Next Generation Consoles: PS4 vs. XBox One

Television, Movies Games and Books Games & Toys
#21

Pretty sure people still do this, but it would be a nice option to be able to have friends bring their rigs over and LAN them with one disc, (or the one or two Gamers who don’t have that particular game). Honestly doing this could help the non game owner purchase the game after giving it a test run.

It is good that Microsoft reacted and changed the DMR / no resale thing. Personally I don’t like walking into EB Games up here and having games rejected or given $1 credit for it, when they have the same game on the shelves for $11, that’s a huge markup!!

Somehow allow resale of the game, shift some of the resale price to the developers, and BRING DOWN THE FRACKIN’ PRICE OF THE GAMES!!!

#22

Why shift some resale profits to developers? Do used book stores send money to the publishers each month? Nope.

#23

Books also don’t cost 60 bucks a pop. You also aren’t getting brand new quality like you are with digital media.

#24

If anything, I would think that a book NOT costing $60 a pop would only strengthen my point. I’ve purchased plenty of ‘indistinguishable from new’ books and have bought scratched up looking second-hand games, so I fear that doesn’t seem to work either.

#25

Books cost a hell of a lot less to make than a game from production down to marketing. 2K spent something like 200 million just on marketing for Bioshock Infinite alone, and that’s before even accounting for the millions they spent to pay the devs, even at 60 bucks a piece they have to sell a hell of lot of copies to even break even on a game and having a used copy that sells for only 5 bucks within days of release, with all that money going to directly to a store like Gamestop, cuts them out of a sale and any profit. They don’t spend millions just so they author can write a book, not even the biggest selling authors get advances that can match what it costs publishers in the development or games. I’ve seen people say they should lower the 60 dollar price to sell more games but all that would do is make them need to sell even more copies of the same game to break even and stores like Gamestop would still have used copies of those same games selling for 5 bucks cheaper within days of release. It’s an endless cycle that if their isn’t a solution put into place could lead to a point where there are actually fewer games being made. Oh the big franchises will still be made but we could see fewer new IPs in production and new IPs are already getting fewer in number than they were even 15 years ago. Imagine if Bioware hadn’t been able to make Mass Effect or Irrational had not been able to make Bioshock or if any of the other big name new IPs we got this generation hadn’t been able to be made. I think if the console game industry is going to continue to be able to produce many high quality games they are going to have to develop another way of doing business and it’s either going to be DRM, making it so publishers make something off of used game sales or go to a digital only business (which Nintendo is doing already).

#26

Movies cost hundreds of millions to make too and the used DVD or BluRays you can buy of them are of perfect digital quality too, so the whole argument comes apart at the seams.

What’s the root of the entitlement? That’s the real question. Why are they entitled to make money on every single following resale in perpetuity? We don’t accept that for books, cars, used CDs, movies, just about nothing. But somehow, the video game industry has convinced you that they (unlike everyone else) deserve it for some reason.

It’s a puzzler.

#27

Only the big blockbusters cost that much money to make and most of them make back their production costs at the box office, DVD/Blu-Ray/Digital sales are a secondary source of income that is just a bonus on top of box office receipts although there are times that these sales help a movie break even it’s not a common occurence. The biggest problem the movie industry has and likely will have for a long time to come is pirating, not the used/rental movie market which is why most of the big blockbusters now open in the rest of the world first before we get to see them here in America. As for the others, there is an increasing move toward digital (except for cars) products which means no resale. The music industry has a problem with piracy which is part of why you see far less cd sales than you did before the invention of the MP3 player/iPod. Books are going digital more and more now. I’m not saying that game publishers should get part of the used game sales, I personally think console gaming should move to a more PC gaming set up and away from disc based sales (which is exactly what Nintendo doing without most people even being aware of it), I just think that something needs to be done about the video game used game market. You can’t trade in your copy of The Old Republic or World of Warcraft at GameStop so why should you be able to do so for your copy of Call of Duty on your Xbox or PS. Why should GameStop be allowed to make millions of dollars selling used copies of games they didn’t have any hand in producing and undercutting the actual sales of the original product? They can’t do it for PC games. How often do you go in to a store selling used books, cd’s or movies only a few days after release and see multiple copies of that same new release available for sale? It doesn’t happen any where near as often as it does for video games. GameStop will have multiple used copies of a new release within a few days. Also a store making a few bucks profit off a used book, cd or movie (and when you look at it that is really all they are making) is not anywhere near the amount GameStop makes off of a used game that they are selling for only 5 bucks less than the new copy. GameStop at the most paid between 30-35 bucks on trade in for that game (and that’s usually only if its one of the titles they are guaranteeing $30 trade in value within 30 days of launch) but usually they only pay between 15-25 for those games on trade in that they then turn around and sell for 54.99. That is a far greater profit margin than is made off used books, cd’s and movies, which is why video game publishers are so against the used game industry. Books, CD’s and movies usually make their production costs back long before the used market is flush with used copies, that can’t be said for video games. Something has to give with the used game market, especially because of the way GameStop manipulates it to their advantage. Neither the consumer or the publisher benefits from it the way it is now, because both are getting ripped off at this point.

