Publishers and developers benefit substantially from the used game cycle. The vast majority of games are traded for NEW products. Stopping trades would remove millions of dollars of currency from the marketplace.
Just imagine Honda trying to stop the sale of used cars because they don't profit directly from secondary sales. Not only would folks stop buying Honda's, their new sales would plummet when trades cease. It will never happen. They know very well that trades drive sales of their shiny new cars and that dealerships survive only from the extended margin of their used car sales. Yeah, they might get a small bump from the folks who can no longer trade used cars for other used cars, but that would pale by comparison to lost new sales.
I wouldn't worry much about this one folks. Sony would be nuts to do this.
As I recall, the launch bundles for the original Xbox were $500 to $700 on EBgames.com back in 2001 and the technology has certainly come a long way since then.
I've watched several launches come and go on EBgames.com and they always start out high at launch and then trickle down to unbundled systems after the demand dies down. Damn capitalists! I do appreciate that they don't include a lot of unnecessary crap in their bundles, but I wish I could pick my own games. I heard through a well-connected source that when they tried that for the PSP they ended up with over 2,500 bundle combinations. Apparently a logistics nightmare.
The good news is that if you don't like forced bundles (I don't) you can always go into an EB store and pre-order an unbundled system.
In his "Basic Facts about Video Games" section he states that retailers keep $17 of a $49 game, with the caveat that this is an "approximate breakdown." As a retailer, I can assure you that this is "approximately" DOUBLE the actual average amount a retailer receives, including co-op marketing funds. That said, there's a pretty big slice of pie missing--I wonder who ate it?
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Publishers and developers benefit substantially from the used game cycle. The vast majority of games are traded for NEW products. Stopping trades would remove millions of dollars of currency from the marketplace. Just imagine Honda trying to stop the sale of used cars because they don't profit directly from secondary sales. Not only would folks stop buying Honda's, their new sales would plummet when trades cease. It will never happen. They know very well that trades drive sales of their shiny new cars and that dealerships survive only from the extended margin of their used car sales. Yeah, they might get a small bump from the folks who can no longer trade used cars for other used cars, but that would pale by comparison to lost new sales. I wouldn't worry much about this one folks. Sony would be nuts to do this.
As I recall, the launch bundles for the original Xbox were $500 to $700 on EBgames.com back in 2001 and the technology has certainly come a long way since then. I've watched several launches come and go on EBgames.com and they always start out high at launch and then trickle down to unbundled systems after the demand dies down. Damn capitalists! I do appreciate that they don't include a lot of unnecessary crap in their bundles, but I wish I could pick my own games. I heard through a well-connected source that when they tried that for the PSP they ended up with over 2,500 bundle combinations. Apparently a logistics nightmare. The good news is that if you don't like forced bundles (I don't) you can always go into an EB store and pre-order an unbundled system.
In his "Basic Facts about Video Games" section he states that retailers keep $17 of a $49 game, with the caveat that this is an "approximate breakdown." As a retailer, I can assure you that this is "approximately" DOUBLE the actual average amount a retailer receives, including co-op marketing funds. That said, there's a pretty big slice of pie missing--I wonder who ate it?