Tag Archives: used games

SCEA CEO Jack Tretton told Bloomberg during E3 that Sony’s PS4 was built to “appeal to consumers,” worldwide and the ability to sell, share or trade disc-based games adds to the value of a console.

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EA labels president Frank Gibeau has said the firm “formulating our policy” regarding used games with Xbox One.

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While PS4 itself won’t block pre-owned games, Sony has said any DRM is up to publishers, a sentiment which has been said before, but is back on topic today due to remarks made by SCEA boss Jack Tretton to GTTV. Sony has since issued at statement saying that any third-party DRM implemented on PS4 by publishers refers to playing used games online only.

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Microsoft has broken its Xbox One silence to answer the most burning questions. Yes: you need to be online every day. No: the Kinect won’t record you. Maybe: you can have some used games.

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Xbox One has already caused a deal of confusion surrounding the use of pre-owned games, and on top of having to pay a fee to play used games, it seems that Microsoft and publishers will get a cut of each used sale at retail too.

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GameStop president Tony Bartel had some words for Forbes about why the rumored always-online-never-play-used-games next Xbox might be a bad idea. “Console manufacturers understand that recent surveys indicate 60+ percent of video game consumers would be less likely to purchase a new console that did not play pre-owned games.”
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A recent NPD survey polled gamers on their spending habits, and it turns out that 78 percent of core players will regularly buy used games, while 70 percent regularly buy full digital versions of retail titles.
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Sony has previously stated PS4 will play used games, yet it is still “mindful” of the “issues” raised on the subject by the publishing and development communities.

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GameStop posted a 4.6% drop in sales for the nine weeks ending December 29, with global sales reaching $2.88 billion. Year-over-year sales declined 4.4 %, with US sales down 3.5% over the year prior, with international sales falling 6.4%. Hardware sales were down by 2.7% despite Wii U being around for the holidays and moving 320,000 units. New software sales fell 5.1%, while pre-owned software fell by 15.6%, a figure GameStop blamed on limited inventory “due to fewer new titles released throughout 2012 and less promotional activity negatively impacted sales compared to last year”. Digital sales, however, were up 40% year-over-year, and the firm’s global e-commerce sales were up 20.5%. Thanks, MCV.

Retailers in the UK have seen a significant increase in used game sales and trade-ins since GAME closed up 277 of its shops.

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Eat Sleep Play boss David Jaffe has warned the games industry not to take pricing complaints too lightly.

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THQ CEO Brian Farrell has said the firm doesn’t want the pre-owned market to die, because it is something consumers demand.

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GAME has started taking pre-orders for used games. No joke.

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Live in the US? Have a game? Wanna sell it? Don’t feel like making the trek to one of the five million GameStops on your street?

Well then, just head across the street to one of your five million local Targets.

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Look, used game market, it’s not you; it’s the entire videogame industry.

It’s EA, THQ, and now Sony. So yeah, you might want to go ahead and start packing your things. Door’s that-a-way.

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NPD has revealed that US consumers spent around $4.5 to $4.75 billion on “used games, rentals, subscriptions, digital download games, DLC, and mobile apps” in 2009.

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A new study conducted by research firm Nielsen found that gamers have recently started spending more time gaming, more money purchasing used games, and less purchasing new games. The study attributes much of this behavior to the current Rough Economic Climate.

In January 2009, gamers spent an average of 19 hours per week basking in the glow of their favorite games, compared to only 16.5 hours in January of 2008. May 2009, the study’s most recent month, saw gamers log 16.5 hours into their favorite hobby, while the corresponding month in 2008 saw less than 16.

Interestingly, Nielsen doesn’t believe hardcore gamers have had any significant impact on the study, attributing most of the upswing to “mainstream gamers.”

“Primarily, we believe mainstream gamers are playing more of the broadly appealing games (i.e Wii Fit, Guitar Hero and Rock Band) pushing their hours of gameplay up,” director of client consulting Michael Flamberg said.

Used game purchasing is also climbing more quickly than expected, reaching an all time high ratio of 0.36 in May 2009. This, of course, means that new game purchases are down, though Nielsen says that could be a result of a lack of “huge hits” at this point in the year. 2008 was already quite bountiful at this point, bringing forth both Mario Kart Wii and GTA IV.

Thanks, Gamasutra.

More from last night’s Wedbush Morgan super-report. The paper claims Americans sell around 100 million games back to retail each year.

“The number of games traded annually is striking; we estimate the overall used game market to be $2 billion in the U.S., with an average ticket of around $20 per used game,” said the paper.

“This means that an estimated 100 million units of used games are traded in each year, representing around 1/3 of all games sold annually.”

The report went on to say that full-price game sales aren’t impacted anywhere near as much as some would like us to believe.

We think that used game sales benefit new game sales by providing currency to gamers with less disposable income, thereby enabling the purchase of additional games. The vast majority of used games are not traded in until the original new game purchaser has finished playing, typically well beyond the window for a fullretail priced new game sale. Thus, while there may be some limited substitution of used game purchases when GameStop employees “push” used merchandise upon consumers lined up to buy new games, the vast majority of used game purchases occur more than two months after a new game is released. Other than the potential impact at holiday (when new game lives are extended beyond the typical two month sell-through pattern), used game sales just don’t impact new game purchases very much…. To the extent that there is a substitution effect, we estimate that fewer than 5% of new game sales are impacted.

Thanks, Kotaku.

GameStop has reported record earnings during Q1 of 2009, ending May 2.

Sales increased 9.2 percent to $1.98 billion, while net earnings rose 13.4 percent to $70.4 million.

The company claims the robust sales of DSi, Resident Evil 5, and Street Fighter IV along with used games sales being up 31.9 percent contributed to the overall figures.

Despite the nice numbers, the sale of new games dropped 2.8 percent and the company expects to see a decline for store sales ranging from 8 to 11 percent due to sluggish hardware sales.

More over on Edge.

Wal-Mart now has machines to take your old games. The US retail monster has has included 77 “Video Game Buyback” stations at various stores, Gama reports.

The machines also carry movie DVDs and video game discs for Wii, Xbox and PlayStation platforms for $1 per day rentals, on top of accepting game discs that customers want to sell.

There’s a bevy of information through there. It’s only a tiny trial, remember: Wal-Mart has 3,656 total US stores.