@XboxWon @YoreLore And I did post that with paragraph breaks - Gamespot's forum removed them. Sorry to the tl;dr people. :-)

@XboxWon @YoreLore I'm happy to deny it. You're not thinking beyond the obvious. A person who sells on a game they bought is using the resell value to subsidize the original purchase. Since the game is effectively cheaper for them, they can then spend the money on multiple titles instead of just one.
The people who buy second-hand are also getting the game cheaper, so they too can buy more titles. The alternative is that everyone buys only one game at full price. Since big AAA titles are often must-buys for people, the effect would be tonnes copies of Halo sold, and noone takes a chance on that fantastic new game that isn't the sequel of a sequel., causing any developer that creates something out-of-the-box to be punished for not playing it safe.
The second-hand market means that about the same number of games get bought, but more people play them, and the money gets spread more around different games. That's good for the industry, and it makes consoles a better buy (since you get to play more titles with them).
Second-hand sales are a money-spinner for games shops, and Microsoft wants in on that - it has nothing to do with supporting developers.

@puukusa I think The Sims needs multiplayer about as much as Sim City did... which is not at all. The whole game is about customizing life exactly as the player wants it to be; I can't see how other people can be anything but a detriment to that.

I remember people freaking out back when Sims 3 came out that the AI now aged/moved out/married their family's neighbours, thereby destroying the stories they had in their heads and wanted to play out in the game. You couldn't have multiplayer without increasing that effect unless you made it observation only, and that's not multiplayer, that's the same always-on DRM excuse that was used for Sim City...

@kohle36 I can't say I agree with the depth of his feeling, but this hit enough truths to be enormously funny.

@CrouchingWeasel I don't think anyone's said any of those 3 games lost money. They just didn't meet sales expectations (ie. didn't make as much profit as expected). Companies base their yearly budgets on estimating how much income they'll make from that year's game releases. That decides how much they can spend on development of future projects, moving into different markets, paying for staff or infrastructure, etc. In this case, sales in the NA and European markets were much lower than anticipated, so they've spent money that hasn't been made up by game profits, causing the company a loss.

Since they intend to increase the number of mobile games in their lineup as part of their recovery strategy, that's clearly an area that *did* meet expectations, so sadly I wouldn't hold my breath for price drops there.

@gastof @ilantis Of course not, especially with the expensive controller the Wii-U has. But it *is* significant that this will be the first time in years that Nintendo hasn't had lower price on their side. And affordability is a big driving factor for the mainstream demographic Nintendo aims at.

Arguably, jumping around the lounge room playing tennis is also an easier sell than staring at a second screen in your lap. People do that every day with mobile devices, so it doesn't look immediately innovative (not saying it's *not*, just that it's harder to push it as a new experience in a tv ad).

Why would it hurt Wii-U sales? The only people who'll be interested are people who don't already have a Wii, and most current Wii-U buyers will be upgrading from their current Wii, or Xbox/PS3 owners who think the Wii-U might now meet acceptable graphics standards. Neither group are prospective Wii buyers.

Assuming the info is true, they'll be after the same demographic that continued to buy the PS2 for a couple of years after the PS3 came out - mostly families buying them for their 7-year-olds. The PS2 (and now the Wii) had hordes of cheap software aimed at kids. As soon as the hardware price becomes low enough, a new audience opens up that has no overlap with the next-gen console buying market.

I'm another one who prefers the lower quality blue skies to the higher quality grey (although the DirectX10 Very High Quality setting is gorgeous). Mind you, once the smoke and debris start flying, it'll all look grey anyway. :-)