Reddit mentions of Halo 4 (Xbox 360)

I posted this yesterday: >there is 100% guarantee that the person would have bought a game, as used games and new games are substitutes for each other. All that matters is price. Seeing as a new game is a superior quality good (guarantee that it will work, instruction manual, original boxing) they will be willing to pay a certain price over the used game. As long as the price is reduced to that amount, they will pay the price for a new game, and hence purchase a new game, which will enable the actual developer to recoup some revenue, and not have it go to gamestop for arbitrage, which is rent seeking imo. For example, a copy of Halo 4 new is now worth £13.63 + £2.99UK delivery at http://www.amazon.co.uk/gp/offer-listing/B0054OGIRQ/ref=dp_olp_new?ie=UTF8&condition=new&qid=1369676689&sr=8-1

It is worth £9.00 + £2.03UK delivery used http://www.amazon.co.uk/gp/offer-listing/B0054OGIRQ/sr=8-1/qid=1369676689/ref=olp_tab_used?ie=UTF8&colid=&coliid=&condition=used&me=&qid=1369676689&seller=&sr=8-1

Were the used game function of games to be removed, all those who previously bought the game for this used game price would take a look at the new game and decide that it is too much (or otherwise they would have bought the new game). The seller of the game would have to be stupid to not reduce the price of a new game, as the variable cost of producing game is basically nothing, and hence they should go for revenue maximisation/ sales maximisation. (They have significant fixed costs which they need to cover however, and used games prevent them from being able to do this.) This is done by reducing the price to attract all those who would have bought a used game had they been available for sale. This can be dependent on time, so as to maximise revenue even further: charge a high price for a certain period of time to get the original customers who would have bought a new game to pay the 13.63 price, and then reduce the price to entice all the people who would have bought a used game

The reason that they do not reduce the price of the new game in order to get the used games sales originally is because the price of the used game can go right down, as it has very little utility to someone who has completed the game, and they can sell the game on for far less than a games developer would be willing to sell it for, because, as stated, the games' original development costs must be covered, whereas the person selling the used game has no such concerns.

All used game markets do is take away revenue from the games developer, and give it to the arbitrageur, namely gamestop.

Look at Steam. There are literally no variable costs to the distribution of new games online, so my example above works perfectly. Steam realise that they can charge a very high price at launch for those willing to pay this price (those who want the game most) and then just keep on reducing prices without having to worry about being price out of the market by used games sellers. They still face competition through other digital game distributions. I have often bought games from Steam's competitors, because they are willing to offer a lower price than Steam. The exact same should happen for the next generation of gaming. Even if Sony doesn't offer it, and MS does, developers will realise that they will face a higher level of profit margins for developing for the XB1 if they can recoup revenue instead of it going to gamestop. What matters is whether the majority of people who actually buy the consoles (the majority of whom are not hardcore/core gamers) will suddenly decide to go to the PS4 instead (and this is assuming that the PS4 don't decide to employ a similar system - judging by the fact that EA killed their online pass system, I'm going to say that both have a used game system employed).>

I think if the price of a used game is now fixed against a new game, this allows developers to reduce the price of their new game without fear of being undercut by used games. As long as competition between new game sellers remains high then this should be positive for the consumer and developer. Not for gamestop of course.

Is it really that hard to just stick the name into amazon?

http://www.amazon.co.uk/Microsoft-Halo-4-Xbox-360/dp/B0054OGIRQ/ref=sr_1_2?ie=UTF8&qid=1346716252&sr=8-2