XBOX ONE’S F**KING USED GAME SALES method revealed.
We now (may) know how the Xbox One’s used games sale mechanism will function.
All Games Beta:
Publishers to receive cut of Xbox One pre-owned sales at retail
Retailers will be free to charge whatever they wish for pre-owned Xbox One games, but both Microsoft and publishers will take a percentage cut of every sale.
Retail sources have told MCV that Microsoft has this week briefed key retail partners on how it intends to take ownership of the pre-owned market.
This is how we’ve been told it will all work:
A gamer walks into a retailer and hands over the game they wish to sell. This will only be possible at retailers who have agreed to Microsoft’s T&Cs and more importantly integrated Microsoft’s cloud-based Azure pre-owned system into its own.
The game is then registered as having been traded-in on Microsoft’s system. The consumer who handed it over will subsequently see the game wiped from their account – hence the until now ambiguous claim from Phil Harrison that the Xbox One would have to ‘check in’ to Microsoft’s servers every 24 hours.
The retailer can then sell the pre-owned game at whatever price they like, although as part of the system the publisher of the title in question will automatically receive a percentage cut of the sale. As will Microsoft. The retailer will pocket the rest.
It’s hard for me to begrudge publishers wanting to take a cut of a game that is being resold. Millions of dollars put into production. At the same time, isn’t there some sort of precedent that states when you buy an electronic product, it becomes your own property to do with what you like? (At the very least I know there is a debate pertaining to it, I don’t know where the courts currently stand.) Additionally, it’s impressively slimy that Microsoft is going to get a cut of the sales as well.
I don’t know. Where do you folks stand?