It's not delusional. It's economics. And it's not about companies "giving back" or having anything to do with feelings.
When a product is expensive and there's no option to buy a cheaper, used copy, that product will not sell as much. Less people will buy, because they are not willing to pay the higher price. They will wait for a discount or price drop. That means publishers and retailers will be making less money than they used to.
Publishers will respond to this by adjusting the MSRP of the product, and retailers will respond by having sales. When you can't sell a product because it's too expensive, you lower the price. That's one of the most basic rules of economics.
Also I'm not sure what you mean by "they had every chance to go after used game sales in the past and choose [sic] to do nothing." What could they have done in the past to address used games that they aren't trying to do now? How would you, as a publisher, monetize second-hand sales of your products?