Games Thirst – Amazing Life
Atari founder Nolan Bushnell has reckoned that the main reason Microsoft wanted to implement Xbox One DRM was to prevent piracy, however the Redmond, Washington company “totally screwed it up”.
“They totally screwed it up. When I heard some of the announcements and the analysis of it, I’m shaking my head and saying, ‘What in the hell were they thinking?’ Of course that wasn’t going to go down well,” Bushnell said.
“They want to sell Office as a service,” he added. “They want it all to be in the cloud, they want to rent you stuff, not sell you. And when you look at some of the things about systems and procedures, they really don’t like software as an object because it’s too easy to get it ripped off.
In the back of their mind they look at a billion Chinese people, and they sell less software there than a small town in Texas.”
When asked about the used games market, Bushnell actually lent his support to the second hand segment of the industry, stating that it’s good for business overall.
I actually think that trade-ins are good and they bring in more money, now here’s the following thread: I believe that in a lot of ways, a $50 game is discontinuity. There are more people who can’t afford a $50 game than can. And so what has always been an ability to do is, if you can’t afford to get a new pair of jeans you go to thrift shop and buy a used pair of jeans, and the same thing goes with games.
Some people are willing to be the person who is the first on their block to a game and pay full price. if you’re willing to wait a month or two you can get it for half price. What happens in that case is that the person who bought the first instance has a little bit of money so he can continue to buy new games at a higher rate than he would have otherwise.
I think the industry gets more money if you look at the whole picture because I think that people will spent what they can afford, and if you make the hurdle too high for people who are not as well off, they just wont be able to buy the game at all.
Do you agree with the Atari founder? Share your thoughts.
Via VG247.
