Used Game Sales

Used Game Sales headlines

• Xbox One: pre-owned activation to cost £35 - report

  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.

• GameStop posts quarterly decline, shrugs off Microsoft's evasive stance on used games

  GameStop has reported its quarterly results for the period ending May 4, with total revenues down 6.8% year-over-year to $1.87 billion, noting declines in both hardware sales and new software. Profits came in at $54.6 million, down 25% year-over-year.

• GameStop: next-gen console sales will be "diminished" if used games are restricted

  GameStop has said consumers’ “desire to purchase” consoles will be “significantly diminished” if manufacturer were to block the ability to play used games.

• UK retailers note increase in used sales since GAME closures

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

• New online retailer to return percentage of used game sales to publishers

  Defying industry trends, a new online retailer is planning to return ten percent of all used game sales to publishers.

• Industry vet Richard Browne: The "real cost" of used games sales is loss of variety, single-player

  Richard Browne, former Eidos developer and former VP of Core Studios at THQ and Universal Interactive, believes “the real cost” of used games is not to the publisher, but to the consumer  as well as the direct cause of the “death of single-player gaming.”

• Dyack: Multiplayer surge due to used game sales "hurting the single-player experience"

  Silicon Knights boss Denis Dyack believes the surge in games with a large multiplayer component is due to developers and publishers trying to combat used game sales.

• Lionhead says used sales cost it more money in the long run than PC piracy

  Lionhead has is of the opinion that second-hand sales are more of problem today with Xbox 360, than PC piracy.

• GameStop reports over $3 billion in holiday sales thanks in part to Kinect

  GameStop has reported $3.02 billion in holiday sales for the nine week period ending on January 1.

• Which? survey shows secondhand stores paying peanuts for trade-ins

  Consumer group Which? has found some retailers which accept used games pay less than 30 percent of the game’s total retail worth.

• Take-Two: Used game market is "interesting" and "something we should participate in"

  Take-Two CEO Ben Feder told attendees at the G7 Think Equity conference last week the used game market is “interesting” and something developers should take part in.

• THQ doesn't "really have much sympathy" for used game purchasers

  THQ’s to start fighting used games sales by introducing one-time use codes with its new releases, and UFC Undisputed 2010 is just the first out of the gate.

• Report: Online Pass will curb used game sales

  Analyst group Cowen and Company suggests in a new report that “online pass” from EA may be a way for the industry to curtail used game sales.

• US 7-Eleven stores to start selling used games in September

  7-Eleven has announced that it’s to start selling used games at over 3,000 of its US stores for $19.99 and below.

• Valve: Fight used game sales and piracy by producing good titles

  Valve’s Doug Lombardi has told Destructoid that the best way to combat used game sales and piracy, is to make good games and offer continued support. “We always see these overall numbers, like how much money GameStop’s making per year off of used game sales, but we really don’t have a breakdown of details for […]

• Crackdown only managed to break even, says Dave Jones

  Crackdown may have been a huge hit with gamers, but apparently the game only broke even money-wise for the developers and Microsoft. “With Crackdown we sold about 1.5 million copies, but even at that we pretty much only managed to break even,” Dave Jones told Gamasutra. “It was due to the amount of factors that […]

• GameStop's new and used game sales policy could be considered "deceptive"

  Dallas-based attorney Mark Methenitis has told Law of the Game that GameStop’s policy of selling opened games as new may be “deceptive”. Kotaku claimed yesterday that Gamestop was taking discs from new games before putting them on shelves – presumably to prevent theft – but that staff were allowed to take them home to play. […]

• GameStop to reach $2 billion in sales this year says analyst

  Lazard analyst Colin Sebastian has said that the used game market could provide $2 billion in sales for GameStop this year. Sebastian added that Gamestop’s used game sales were unlikely to be badly affected by Amazon’s intentions on the space. “While Amazon’s recent entry into the trade-in market remains an overhang on shares, we believe […]