PS4 Rumours Spark Gamestop Investor Panic

This morning, a patent filed by Sony which will render second hand games useless caused investors to start selling off their shares in Gamestop, a video games store which makes a large amount of money from used games sales.

The technology proposed would tag the game to the user’s console and / or PSN ID, which would mean that you would be unable to sell the game back to stores. Thepatent even states that ”As a result, the dealing of electronic content in the second-hand markets is suppressed, which in turn supports the redistribution of part of proceeds from sales of the electronic content to the developers.”

This technology would mean that stores who buy and sell second hand games would lose a massive amount of money and many customers who would buy the second hand games only. These ideas have obviously gotten into investor’s heads as Gamestop stock dropped $1.57 or 6.1% to $24.09. This came despite many people suggesting that companies always file patents and none of them will necessarily be used in future products.

To try and calm the investors, Michael Pachter gave his advice. ”Sony would be materially hurt if its console blocked used games and competitor consoles from Microsoft and Nintendo did not,” Pachter said to investors.

As Sony has been filing various patents recently (such as a dualshock / move hybrid and in-game advertisements), I wouldn’t worry too much that this will be used on the much rumoured PS4 / Orbis as drastic changes which seem negative for consumers would risk the competitors gaining an advantage.

Source: Eurogamer.net

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