DarkeSword   Administrators 🎮

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?

That bit about restricting access to paying viewers only is complete and utter bullshit.

I'm not saying they will. All I'm saying is that the market will respond to what people are willing to pay.

NovaReaper is in.

I've been informed that jefepatronjoshi is dropping out as he is unable to mix. Anyone up for joining the Blue Bombers?

32GB Wii U on sale at Tiger Direct.

The existence of the used games market is what keeps the prices of new games so high. When the used games market disappears, you will see retailers and publishers respond by lowering prices, because they have to match what people are willing to pay. Right now they can't match that because used game prices will always be able to undercut new game prices. Stores like Amazon, Best Buy, Walmart, and Target often offer discounts and deals on new games because, for the most part, their business isn't based on a pre-owned library. Amazon and Best Buy have trade-in programs, sure, but neither of them match the scale of Gamestop's, nor do they base their entire business model on them. Have you ever seen a specialty store like Gamestop have sales on new games? No, of course not. They don't do it. The only sales they ever have is on their pre-owned library. But when that library disappears, they'll be forced to start offering discounts and pricing competitively, because that's the only way they'll be able to capture consumers. Look at the PC games market. For all intents and purposes, there is basically no used games market. Digital disto has basically eradicated that. And yet, are games prohibitively expensive? We're all familiar with the deep discounting that Steam does, and other digital retailers often follow suit. Even the new, "unused" PC games are relatively cheap, and it's usually only the multi-platform releases (i.e. the games that Gamestop can influence with publishers over) that are initially expensive. I realize it's hard to swallow, but the used games market isn't just bad for publishers and developers, it's bad for consumers too. It's only good for retailers; specifically, the one or two retailers that have their massive trade-in programs (like Gamestop).

What exactly do you mean by "beer money?" You need to be clear about what you're willing to pay.

ToN is unable to mix anything this week because of extenuating circumstances involving rodents. Would anyone like to fill in for him this week?

Mixes and voting are live for round 2.

Getting a couple of submissions in already. Guys make sure you read all of the submissions instructions, especially this bit right here: We're in round 2. I get a lot of PMs, I need to be able to keep everything straight.

Actually it's basically just buy two of them and you get the other one for free. And it's Kirby's Dream Course.

Yeah, that was actually pretty good.

No worries, it's all good.

Statements like this literally add nothing of value to the conversation.

How about if I say it? Wii U thread is for discussing the Wii U. You haven't "earned" anything. You weren't slighted; there's no gross injustice going on. Crowbar posted in the wrong thread by accident and he fixed it.

I want to remind everyone that voting closes TOMORROW at 2PM EDT. I will not count votes made after that time. Also remember that you need to vote in all active battles for any of your votes to count.

Yeah, come on guys. Post some actual deals that don't require legwork. Also noticing people posting general sales and deal sites. That's not what this thread is for. This thread is specifically for really good deals on products that you can personally recommend. Don't just post a link to Amazon and say "PC games are on sale this week." I can go to CheapAssGamer or SlickDeals to find out about that. Post about products you really care about, where you can say "holy crap, that's available for THAT much?! guys, you all have to buy this right now! it's really awesome and super cheap!!!" That's what I'm looking for here.

Cold Man is from MM&B. Zircon did the same thing because he and Cyril were matched up against each other.

Nice. I needed another motion plus remote.

Live TV integration is something that the 360 has (in a limited regard; only a few channels), but unless I'm mistaken, the One is going to function as a fully featured set-top box (all channels, integrated guide with search, voice commands, etc.). The software features seem like they'll be more robust than what the cable or fiber company can provide on their proprietary set-top boxes. I know that I personally find Verizon's set-top box software to be clunky. Things like interface and usability for media features matter to a lot of people. When I still lived with my parents, they would use my 360 as their DVD and Netflix player, and my father often made comments about how he preferred the 360's interface to the PS3's interface. It made a difference to him, and to my mom, who's not really a technical person. That doesn't mean that the 360 is completely perfect; you can always make improvements to user interface by getting feedback from users and streamlining things. That's what Microsoft is trying to do with Xbox One, and from what I saw from their presentation, the upgraded hardware improves the user experience. That matters. You're conflating two arguments incorrectly. The all-in-one device analogy was brought up in response to people taking issue with games consoles in general doing more than just playing games, not in response to what Microsoft specifically did at their press conference. The preference of consumers towards all-in-one devices is a justification/explanation of Microsoft's overall strategy with the Xbox One, not of their press conference presentation content. Like I said before, Microsoft is planning on focusing on games during E3, which is a few weeks away, and arguably a better place to talk about games content anyway.

In this case it is meaningful. In the analogy, the Xbox One is the smartphone; the device that, in addition to its main function, also provides lots of other features as a media box. It's more convenient to have a device that does a lot of things than to have a lot of devices that all do specific things. Xbox One aims to continue in that regard; 360's media features are very convenient, and the new system is just trying to refine that and keep that going. A lot of people use their 360s for more than just gaming. For a lot of households it's the main media box (DVDs, streaming movies, etc). These features are useful for a lot of people. People are complaining about some supposed move away from gaming as a focus, but the new system isn't really doing anything that the 360 isn't doing already in regards to media; it's just improving things like interface and unifying a lot of the features to make things more cohesive. That's not a bad thing. The system is still going to play games. It's an Xbox; that's the whole point. Sure, Microsoft didn't show a lot of games at the reveal, but that's what E3 is for. The whole idea behind revealing the system before E3 is so that they can use the expo's press conference to focus on gaming software. I don't think anyone likes tuning in during E3—which is ostensibly a gaming event—and seeing a load of stuff about ESPN and live TV services. Now they don't have to, because Microsoft has already gotten it out of the way. They'll mention it of course, but they'll probably spend the bulk of their time talking about new games. Obviously there are some silly things about the new system: game activations, phoning home to verify licenses, second-hand software fees, backwards incompatibility, etc. Those are real issues. The fact that the Xbox One is just refining the media features of the 360 is not.

It's only relevant as an analogy; all-in-one devices are more popular with consumers. XBox One aims to be an all-in-one set-top box that includes media features in addition to gaming features.

How about we not imply that anyone is a rapist? Seriously people, try to be a little less crass.