‘Anti-preowned PS4 foolish,’ says Pachter

Rumors circulating earlier today claiming the PlayStation 4 would employ tech preventing it from playing used games have drawn criticism from analyst Michael Pachter.

Calling such a decision stupid, Pachter said GameStop could simply refuse to stock a console that would be so damaging to their business.

"It isn’t really in Sony’s or Microsoft’s best interests to block used games," he told Games Industry International.

"It would benefit Activision and EA slightly, and would hurt GameStop a great deal. If Sony unilaterally did this, I could see GameStop refusing to carry their console, and sales of the PS4 would therefore suffer."

"If one does it and the others don’t, the one who does it will see a loss of market share."

This means the odds any major consoles block used games are slim to none.

None of the console manufacuters "are stupid enough to do this unilaterally," claims Pachter, and none "are evil enough to do it together."

David Cole of DFC Intelligence agrees, adding that a system that didn’t support used games would turn off the main customer base, which rushes to trade in old games for credit toward new releases.

"In other words, I don’t think it would do so well in the core market," he said.