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Sony Refutes 'No Used Game Sales' Rumour 56

Posted by Zonk from the why-do-we-keep-hearing-the-rumour dept.
Eurogamer reports that the possibility of no used games sales for the PS3 has been vociferously refuted by Sony. From the article: "'We have definitely not been communicating that,' UK spokesperson Jennie Kong confirmed. 'It's false speculation. We don't have any further knowledge about this topic - either officially or unofficially, to be frank. ' It would appear that the report is based on the resurrection of a much earlier rumour in this regard, which surfaced most recently last November with claims that PS3 software would 'bind' to the first machine it was played on, and would be unusable on any other system." We discussed this possibility on Wednesday.
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Sony Refutes 'No Used Game Sales' Rumour More

Sony Refutes 'No Used Game Sales' Rumour

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  • Interesting (Score:3, Interesting)

    by flooey ( 695860 ) on Friday May 26, 2006 @04:12PM (#15412143)
    It's interesting the way they phrased their comments. The quotations in the article from the present never say they aren't planning on it, they only say that the rumors about them telling people they're going to are false. The one quote in the article that says that every PS3 will be able to play every disc comes from a November statement (though the PR person does say "there has been no official comment on this since the story that came up a few months ago - it hasn't changed since then").

    • Whatever (Score:2)

      by mcc ( 14761 )
      If you don't like the way they phrased that denial, here's the other denial [gamesradar.com] they issued:
      "These rumours are unfounded and, to my knowledge, SCEE has no plans to change our business model to adopt such a system."
      Note that's from Games Radar, the site that originated this rumor in the first place.

    • Re:Interesting (Score:5, Insightful)

      by dbhankins ( 688931 ) on Friday May 26, 2006 @04:35PM (#15412337)
      Even the way the previous comment was phrased leaves loads of wiggle room.

      "It won't be copy-protected to a single system". Well, it's not copy protection that's being contemplated here, so that doesn't make them liars if they nodelock.

      "Any PS3 game will be playable on any PS3 system." Again, this would be true even if they nodelocked it. A nodelocking game disk will play on any system you put it in...once. And if you take "game" to mean "title" rather than "disk", it says even less; it only says that PS3 systems will play PS3 games.

      And we all know that "We have no plans to do that" is bureaucracy-speak for "We're working feverishly on our plans for doing that but haven't finished those plans yet. But when we do have plans, we'll do that thing as quick as we can." The statement they made was even weaker than "We have no plans." It's "We don't know about any plans."

      In other words, their denial is a non-denial that actually communicates no information, besides "I hear nothing, I see nothing, I know *nothing*!", or at best, "I never said *that*!"

    • Re:Interesting (Score:1, Flamebait)

      by Shihar ( 153932 )
      Sony is not going to blow off their own foot, especially if they are going to sell a system that cost an arm and a leg. Sony is not going screw the used games market because the resulting hit in their sales would more then make up for the increased revenue from first time sales. It is a stupid idea, and any CEO who would advocate such a thing should be dragged from his office and shot by the shareholders.

    • Re:Interesting (Score:3, Insightful)

      by Bogtha ( 906264 )

      It's interesting the way they phrased their comments.

      You can say that again. Is that what passes for English these days? Here's a handy translation:

      We have definitely not been communicating that

      We didn't say that.

      It's false speculation.

      It's not true.

      We don't have any further knowledge about this topic - either officially or unofficially, to be frank.

      I don't know anything else.

      It sounds like she needs to read Orwell's Politics and the English Language [resort.com].

  • RE (Score:4, Insightful)

    by Alex P Keaton in da ( 882660 ) on Friday May 26, 2006 @04:13PM (#15412150) Homepage
    When it becomes illegal to sell used products, we will know that teh corporations have won. Wouldn't Ford/GM other car companies love it if you could only buy new cars?
    Sony would also like us to only sleep with virgins too, right?
    • Sony would also like us to only sleep with virgins too, right?

      It's not like there aren't any countries where that is pretty much how it is. Durka durka!
    • Sony would also like us to only sleep with virgins too, right? Who wouldn't like to only sleep with virgins. I fully support Sony's plan for me to only sleep with women who have no way of judging that I'm terrible in bed.
      • The question is...who would want to sleep with a virgin.

      • "Who wouldn't like to only sleep with virgins"

        Me. Virgins reach orgasm in seconds and don't how to give even half-decent oral sex, leaving a woman looking for a guy with a modicum of self-control and knowledge of how to soemthing with his tongue other than bragging to his friends about how many bitches he's slept with. Oh, wait, you're talking about female virgins, right? Then I'm definitely not interested. But I probably wouldn't be even if I were male, as I'm not the type to use someone once and then t

    • I really think from a business standpoint, banning used game resales just doesn't make much sense, especially with games being $50+. In my experience at least, those who have a little more money buy the games new, and then when they resell them, that money is usually invested right back into new games. If I only have $30, Sony isn't going to get a new game sale. But with a good used market, I can buy GTA VIII from the guy down the street, and while that money isn't going directly to Sony, there's a good cha
      • On the other hand, I only buy games that I will never sell. I only buy games that have enough replay value that by the time I'm done with it, it's only worth maybe $10 used, so I really don't have much incentive to buy it. There's a couple games that I've considered getting rid of, but for the most part, all the games I buy have given my tons of play time.
    • Only one of you needs to be a virgin.

    • Sounds good! (Score:2, Funny)

      by jpardey ( 569633 )
      That means that once she is no longer a virgin, she is nodelocked to me!

