After much waffling, Microsoft finally delivers a concrete answer on the ability to trade-in or resell your used Xbox One games — it’s not up to them.
According to the “How Game Licensing Works On Xbox One” document released today by Microsoft, the console has been designed so publishers “can enable you to trade in your games at participating retailers.”
Crafty. Leaving the decision up to the publishers takes responsibility for potentially upsetting the player base out of Microsoft’s hands, while pleasing publishers pressuring console makers to help put the kibosh on used sales. Plus we get something new to be angry with publishers over. Everybody wins!
Comments
33 responses to “Xbox One Games Can Be Traded-In, If The Publisher Enables It”
Will it clearly be marked on the box either way?
Will it be at a set price?
Will any publishers turn away “free” money?
As usual the latest Xbone press release poses more questions than it answers.
Lol that just sorts out EA and Activision to nope and others likely to follow EA and Activision
Why do I have a vision that 99% of publishers will not allow games to be traded-in. You can get angry at publishers for not allowing trade-ins but the publishers will say that Microsoft allowed us to have the option to not allow it
That’s it, we need to start boycotting these companies that aren’t going to let us trade in games or give games to friends. I’m not going to buy an Xbox One and I’m not going to buy anything from Steam.
herp-de-derp
Power to the people! I’m all for people wanting to boycott company’s. But I doubt it will make any dent in the giant that is game developers and publishers.
The funny thing is that, IIRC, this is the exact position that Sony took too.
The main difference is that Sony didn’t make their customer base angry first 😛
Microsoft have built in the ability for publishers to restrict trade-ins. I think Sony are leaving it up to the publishers to design their own system.
But unless the PS4 architecture supports it, the only other option is a EA-esque always-online DRM. Do we know for a fact that Sony haven’t included some sort of serial-check in the system, or is it just something that hasn’t been announced yet?
Sony haven’t announced anything specific apart from stating that their console can be played offline.
I don’t think there will be anything stopping publishers from doing an online-pass style system for the entire game and requiring an internet connection for registration.
Hopefully it can all be cleared up at E3
Design what system!??!? Are you all mentally soft? They said its a one time serial key… gee what platform has been doing that for some if not most games since the dawn of time…..
I need a bullet for each of you seriously
PS4 has no drm system, so it will be up to the publishers to design their own. So it might be a serial key to activate the game and tie it to your account, it might be an online pass for just the online content, it might be registering with and logging into a 3rd party system beyond the PSN – it could be whatever they choose it to be but it won’t be a standard set by Sony for all games.
That’s the key difference here, go have a glass of water or something before a vein bursts out of your forehead.
Sony haven’t said anything but “the system will play used games”. No clarification on their DRM or anything. I bet they’ll have something almost the same but they’re not dumb enough to announce it piecemeal like Microsoft have been.
I get the feeling that MS don’t see this whole thing as a big deal.
Steve is correct, Sony said publishers can do it if they want, but Sony is not designing a system they can use. Microsoft are making the system and publishers can use it if the want. Huge difference.
i don’t see why people would trade their games in the first place, you get nothing out of it and they sell them $10 less then buying the brand new one.
I wonder if a publisher could decide that trade inns would only be allowed three months after release, or similar, with this system?
The big part is the “at participating retailers” bit. That’ll be guaranteed to screw over every smaller retailer that the publishers don’t like, eg Gametraders locally who get into trouble periodically for selling grey imports.
Not to mention people who like to buy/sell used games on eBay etc.
And unless your friends are “participating retailers” then I’m guessing you won’t be lending / swapping games with them.
Yeah this bothers me. I have no problem seeing EB Games getting screwed over cause they’re sharks that rip off customers and rip off publishers. People selling their games on eBay hardly pose a threat to the industry and I’m all for people having the freedom to sell their own stuff. But unfortunately it looks like places like EB will continue to be able to trade second hand but individual consumers will not.
Ah well. I guess this is the price of going into the digital distribution age. Steam has been there for years already.
Which would be fine if we were talking about digital distribution. But it’s still physical (although obviously you’ll have the option of buying digitally, probably at full RRP or close to it if past performance is anything to go by), and this appears to be giving us the worst of both worlds.
Yeah, I wanna know what the online prices are. The games are all gonna be available digitally on day one but will it be cheaper getting it from JB Hifi?
I think Sony’s digital pricing for Vita is something like 10% less than RRP. Wouldn’t surprise me if they go down that path for PS4, and MS would probably follow suit. Still probably cheaper at JB. I can’t see them going any cheaper than that – the reason the digital prices are so high now is so they don’t piss off the retailers by undercutting them. That won’t change with next gen.
If you can get games digitally for 10% off retail then I’m happy entering the fully digital distribution model.
Yeah, 10% off the the RRP of the version of COD from the MS store will make it only 109 dollars! That is much better than being able to import disc versions from England for 50 which you can then resell when you get bored with it.
Who says you still can’t do that?
I was mostly referring where you said a FULLY digital distribution model as in there are no more physical copies.
Currently you have versions of the MS store for each region and I cant see that changing any time soon.
I dont think publishers are going to stop games from being traded in. All this system does, combined with the “participating retailers” is allow the publishers to charge a fee to the retailers for the ability to take trades, thereby allowing them to take a cut of the profits from second hand sales.
From a publisher perspective I think it’s fantastic. They’ll finally get that piece of the pie they want, plus will possibly have the ability to stop a product from being traded for X numer of days after release, so the market isn’t immediately flooded with cheaper second hand units only days after release.
From a consumer perspective I think it is very bad. You dont get to decide when you want to trade in your game, and you will only have access to a limited range of retailers if you do want to trade it.
Wish I could trade in my steam games
On the plus side, Cyberpunk and The Witcher 3 will certainly be able to be traded in – CDPR are good folks.
On the other hand, I won’t be touching the Xbone with a 10 foot pole. So there’s that. CDPR can enjoy my GOG.com purchase instead.
Distancing yourself from any sort of bad news is common for all companies, and MS is doing just the same. In fact, I’m sure Sony have said the same thing recently – leaving it up to the publisher.
So leave it up to the people who are the biggest opponents to the used games market. The used games market can basically say goodbye to the xbone at this point. Can’t imagine too many publishers, the larger ones specifically, would be willing to enable trade-ins.
am i the only one that likes this LOL
Yes.