Xbox One: 10 Reasons It's Already Lost The Console War

6. Used Game Fees

Another massive point of contention with next-gen gaming has been the efforts made to clamp down on the used game market by essentially making it as difficult and expensive as possible compared to just buying the game brand new. The Xbox One will reportedly charge players an unlock fee to play a used game on their console; presumably each game will come with a code that must be inputted, locking the game to the Xbox Live account associated with that console, and though you could theoretically log into your buddy's Xbox Live account to play a game of his you've borrowed, it's a lot of busy work, and presumably, your buddy won't be able to log into his own account in the mean-time. For many, the real issue is how much this unlock fee will be - if you buy a used game for £15 and have to pay a £5 unlock fee, it wouldn't be so bad, but the current rumours and estimates suggest that the unlock fee will be close to the retail cost of the game, rendering the purchase of a used game potentially more expensive than just buying it brand new. Microsoft's plan is clearly to render the used game market cost-prohibitive to players if this is true, and it's a horribly tacky, crass practice. Of course, we're still waiting to hear for sure what sort of fees we'll be facing, but it's not looking good...
 
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Frequently sleep-deprived film addict and video game obsessive who spends more time than is healthy in darkened London screening rooms. Follow his twitter on @ShaunMunroFilm or e-mail him at shaneo632 [at] gmail.com.