It came as a shock when customers were offered to sell back digital games for a 10 percent more price than the cost price. As per news, this was Microsoft's plan and it brought a lot of questions in the minds of company officials.
In a recent Xbox Survey, customers were asked if they were ready to sell their digitally purchased games back for 10 percent of its cost price. To this, industry analysts Colin Sebastian and Michael Pachter remarked that if Microsoft is considering the sell back option seriously, it is taking a big risk. "The survey brings serious concerns about GameStop's sales market," said Sebastian, as per GameSpot. He also said that the trade price offered by Microsoft was too low. To this, marketing manager of Xbox Aaron Greenberg replied that the survey was just for general analysis, and Microsoft is not really planning to go for the game trade-in.
It is a matter of fact that digital trade-in will become functional soon, considering the high sales of digital games today and in the future. In any retail store, the number of used games are almost equal to, or more than, the number of new ones. This is because used games give more profit for retailers, with higher margins, than the sales of new ones. The outcome of digital trade-in on retail stores is believed to be great, but for the brick and mortar outlets, it could have a negative effect.
The digital games sell back idea has to be supported by other gaming companies to make it operational. Microsoft is giving importance to this program as it feels that in future, digital games are surely going to be a convention. For this, the sell back costs need to be designed carefully to support the developers as well as customers.