Shutting Down the Used Game Market?

Sony has applied for a patent covering technology that could prevent video game discs from being played on multiple systems, thus potentially shutting down the used market for these games. Responding to that story and related rumors about Sony and Microsoft blocking used games on their next-generation consoles, this piece at Ars Technica offers both a Video Game Econ 101 and recommendations for how this change could work well for most parties. The recommendations start with cutting prices on new games to balance consumers' loss of resale value and to nurture demand among those unwilling to pay $60 for a new game.

If the console makers are indeed planning to limit game resale, it's interesting that they've only come to do so now. After all, used game sales become irrelevant with digital distribution, and I'd expect all-digital (or at least primarily digital) distribution of games has to be coming pretty soon.

It could be that the inability to share or resell downloaded games will impact consumer expectations enough that a block on sharing or reselling physical copies won't draw much ire. I remember some commentary on the limits of sharing Kindle books when that technology was new, but I think that limitation of e-books is pretty much taken as a given now.