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XBOX 360, PS3 & Revolution - News & stuff

Started by InfiniteFury, April 07, 2005, 02:45:17 PM

Previous topic - Next topic

So, what will you be doing later this year

Buying an Xbox 360
24 (18.8%)
Waiting for the PS3
57 (44.5%)
Buying all of them because - well, if you have to ask, you can't afford it
22 (17.2%)
Waiting for the Revolution to come
25 (19.5%)

Total Members Voted: 128

Voting closed: May 18, 2005, 07:58:44 PM

jutl

Quote from: "slim"Oh dear. I can't see people putting up with that. Well, I hope not anyway. It's how most teens fund new games, isn't it? Exchanges, second hand sales. I think this'll have a negative impact on sales rather than the positive they're hoping for.

Personally I think it's a good idea, with a few provisos... First the purchaser needs to have a complete understanding that what they are buying is a licence. This is a big if, given that this situation already exists in markets like big ticket PC software, where the install discs are usually not your property, unbeknownst to most purchasers. Done properly, it could clear up an area of ugly uncertainty for the consumer while giving Sony et al the boost in sales they maintain they need in order to reduce prices.

bill hicks

If it were true, and this story has cropped up before and been shot down albeit before Sony's complete meltdown over the last few weeks, I hope it's the end of the company.

While second hand games may be a legal grey area, and while it does cost the industry money, it's also just about the only way most gamers will ever get to play more games.

With new prices for 360 games I can't afford to buy more than one every few months. £50 is a lot of money and I can buy a book, cd and a couple of dvds for that money. By trading in some old games that are cack I can get some money off that allows me to get a new game.

Just the other day I bought Ghost Recon: Advanced Warfighter for 99p thanks to trading in Fight Night, True Crime 1 and Tekken 5. Table Tennis will likewise be partially subsidised by 3 PS2 games that aren't worth keeping for replay or artistic reasons.

If I couldn't get a game cheaper second hand I wouldn't have most of my games now, and I wouldn't buy anything but major marquee titles that score 8 or 9 in Edge if I didn't have the safety net of getting shot of them when I'm bored with it/it turns out to be shite.

And that's not including old games that can't be bought new. Ico is a special case, what about other great games with low print runs that are near impossible to find on retail shelves? Katamari has all but disappeared now and I can't see a budget re-release for it anytime soon. Your only hope outside of checking all the internet retailers is ebay or the second hand shelves.

It's a scummers move if ever there was one.

Purple Tentacle

Fucking hell, I'd forgotten all about old games.

How on earth will it be possible to get hold of games no longer on release, legally? Are we to only play 'new' games from now on?

TotalNightmare

Here's the thing that bugs me...

GAME does the whole 2nd hand games thing and i remember trading in 1 DS game and 3 GameCube games to help take a chunk of cash off a purchase of Mario Kart DS.

So, it was 4 games worth about, on retail, about 80 quid.

But I only got 18 quid for the lot.

No big deal, i thought, because it meant i only had to pay a tenner for MK:DS...

but i remember going back to GAME a week later and saw two of my games in the PRE OWNED bin selling for 15 quid each.

So thats 30 quid in their pocket straight away.

How does the trade in 'worth' carry over into the pre owned sale cost?

Is GAME ripping off the buyer and the videogames industry because with pre owned games, surely they dont have to split a cost on the sale with the licenser again on 2nd hand goods?

petercussing

GAME makes vitually all it's profit from trade in games and hardware fact fans. They tread a fine line with the prices in keeping them as high as they can while not making it seem like a complete rip off.

It also depends when you trade in the game and what the game is specifically.

If you trade a game in the week (or quite soon) after it came out then you get top cash money for it, but obviously as time goes on the price you get drops.

This is also effected by what type of game it is. If it's say, FIFA street 2, then there will be loads of copies of that traded in cos more people have it and people also discover it's shit.

This means that there'll be loads of copies in, ergo dropping the price of the trade in. The price drop is due to the fact it is far less likely that all the FIFAs will get sold or that they will languish for so long in the bargin bin that the price will fall naturally after time, when the full price version goes platinum, etc. So you get less cash for it as a sort of insurance or the cost dropping.

But yes they are a little bit of a rip off, but also do benefit both sides enough for it not to be too shitty.

Also, if GAME were ripping of the games industry by doing that surely the games company giants would stop supplying them with games and would sue them right up. So it can't be that much of an issue.

