SCEA President Jack Tretton Wants PS4 to Play Used Games

There’s been a lot of talk about the PlayStation 4, codenamed Orbis (or so we think), and that’s really the point. Everyone has run with the idea that the eventual successor to the PS3 is codenamed Orbis while in reality, we have no idea. During the hype of reports that came out last month, one story stood out in particular for budget aware gamers. Sites began reporting that, as similarly reported for the Xbox 360 successor, the PS4 would block all used games, thus killing the market which has been greatly helped by GameStop’s used games program. With the PS4 blocking used games, it is thought that each game will carry some form of registration which will need to be authenticated by Sony servers.

Now to be clear, this has never been confirmed by Sony and I remain doubtful of this happening, especially once all games go digital. Think Apple’s AppStore for iOS devices which is purely built on digital distribution and therefore, cannot accommodate a used market. Luckily, we’re not the only ones who are opposed to the idea of a PS4 not playing used games as SCEA President Jack Tretton has expressed his support of the PS4 handling used titles. His remarks, after the jump.

“For the record, I’m totally opposed to blocking used games. I think it is great for the consumer that they can buy those. We have a customer that buys our console late in the cycle, pays less and is looking for value-priced games. I think it would be anti-consumer for us to do that.”

While it’s nice to hear the man in charge of the PlayStation brand in North America speak out against the blocking of used games, it should be noted that his personal view is probably irrelevant on if such a feature is to get implemented or not. As Mr. Tretton himself put;