Sony: Most Trade-Ins Go Towards Buying New Games

Sony Computer Entertainment president Andrew House has told GameInformer that according to the company's data most of the money raised from trade-ins usually goes towards brand new games.

Asked how Sony, as a platform holder, balances the needs of developers and publishers with the needs of players he said:

“I’ve seen data that the vast majority of used sales go immediately into additional purchases, that they are not somehow being extracted from the overall game economy.

“Those folks have a very strong influence. Their opinions really count, and they translate into a broader audience purchasing more games."

He said that the company is committed to striking a balance between developers and gamers: 

“I take what I hope is a balanced view on that, and it’s the balanced view that any platform holder needs to take. What I mean by that is the balance between understanding very strong concerns of folks whose lifeblood is creating great content (and making sure there is recompense for that) and the other school of thought that it’s a way for the most committed consumers to enjoy a broader range of content than they would if used games did not exist.

“As with many of the debates, the truth probably lies somewhere in the middle. Our approach is, therefore, to balance those two constituencies.”

House went on to add that it was never Sony's intention to enforce DRM on the PS4 and that he was surprised by the speculation that they would do so: 

“I was genuinely surprised in the whole discussion around DRM about one thing, which was the assumption or suspicion that we would try to drive the consumer down a very controlled path. That surprised me, because it was so far from our intentions, and that’s exactly why we felt it so important to make a very clear statement of intent at E3 and beyond.”

Regarding the European launch, on November 29th, he said that while there is only one launch SKU even though “Historically, Europeans tend to gravitate more toward a greater variety of value skus,” Sony has never been more certain of stable supply chain in the months immediately following a console's launch.

A teardown of the PS4 has shown that the console costs $381 to manufacture meaning Sony is likely selling it at a loss. The plan is most likely to recover costs from game sales and in that regard, with one million PS4s sold in North America in the first 24 hours, they should be able to do that.