Details leaked earlier this week that Microsoft's next generation Xbox, dubbed Xbox 720, may restrict gamers from playing used games on it. Matt Hodges, a GameStop spokesperson, said that when surveyed, the store's most active customers said that they would be less likely to purchase the console if there were a ban on pre-owned games.
GameStop, a company based in Texas, makes nearly half its profit from the sale of used discs. Its loyalty program members made up 75 percent of GameStop's sales in 2012, and they spent about five times as much as non-members of the PowerUp program. The company has offered to share loyalty program information with console makers and game developers to help make the next-generation products more appealing to their demographic.
Recent information from Edge.com suggested that the next generation Xbox would be very big on online functionality, though games will still be available in physical form. These games would be shipped with an activation code, which would make them unusable for anyone but the initial user.
Sony also recently filed a patent that would have essentially the same function-- blocking used games.
When the Edge story hit the internet on Wednesday, GME's price plunged 6 percent to $25.20. But Michael Olson, an analyst with Piper Jaffray Cos., told Bloomberg.com that the company is confident that both the new PlayStation and Xbox will support used games-- and that the price drop is an opportunity to buy.
Sources have confirmed that the next Xbox will have an AMD eight-core x64 1.6GHz CPU, a D3D11.x 800MHz graphics solution and 8GB of DDR3 RAM, Edge said. Microsoft's next generation of games will be produced on 50GB-capacity Blu-ray, and the console will be shipped with improved Kinect hardware, though there's no information on whether it would be bundled with the system or sold separately.
The Verge reported that the Xbox 720 would support speech recognition and speech-to-text functions. Microsoft is also allegedly also planning to improving the Kinect to the point that it can detect how many people there are in a room, and then suggest games that everyone might enjoy.
Sony is less than two weeks away from unveiling its new PlayStation, and it looks like the Xbox isn't too far off, either.
