Sony to prohibit sale of used PS3 games?

OK, time to come clean a bit first. Perhaps you remember, if not click here for link, but I wrote a piece in November about the Sony BMG rootkit debacle where I proclaimed that I would not buy Sony products as long as they continued to do business that way.

Sometimes life just has a way of kicking you in the butt with such proclamations. For past few months I had been looking at HD TV sets in the 50 to 55" range. I did my research and everything kept pointing to the Sony 50" SXRD. Everything except for my principles. So I went and kept looking and was hoping for Toshiba to push out sets based on their upcoming SED technology, but that got pushed back until 2008. Basically, the decision boiled down to getting the Sony. Sorry principles, but I wanted an HDTV now (my 35" is almost 10 years old and as such due for replacement) and quality as well as true 1080 resolution were definitely the main features I looked at. The SXRD just flat out beats up just about everything else out there right now. Doesn't hurt that I got a good discount from Sony Only in Portland (nice salespeople there by the way) along with 24-same-as-cash financing.

Anyhow, while I like my TV, so much so that I apparently persuaded my brother to get the 60" SXRD, it apparently is made by one of the few sane branches of Sony.

At least if you take this new story about Sony's plans to quash sales of used PS3 games at face value.

I don't know if it's true, but I can certainly see Sony's execs taking a serious look at this option. To which all I can say is pretty much wow, what large huevos these guys have. Yeah sure Sony, you've sold hundreds of millions of PlayStation and PS2s, but that doesn't mean that you can't lose that marketshare in the blink of an eye (can you say Sega?).

I seriously hope this story isn't true as it could put a big damper on sales of the PS3 for Sony. While I will probably just get the Xbox 360, the level of competition we currently have in the console market is very good for consumers.

Such a scheme could effectively stop Gamefly or Blockbuster, for instance, from renting out PS3 games, which would have a huge chilling effect on sales of games and hardware. Kind of ironic that this rears its ugly head now after I had just written about how great Gamefly is for the industry.

Just gotta hope that a lot of sentiment against this idea is posted on blogs, forums and elsewhere to the point where Sony gets the message.

Otherwise, there's a very real and palpable chance that Sony will be the also ran in the battle of the new generation consoles.