Ooooooooooh.

(Slightly patronising explanation from ex game part time employee)

hoverdonkey

Quote from: jutl
Quote from: "slim"Done properly, it could clear up an area of ugly uncertainty for the consumer while giving Sony et al the boost in sales they maintain they need in order to reduce prices.

Well I can't see them reducing game prices. They never do. What ugly uncertainty? I buy a game. It's mine until I don't want it anymore. People don't care about licences etc. They just want the game and don't want to have to keep paying for it. Sony can fuck right off if they're gonna start doing this to one of my hobbies.

The more I read, the more convinced I am that it'll be a PS3-less household round mine. 360 Wii will do for me.

jutl

Quote from: "hoverdonkey"What ugly uncertainty?

The fact that people don't know what they are buying and make wrong guesses when they try to work it out. I don't really understand the anger here... it's the same model that online distribution uses. No-one seems to get this irate at iTunes.

jutl

Quote from: "petercussing"Also, if GAME were ripping of the games industry by doing that surely the games company giants would stop supplying them with games and would sue them right up. So it can't be that much of an issue.

The game industry do object strongly to the second hand game market, and Nintendo - for one - is notorious for giving independent games stores poor allocations of new hardware if they insist on selling second hand games.

edit to add: a link

hoverdonkey

Quote from: "jutl"
Quote from: "hoverdonkey"What ugly uncertainty?

The fact that people don't know what they are buying and make wrong guesses when they try to work it out. I don't really understand the anger here... it's the same model that online distribution uses. No-one seems to get this irate at iTunes.

But it's a completely different industry. When I buy music, I'm not going to sell it second-hand in a couple of months. You can complete games and when you've done that, the natural thing to do is sell it second-hand. With music, you might not listen to it for years, but you keep it. You don't 'complete' a music album.

TotalNightmare

From that link above...

Quote"The fact that pre-owned is now on PSP is frightening. If consumers can buy new games at knock-down prices, how will the market grow? We're not sure what can be done, but we are making it a priority to look
into it."

Maybe what this really says is that most games on the PSP are shite and people are in a hurry to return them?

Infact, if the games industry was so great at the moment, maybe there wouldnt be a HUGE issue with pre owned titles.

If more games took their time to be better, longer or with more to explore after the main challenge was over, people might be keen to hold on to the title longer.

The fact that there are a lot of cheap, rushed tie in games and such should tell you how bad the market is... i mean, just look in the pre owned bin to see how big it is, how many copies of one title there are and what console has the biggest selection.

Once ive read a good book (like ive just finished NEVERWHERE and HAUNTED) i know that if its good enough, i'll read it again... i wouldnt return it to the book shop as soon as its done.

Unless it was shite, but then, thats what Oxfam is for... not palming off shite, but simply giving them the book for NOWT and letting the sale go to something more deserving...

I love playing thru Eterna Darkness, Katamari or GTA as they are titles ive loved and will always go back to.

The stuff i have sold on tended to be the shite that dissapointed me. i.e.. James Bond Games

Frinky

Quote from: "hoverdonkey"But it's a completely different industry. When I buy music, I'm not going to sell it second-hand in a couple of months. You can complete games and when you've done that, the natural thing to do is sell it second-hand. With music, you might not listen to it for years, but you keep it. You don't 'complete' a music album.

Except that, you do.

jutl

Quote from: "hoverdonkey"But it's a completely different industry. When I buy music, I'm not going to sell it second-hand in a couple of months. You can complete games and when you've done that, the natural thing to do is sell it second-hand. With music, you might not listen to it for years, but you keep it. You don't 'complete' a music album.

The fact that you don't get bored of music so quickly makes iTunes seem fairer, I agree. It's not though...

I guess I'm fairly sanguine about this because it's very likely that once the main distribution channel for games is download, this will happen anyway. Sony are just trying to get people used to the idea. Nintendo are also preparing the public... the Wii virtual console is designed to strangle the ebay retro console market and get that money going into the pockets of the people who created the games originally. The concept of abandonware is likely to gradually die out as increasingly games just go out of support rather than getting deleted.

Purple Tentacle

http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/technology/5016838.stm

Wii to cost $250 in the US.

What do we reckon this will translate to in God's Own Currency then? £200?

Not bad if so.

