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Sony Joins the Offensive Against Pre-Owned Games
BanjoTed writes "In a move to counter sales of pre-owned games, EA recently revealed DLC perks for those who buy new copies of Mass Effect 2 and Battlefield: Bad Company 2. Now, PlayStation platform holder Sony has jumped on the bandwagon with similar plans for the PSP's SOCOM: Fireteam Bravo 3. '[Players] will need to register their game online before they are able to access the multiplayer component of the title. UMD copies will use a redeemable code while the digital version will authenticate automatically in the background. Furthermore ... anyone buying a pre-owned copy of the game will be forced to cough up $20 to obtain a code to play online."
I work for a one of the big european car manufactorer's. I can assure you that car manufactorer's have absolutely no interest in crippliing used cars sales.
If people could not sell their cars(to the dealer or to another user directly) they would keep using the same old car until it can. Car manufactorer's are instead very interested in people changing thir car every few years(2-3-5 are the most interesting spans), so they can seel a new one. People buyng a used medium size sedan are not likely to buy the same car new, while people changing their medium size sedan every 2-3 years are not likely to resort to used cars market(they clearly like having brand new cars), so there is very little overlap.
Also a used car is a very very different product from a new one. They have different values and there are many risks for non competent people buying 5 or more years old cars.
A car, even if there is no newer version, gets old with use and get less and less "useful" with time. There are very little istances of cars which are more than 10 years old and still good for everyday use, at least not without major maintenance(old fasghioned cars are a good example, if well kept they can be in perfect working order, but the cost of mantaining a 50's car in mint condition are very high. What you spend on it in 5 years is for syure much more than what you'd spend to buy a maintain a brand new car for the same time, and you'd have to factor that newer cars have better mileage, and much bettere safety systems, not to mention comfort).
Used games are the same, as long as the instalation media is not ruined they don't loose value due to use or abuse. The only limiting factor in a game value is aging, which is devalueing because newer better games come out. So These people just want to spend less money making new games, and keep milking old cows.
Car makers used not to have this problem up to a few years ago. they did start in the nineties to make new models every 2-3 years because they wanted to push obsolescence on their previous models just to sell more(they mostly succeeded here in europe).