As you may have heard, Sony have been designing new disc technology that will stop users from pre-owning or lending games which have previously been played on a console.
Sony have been working on these technologies to hopefully eradicate second hand stores and pre-owned game shops. This will, obviously, stop the game from becoming cheaper second hand and stop people from lending games out once they are done.
Essentially it is a different kind of DRM, one that isn’t digital and works on the disc and the machine, to stop second hand sales and lending. This has also gave us a hint that Sony will continue to make a disc player for the PS4, instead of an all digital experience.
Users may not see this as the way forward and for people that enjoy getting cheap second hand games, it will be a pain as prices can stay as high as the developers want. The good feature with second hand game shops is they buy the games back from customers for a cheap price, and they can then sell them for a cheaper price.
GameStop have already dropped stock price since this rumour got out, as they do a lot of second hand trading and their financial would be hurt if Sony stopped this. To counter the falling stock price, Michael Pachter, an analyst, said “Sony would be materially hurt if its console blocked used games and competitor consoles from Microsoft and Nintendo did not,”
This is true, Sony would lose out even if the console performed better than its two rivals. The whole idea of one owner to a disc is unprecedented and may not go down well with gaming fans.
Sony are already on the back foot against Microsoft in terms of sales – the Xbox has outmatched the PS3 and we suspect the next gaming generation will be a close one. If Sony bring this new one game, one owner plan, it may turn in Microsoft’s favour.