Suttonpubcrawl

Quote from: "Purple Tentacle"http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/technology/5016838.stm

Wii to cost $250 in the US.

What do we reckon this will translate to in God's Own Currency then? £200?

Not bad if so.

I'd hope it'd be more like £150-£175

Purple Tentacle

Hehe, well yeah, I hope it'll be £99, but the launch price for consoles tends to be twice what it eventually settles down to.

I bought my Gamecube about 18 months in for £99, with Mario Kart, I think that started off at about £200 didn't it?

jutl

Quote from: "Purple Tentacle"Hehe, well yeah, I hope it'll be £99, but the launch price for consoles tends to be twice what it eventually settles down to.

I bought my Gamecube about 18 months in for £99, with Mario Kart, I think that started off at about £200 didn't it?

£150, if I remember rightly...

edit to add: no - it was announced at £150 then dropped to £129 before release:

http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/entertainment/1943247.stm

Purple Tentacle

Crikey, that was good!

Yeah, here's hoping for a £150 Wii then.

I still reckon it will be £200.

hoverdonkey

Anything under £200 would be marvellous and far easier to get approval from Mrs Donkey. She loves the Cube though, so the Wii should be easy.

Frinky

How reliable is the GC hardware?

I currently own 4 Dreamcasts, each one was £5 a piece but they now all suffer from the same resetting problem. I'm not adverse to buying a cheap, used GC, so long as they're reliable.


Stupid Dreamcast.

Purple Tentacle

Never heard of a Cube breaking down. Which is more than I can say for Dreamcasts, bless 'em.

Or PS2s for that matter.

Frankly, I don't think ANY Gamecube has been played enough to cause a breakdown, thanks to the paucity of games.

hoverdonkey

Never had a single issue with the Cube. No freezes, no resets. And it's been carted around the country by its handy handle too.

jutl

Quote from: "Purple Tentacle"Crikey, that was good!

Yeah, here's hoping for a £150 Wii then.

I still reckon it will be £200.

£200 is $374 at the moment, meaning that we'd be paying almost exactly 50% more than the Americans. I don't think that'd be a sustainable position, particularly if they go for a simultaneous launch...

Quote from: "Frinky"How reliable is the GC hardware?

I currently own 4 Dreamcasts, each one was £5 a piece but they now all suffer from the same resetting problem. I'm not adverse to buying a cheap, used GC, so long as they're reliable.


Stupid Dreamcast.

Nintendo hardware is almost always pretty robust. Having said that - all disc-based systems have short lives compared with their cartridge-based predecessors.

Suttonpubcrawl

£200 would be about £60-£70 more than it'll cost in America. I know they rip us off, but not that much!

Frinky

Well, my PS2 is always on, becuase it's a helpful DVD playing/testing unit at uni, and I play DVDs at night to fall asleep with so it stays on overnight. It was one of the first silver ones when they came out (which was the most common model to be returned faulty when I was working there), and it's behaved just fine for 25 months, which is a huge suprise to me.

I might look into a GC, then. Tibetan Singing Bowl got one for about £40 off eBay the other week, he was saying, and that doesn't seem so bad. There are games I'd like to get again, at any rate.

Did Virtua Tennis come out on the GC? I'd really just want the good DC games that we can't play anymore becuase IT ALWAYS FUCKING RESETS

Purple Tentacle

Ha, no economist me. In fact, I believe everything I've typed on here today has been wrong. When's S?S! coming back, I feel vulnerable.


My cynical brain usually does a straight $=£ conversion when it comes to pricing, I'll happily believe the £150 version to keep myself happy.


TotalNightmare

VegaLA HAS to be working for Microsoft...

;o)

yea, thats right. I smilied!

wannafightaboutit?

VegaLA

Lesbeavingyou !!

I'm pretty upset about Sony actually. I love their hardware, I was a big PS1 fan, I did have a PS2 for a while and I always target them for my Cameras. If they fuck up big and easy then it wont be good news for me as a 360 ownner, I want some threat for the 360 so MS keep doing what I want them to do, if Sony are a pushover they'll just stop trying.

did anyone get, or know of anyone, that got a Sony Aibo dog ?

wheatgod

Thats a very common complaint, Google and you'll find a host of fixes.
For example...

Frinky

Thanks for that. I did try it on two of them, I think, and there was no discernable difference. Can't hurt to try again, I guess...