As a strong advocate of the video game industry, Weerasuriya was at last month’s E3 event promoting the new game, and giving a very interesting interview in which he bashed Gamestop’s business practices of making money from used games.

Weerasuriya states, “I think the problem is right now there are retail outlets that are really taking everybody for a ride. You can’t make a living at the expense of everybody else.”

He explains how the practices not only hurt the developers, but the consumers as well.

“Unfortunately, they’re not just making a living at the expense of developers but also the consumers because the consumers will see less and less games come out if developers can’t get revenue to make more new titles and keep going as a business,”

The developer goes on to tell a story, “I walked into a GameStop, asked for a new copy of a game and without telling me [the store clerk] tried to slip me a used copy and wanted to sell it to me for $5 less,

“I flipped out in front of the guy. I was like, ‘Dude, wrong guy… You’re doing this to the wrong guy’… There are developers out there who are making games for [years] and some of them will go down purely because the revenue stream is basically flawed and creating this place where developers don’t see even a little part of it.”

He continues for a solution, “I don’t think we should stop used games, but we should do something about getting part of the revenue back from GameStop and places like that. That’s not penalizing consumers; they’ll still get what they want.”

Do you agree/disagree with the developer? Comment below.

Source

This is GameStop’s memo about the PS4:

1. PS4 Reservation New Information

Starting now, through this weekend and until further notice, Sony has allowed us to take unlimited preorders beyond your current allotments. In other-words, the flood gates are open for PS4 system reserves, we will let you know when to stop preordering based on limited quantities

A lot of GameStop stores weren’t even near completing the PS4 pre-order amount, because of its high quota. There was a report where one GameStop store started off with the pre-order limit of 24 PS4s but increased through the week to 138. That store recently reported having 66 pre-orders taken for the PS4, which means they would still have 72 pre-order spots open.

Gamestop executives told President/CEO of Sony Computer Entertainment of America Jack Tretton that they would buy “every single [PS4] unit” that is produced.

Since the PS4 pre-order “flood gates are open”, it does seem that Gamestop will get their hands on as many PS4’s as they can. Maybe this business move will bring in more consumers to pre-order the PS4, or maybe it is to mock the Xbox One’s very low amount of pre-orders which was recently reported that Gamestop have stopped taking.

Both consoles will be available this holiday, so we would have to wait and see which next generation prevails.

Here is a picture of the actual note:

Source

Polygon decided to do their own investigation and called stores all around the country to pre-order the next-gen console. The results were pretty interesting.

A store manager in California stated, “We were only given an allocation of 16 Xbox Ones but we have 60 PlayStation 4′s and we’re still taking orders.” While another store in Texas said, “There’s no point trying any GameStop’s. We’ve stopped that SKU until we get notice.”

Turns out the number of pre-orders assigned are by the companies themselves; Microsoft provides the merchandise, therefore sets the number of consoles that should be available to each retailer.

In Ohio a store manager mentioned, “All stores have been told to stop until we get some more units from Microsoft.”

Rumor has it that Microsoft is trying to make it seem like their console is more favored by limiting their inventory per store. There have also been unconfirmed reports of the Xbox One having manufacturing problems. Maybe the company is being careful by not overproducing what they won’t be able to sell.

Either way, it is a fact that the PS4 is doing much better with pre-orders since E3, but will the recent change of events from the Xbox One’s strict policies be enough to turn them around? Sony’s executives have already predicted a positive outlook on their PS4, even saying there may be a shortage of the console.

All in all if you want any of the next-gen consoles, the best thing to do would be to pre-order them now because it is not guaranteed if there will be any left in time for the holidays.

What do you users think about Microsoft setting such a low quota for their Xbox One pre-orders?

Shane Bell by the username@UF_Shane has recently tweeted, “Went to my local @GameStop and you can’t pre order an #XBoxOne anymore, it has been pulled from their system. Interesting”

We are still unsure of what the exact problem is, but there are many scenarios that could’ve been. It could’ve been a problem with that particular store, or maybe even all the stores worldwide. The store may have been given a limit to the number of pre-orders available. The demand could’ve been more than the supply of Xbox One’s. The list goes on, and we hope to find the root of the problem soon. Keep checking back to stay updated.

Here is a screenshot of the actual tweet:

Has anybody else experienced a problem pre-ordering their next-gen consoles?

• PS4 Knack Bundle – $519.97
• PS4 Call of Duty: Ghosts Bundle – $459.98
• PS4 Killzone: Shadow Fall – $519.97
• PS4 Drive Club Bundle – $519.97
• PS4 EA Sports Bundle – $579.96
• PS4 Watchdogs Bundle – $459.98
• PS4 Battlefield 4 Bundle – $459.98
• PS4 NBA Live 14 Bundle – $459.98
• PS4 Need For Speed Rivals - $459.98
• PS4 Assassin’s Creed IV: Black Flag Bundle – $459.98
• PS4 Madden NFL 25 Bundle – $459.98

Which bundle do you want?

However, major games retailer Gamestop has sent out an email to all its power up rewards members today which discloses some major information regarding the console-maker’s used-game policy. Gamestop firstly discloses that there will be no fee which will be needed to pay for trading in first-party Microsoft titles. This means players will be able to trade in and buy used games from participating retailers without any extra fee. Other publishers might have different rules regarding the sell of used games however.

Another major news which has been revealed is that other publishers might decide NOT to have the 30-day restriction which Microsoft has imposed before you can lend a game to your friend. This means you might not be required to have a guy in your friend list for 24 hours before being able to give him your game if it’s some other publisher. What it also means is that you might NOT be able to give your game at all to your friend if the other publisher prevents it.

Third party publishers may opt in or out of supporting game resale and may set up business terms or transfer fees with retailers. Microsoft does not receive any compensation as part of this. In addition, third party publishers can enable you to give games to friends. Loaning or renting games won’t be available at launch, but we are exploring the possibilities with our partners.

Author

Microsoft is playing it safe it seems as they don’t want to be the first publisher to charge consumers a fee for buying a used game. It appears they want someone else to bear the outrage by introducing such a system.

Gamestop has also shed some light on why the console requires you to log in every 24 hours. They claim that it is due to the console requiring to check if you’ve traded any games to others during this time.

Below is the full email sent out by GameStop. We’ll update the article if we find any other important points we missed.

A photo of one of the displays sent out to Gamestop stores and procured by IGN reveals that promo material regarding the next CoD game will be sent out to its stores worldwide on April 29 and are being allowed to be displayed from May 1 onwards. This suggests that the next Call of Duty is likely to be announced on the same day.

The last CoD title – Black Ops 2 – was also announced on May 1 last year during the NBA playoffs so it won’t be a surprise if Activision follows the same schedule this year.

If reports are to be believed, the new CoD title will be called Call of Duty: Ghosts, being developed by Infinity Ward.

Stay tuned for more updates.

“Based on the survey of loyal customers of GameStop, 34% of them expect to get a PlayStation 4 in the next twelve month. Moreover, nearly 900 thousand of GameStop clients signed up to receive information about the PS4,” says the survey report.

“Although we have been given no official numbers by Sony, we do believe that demand will far outpace the supply of this product during the launch window.” Said by GameStop president

Sony internally expects the PS4′s annual shipments to reach 16 million units in 2013.

The PS4 will launch  this year Holiday.