaitons?

[Headcase88]

Agreed.