Microsoft sees value in pre-owned market

Microsoft has revealed that it sees the positive aspects of a healthy pre-owned business in the video games industry.

Chris Lewis, Microsoft's vice-president of interactive entertainment business EMEA, told GamesIndustry.biz that game trading is part of the industry's overall "ecosystem".

He explained that the growing popularity of pre-owned games has the potential to encourage consumers to purchase products which they would not previously have bought.

"I can see the positive in it, because I can see that what you then get is more and more people touching, playing, experiencing a game that they may not otherwise have access to," he said.

"I think you've got to try and extract some positive from it and that's undoubtedly a good factor - a positive swirl of ecosystem that results."

Lewis also pointed out that premium downloadable content (DLC) will prove an important tool for developers and publishers to avoid consumers quickly selling games back to retailers.

"I think it [DLC] will be a great enhancement to the way that people experience games," he said.

"If some additional content is available via the Xbox Live service, for instance, that further enriches the game experience and might encourage folks to hang on their games for a bit longer."