      Then again, that is already enforced in some cases, with shotguns. We must think through the terrible possibilities of our policies before making any such blunders.
    • I, for one, welcome our virgin peddling overlords!

      But nodelock me, and the next virgin through the door better be hot and carrying an xbox under one arm and a wii in the other...
    • What if this is something that they *are* actually doing? Who would they be targetting this funcionality at? Tip : It's not the end user. The cost of education (and incoming litigation) regarding this would be extremely expensive, and the lost goodwill would do more damage to the company than even *we* can imagine. If it was implemented, chances are that there would be a bit set in a header somewhere on the disc that says 'this game binds' or 'this game doesn't bind'. The developers or publishers could th
      • Same post, set to 'plain old text'.

        What if this is something that they *are* actually doing? Who would they be targetting this funcionality at?

        Tip : It's not the end user. The cost of education (and incoming litigation) regarding this would be extremely expensive, and the lost goodwill would do more damage to the company than even *we* can imagine.

        If it was implemented, chances are that there would be a bit set in a header somewhere on the disc that says 'this game binds' or 'this game doesn't bind'. The de
  • I hope Sony also vociferously refutes speculation of a $600 price tag for the PS3.
    • Who the hell modded that Troll? That is simply pathetic.

      Can anyone come up with ANY explanation that would show how that post is a Troll in any light? Who DOESN'T want Sony to refute the $600 price?

      That's the one thing I truly dislike about slash, you can't get at idiot mods at all. Yes, meta-mod provides a level of checks and balances, but in certain cases one should absolutely be able to argue someones mod.

  • First there is a high price point, and now there are rumors of stringent license/pricing restrictions on software.

    Sounds like this console is not being guided in a positive direction...

  • Remember... (Score:5, Insightful)

    by SoCalChris ( 573049 ) on Friday May 26, 2006 @04:18PM (#15412191) Journal
    This is the same company that basically said "Most people don't know what a rootkit is, so it doesn't really matter." and "The PS3 would sell 5 million units, even if we didn't release any games."

    I'm taking everything they say with a large grain of salt.

  • What's true is a lot more scary for Sony... (Score:5, Insightful)

    by ofcourseyouare ( 965770 ) * on Friday May 26, 2006 @04:30PM (#15412290)
    Okay, so this story seems to be an urban fairytale. Like the one that Sony faked the BluRay demo a couple of weeks back.

    But together these stories reflect something real and very scary for Sony: that since Rootkitgate or maybe E3, they've fallen into every PR guy's worst nightmare - a black hole where people resent a company so much that they believe anything bad they hear about it. This is the real story, and Sony needs to be very worried about it...
    • But together these stories reflect something real and very scary for Sony: that since Rootkitgate or maybe E3

      As a percentage of the population, practically nobody knows about the 'rootkit' thing (It wasn't even a rootkit, but we all call it that now ever since the telephone game changed it from 'uses rootkit technology' to 'rootkit'). Same goes for rumors like this. Most people don't follow day to day platform news.
    • EXCEPT for the fact that Sony has a PATENT on this... It's much more then a simple rumor. Does them having a patent mean they're going to use it? No. Does it mean that they've thought about using it? Definately.
    • [Sony's fallen into] a black hole where people resent a company so much that they believe anything bad they hear about it.

      When you say it like that, it sounds pretty bad. But is it really all that different from entities like Microsoft, EA, or even the Bush Administration? I don't think it is.

  • Right of first sale Vs. Service fee (Score:2, Informative)

    by Anonymous Coward
    Attacking used/rental game sales is not the right way to increase profit. For a long time to come, there will be other consoles that support used/rental games and the consoles that don't will be at a disadvantage for adoption.

    The method that will be used to increase profit is to continue the trend of associating a "service fee" with online playing. That way, even if the user has a second hand game, the company still continue to collect if the user wants to take advantage of the full functionality of the g
  • OT, but what the hell. I've been sitting back watching all this fuss directed at Sony with some interest. What seems to be happening here is that Sony is the whipping boy of the month. There is so much FUD, and yes it is FUD, being spread by Sony's competitors and fanboys of other systems that's it not funny anymore.

    This particular FUD which ./ has seen fit to propagate in previous stories, is based on some patent Sony filed in PS1 days and pertains to CD-ROMs from all accounts. Why the hell would Sony
  • How many of you had to look up what "vociferously" meant? (I did)

    And how many of you commented on the story anyway without knowing what it meant?

    • Vociferous
      adjective
      Vociferous people express their opinions and complaints loudly and repeatedly in speech, and vociferous demands, etc. are made repeatedly and loudly.

      Damn, I read it as veraciously....
    • I think a larger number of us used our reasoning skills to deduce the meaning from the surrounding words. It's a component of something called "reading comprehension".
  • Regardless of whether this story is accurate or not, there should be a large and vociforous reaction from the public that they will not tolerate restrictions on used game sales. It seems that damaging public relations, and by extension a corporation's bottom line, is the only way to get our message through. Likewise with the rootkit fiasco, the next time we even get a whiff of Sony adding new copy protection controls on their CDs, benign or not, we need to twist the knife in that wound to our benefit. God k
  • I thought it was interesting that, semantic quibbling aside, Sony is screaming that they have never told us about any plans to specially protect their software from second-hand sales- yet they make no promise to not do it again. Hell, they could just as easily come out tommorrow with an announcement that the PS3 will be nodeprotecteed and hell, they wouldn't be contradicting themselves. For me I'd be a lot more reassured if Sony would promise to never nodeprotect any of their software, not that they have "

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