Microsoft Say You Can Trade In Xbox One Games, But The Buyer Will Need To Pay The Full Price

TSA Staff 30 Comments

Following on from an evening of rather messy back-and-forth website updates and quotes, Microsoft’s Phil Harrison has attempted to clarify the whole situation around whether or not you’ll be able to trade in Xbox One games.

Well, it appears you can. However, there’s a fee to the buyer. And it’s not a small fee, either.

“The bits that are on that disc, you can give it to your friend and they can install it on an Xbox One,” said Harrison, speaking to Kotaku. “They would then have to purchase the right to play that game through Xbox Live.”

Kotaku then asked, “They would be paying the same price we paid, or less?”

“Let’s assume it’s a new game, so the answer is yes, it will be the same price,” replied Harrison.

Games on Xbox One are shared among users of a console, rather than individual user accounts. So you can share the game with others as long as they’re using the same console.

Sell it on, and the end user needs to connect to Xbox Live and pay the full price to play it.

That pretty much rules out pre-owned games on the platform. It also massively affects rentals, although we can imagine certain publishers are delighted with the news. That’s assuming all this is true, but Phil Harrison is Microsoft’s corporate vice president.

He’d know, right?

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30 Comments

  1. This explains EA’s bit of “good PR” the other day then…

  2. Nobody will be able to sell on their games as no-one would buy them knowing they still have to pay full price to play it. It’s utterly stupid.

    • It really is.

      Utterly ridiculous move.

      Sony, please, PLEASE don’t do this.

      • Might be the “lack” of support from EA a sign that indeed Sony are not doing something like this?

        It’s still weird that such a big change would not be adopted by both companies or none.

  3. First of all, “Microsoft’s Phil Harrison” still feels strange to me.

    Secondly: Ah.

  4. It’s a digital only console with a legacy delivery system attached.

    Disappointing anti-consumer attitude.

    • This is a deceptively brilliant way of describing it.

    • A PSPgo in a black box. :)

      • As a device for legal gaming it was terrible, now piracy however it’s a dream (; I don’t pirate games mostly but it’s hard not to with all the psp games on one system digitally. (Crisis Core ETC)

  5. Sony would have to be completely off their rocker to go down the same road. Sony have a real possibility to steal the Xbox hardcore gamers over to their camp if they don’t follow suit.

    If Sony do decide to decend into this madness, you can be rest assured i will not be doing as much gaming as i am now.

    • If Sony do decide to descend into this madness, it looks like my PS3 will be with me for a good few years yet ;)

  6. And I thought it couldn’t get any worse. We should be excited about a new console announcement. Not dreading the next piece of information that’s leaked. This must be the worst console reveal ever.

  7. Sony now have the opportunity to grab Microsoft by the short and curly’s. Here’s hoping Sony go down the common sense route, otherwise PS4 is going to be a whole lot less attractive.

    That said, Didn’t Yoshida say Internet connections were not required to play games out of the box? If I remember that correctly then I think PS4 might be safe.

    • “When Kotaku’s Stephen Totilo pressed Harrison on the specifics of how long you could be offline before the Xbox One stopped you from playing a single-player game, Harrison responded with, “I believe it’s 24 hours.” -IGN

  8. If anyone’s interested you can pre-order the Xbox One at Zavvi for £399.99. Anyone?

    • Only if I can trade it in and get the next poor bastard to pay full price, to me.

  9. So the new owner pays the full price… And the first owner will still lose their license? How does it all work precisely?

    • You don’t need the disc after the initial install and since both paid full price for the game, they will both be able to play it.
      At least that’s how I understand it.
      I wonder what Average Joe would say about full price second hand games with no resale value.

  10. Teraflop.

    • Mine goes like that after 1 too many beers as well :p

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