First, publishers blamed pirates for stealing sales… now they’re blaming the used game market. Nintendo doesn’t complain about this shit, but their games get pirated regularly, despite extremely robust software sales on every one of their platforms. When publishers talk like this, it’s a sign of desperation, and it just means nobody’s PLAYING their games-- legally or no.
It was popular to blame Dreamcast’s death on piracy, but the reality is most vg fans never played DC games-- or wanted to-- and didn’t know shit about Sega’s library, before it was ported to PlayStation or Nintendo. The general public just didn’t like Sega’s style.
My point is, it’s probably a better idea to blame low sales on something other than piracy and the 2nd hand market. If piracy was that huge of a problem, there’s no way DS should generate monster software sales when it’s stupidly easy to hack and pirate on that system.
So the problem must be low sales caused by lack of interest, for whatever reason (maybe $60-80 really is too fucking much to ask for a video game… kind of like how $600 was too much for a console? Maybe not everyone has a badass HD home theater, required to read a game’s ‘HD’ text and listen to 5.1 sound effects?).
I really can’t see this current business model continuing into the next console generation. At one point a publisher’s REALLY going to do something fucked up in an effort to shore up sales, and consumers are gonna say “fuck that” and grind everything to a halt. It’s either that or publishers stay passive, without getting the money back from the games they put out.
Instead, what might end up happening in the future is attempt another hardware ‘refresh’ (like MS and Sony are attempting with that motion control crap) to spur interest in the public, before the real next gen consoles come along. OR, next-gen consoles are going to be lower-end, more cost-effective and slightly Wii-like. No matter what happens, when the new consoles are announced at E3 or wherever, the companies WILL make a pitch to not only consumers, but publishers as well, to make sure that dev costs are low and game sales can be maximized somehow.
End of my stupid rant
PS. I’ve been playing used games since the fucking 90s, because there’s nothing wrong with buying something that’s pre-owned. There’s no way I’d play as many games as I have if it weren’t for bargain bins at rental stores or Japanese 2nd hand shops. That’s just what a gamer is (or used to be) all about. Publishers act like if you don’t camp out at midnight for Smackdown vs Raw XLVIII you’re their enemy. I’m pretty sure publishers are more content with collecting profits than acting like Herpes-rashed assholes to consumers. But don’t blame us just because most people can’t, or don’t want to, buy every single game immediately.