I heard a little about this on the BBC Click program and what it means is that the buying and selling of second hand games will be killed off ..pretty cool stuff huh anyway heres more on it
While internal teams at Sony, Microsoft and Nintendo are all hard at work designing and revising new console hardware, at least one next-generation console manufacturer may implement a way to kill used game sales faster than digital downloads.
As metioned by Kotaku earlier today, Microsoft is reported to be testing a software or hardware method on the next version of the Xbox hardware designed to halt the ability to play used games. While this report doesn?t indicate that this feature will definitely be included in the next version, the appeal to developers and publishers is likely incredibly high. This type of solution would make it vastly more difficult for retailers like Gamestop to resell traded-in games for bloated prices, thus cutting into publisher sales. However, it?s also likely to anger consumers that want to unload old games on sites like eBay and severely harm video game rental services like Gamefly or Redbox.
The most likely scenario of this protection method would tie anyone with an active Xbox Live account and Internet connection to a specific disc of a new game release. However, finding a way to bind one game per system in an offline environment may also strike a severely devastating blow to piracy. Since piracy has increased by 20 percent over the last five years and impacts the gaming industry?s revenue each year to a certain degree, this new system of protection may halt software pirates from distributing game data when the code will only work on the first console that it?s played upon.
Gaming publishers have already been fighting the used game market by locking content within the game until a a one-time use code is entered. This allows publishers like Warner Bros. Interactive Entertainment to lock Catwoman?s single player narrative within Batman: Arkham City or Electronic Arts to require a code to enable the multiplayer portion of Battlefield 3. Any consumer that purchases a used copy of these games from retailers or other sources is at the mercy of the publisher in regards to the amount of additional money spent on digital codes.
Digital Download Countdown
Vita-PlayStation-Store-2While this potential used game protection scheme is definitely alarming, the gaming industry is already in a transition period between physical disc sales and digital downloads. As broadband speeds and data caps increase over the next five years, downloading a future version of Call of Duty may become the preferred practice over waiting in line at the local Best Buy.
Sony and Microsoft could also take a page out of Steam?s playbook and allow consumers to download the entire game in advance of the release date to balance server load, then unlock the ability to play the game at midnight. However, storage capacity of hard drives within the next generation of consoles would likely have to start around 500GB or 1TB to store multiple 20GB games. Similar to OnLive?s business model, cloud gaming could also be a potential solution introduced by Sony or Microsoft.
The rest here
http://www.digitaltrends.com/gaming/...gaming-market/