#28

Wow, didn’t think that my earlier response / idea would raise a bit of a debate.
I guess with keeping the games digital it is now possible to “resell” a game and get the profits to the developer. I must stress that if this was done, I WOULD expect the price of the game to go down from $60 to say $40 - $45.
Books are physical things, generally I only buy books that I want to keep and re-read, I actually took a tote of books to a trade in book store, an experience in the least, half the books were rejected, out of that half, I got something like $20 store credit (this store only allows 80% of credit to go towards a purchase). Again, if there was someway to get a small part of resale to the author, hey I’m all for it! He/she worked their butts off, more revenue, more “sales”, might make for more books from that author (bit of a weak argument but there are some books I would have like to see a sequel to!).
I have noticed that my $100 “investment” for an e-reader, does not make my digital book any cheaper, in some cases I have seen the price (on Amazon) of a new release, a $1 or 2 more than the hard copy. Is it me, or should a digital copy cost a LOT less than a physical copy!! Plus what is the cost of “shipping” that book to your e-reader, vs shipping a copy three states over to your favorite book shop!! Again, is my favorite author getting a bigger cut, less, the same??
Cars, I think, can still get money from you, I have owned 4 second (or more) hand cars in my life, I get parts from them. The older the car the more generic parts are available. So manufacturers do get money still coming in from a car no mater who owns it. (Back to video games 2nd hand buyer buying map packs for that game! So some resale going back to the developers.)

In my second hand purchase of games, my map packs are usually a whole lot cheaper, or free, so not much money trickles to them.

It is a bit sticky, but for one thing, able to keep things on your hard drive, is one way for developers to make back their money, do they have the right to wipe that game as soon as you loan / sell it the game to someone else… well… if I sold it, I’m gonna say yes… If I loan it to a buddy for a short time, I want to say no, best case, my buddy goes out and buys the game, worst case he finishes it and gives it back…

#29

I’m not really sure why ebooks aren’t cheaper, especially for new releases because it costs them far less to make an ebook than it does an actual book. It’s hard to justify replacing all the books I’ve bought with ebook versions because it would cost nearly as much as it was to buy them originally, especially for my vast collection of Star Wars EU novels. They really should drop the prices a little more, paying more for an ebook than a paperback is not the way to encourage customers to switch to ebooks. I likely would not have if my parents had not bought me a NookColor for Christmas a few years back. You’re right about used cars though, the manufacturer does still make some money off most used cars, hell they even make more on cars that haven’t been sold as a used car because of parts. I know that there are generics but they are not always available especially for some cars. I have a Jetta I bought used but almost all of the parts I have to buy directly from a VW dealership and they aren’t cheap, even buying them at cost, most places don’t even carry the battery for my car.

Even though publishers do make money off of DLC purchased for used games it’s not really enough to make up the money lost on that used game because they also have to pay to produce that DLC. A 15 dollar DLC will not make up for the nearly 30 dollars they lose when a used game is purchased instead of the new one because each DLC also has a production cost that has to be covered by sales on top of the production cost of the game itself, the only exception might be DLC that launches at the same time as the game as they could have been produced under the same budget as the game (though that is not always the case i.e. Dragon Age Origins). IMO, it’s one thing to buy a used game if a new copy is not longer available (like Dragon Age Origins) but it’s a whole other ballgame to be able to do so when the game is still being produced and sold new, especially when you can buy that used game within days of release.

#30

Well, the dawn of the next generation is here! There’s no release games that I really need to play, so I’m holding off until a true “Killer App” comes out on the PS4.

The Console War rages on, and this is probably one of my favourite clips, from the recent 2-part southpark episode:
http://kotaku.com/bill-gates-murders-for-xbox-one-on-south-park-1468746267

#31

But it will more than make up for the $0 they would have received if the consumer bought a game used that they bought because they didn’t think it was worth its ‘new’ price. Suppose it depends on what perspective you look at used game purchases from.

#32

Anandtech: The Xbox One - Mini Review & Comparison to Xbox 360/PS4

Numerous jaw droppers in this article, of the I’m so underwhelemed my mouth has fallen open kind. For starters let’s compare my modest aging GPU versus Xbox One:

GPU Cores: 800 768
Peak Shader Throughput (teraflops): 1.2 1.31

Historically, whenever I spend $$$ on hardware, it’s because I can no longer resist upgrading to benefit from at least twice a gain in performance. Sure, overall, the XBox One is certainly faster as a consolidated uniform platform with all the in-betweenies in bus and bandwidth signficantly superior than my modular PC. But performance chip wise? No.