Speaking to CVG, President of Sony’s Worldwide Studios for SCE Shuhei Yoshida gave his view point on the demand for pre-owned fees among developers across the world. This was in regards to Microsoft’s announcement that it would leave fees for lending and selling games to the game publishers for its Xbox One.
Did Yoshida think many publishers would jump at the thought of charging a fee for used games? He retorted that, “The trend is that more and more games are becoming a service. It’s a transitional period. It used to be just what’s on the disc and then that became what’s on the disc, plus additional content.
“Now it’s becoming what’s on the disc, plus additional content and additional services. So when it becomes more and more like an online services model, going forward publishers will need to get revenue from these additional services they are going to provide. It’s just natural. It’s not like ‘used’ or ‘not used’ – these are services. You cannot use services and give them to other people. It’s going to be always account based in that case.”
The PlayStation 4, meanwhile, won’t have any restriction on used games nor will it restrict the sale of the same. It has also been reported that Sony won’t allow an “online pass”-like system for PSN.