Life without Master Chief

Anyone who’s been perusing the big game sites the past month is sure to have come across stories concerning the next xbox and how there is going to be some type ban on used games, probably involving codes packed in with the games in the same manner as pc games currently use.  At first I blew this off as not something that any sensible company would do, however, the internet exploded with anti-microsoft rants and not a single MS exec has come out to say that these rumors are false.  So at this point I’m going to assume that they are, in fact true. 

I’m not sure if it’s just because I’m old, but I still enjoy going to a store, looking through thousands of options, trying to find a jem or two, and talking trash with the employees.  Does that make me old?  My children seem to enjoy coming along with me on these trips but they’re pretty young.  Would the teenagers/twenty-somethings rather just download games from their couch than deal with the old store?  I can’t image this to be the case, but maybe I’m wrong, and if I am, gamestop will soon be a thing of the past.

In any event, we’ll soon see.  If the rumors are true then it will be interesting to see how many people continue to support Microsoft.  It seems to me that they are getting a bit too cocky and ignoring the core group that supported them, a lot like sony seemed to be before the PS3 launch.  My hope is that MS is the only one of the “big three” that take this approach, and that they fail because of it.  I know that if my options are a xbox 3 that bans used games and a playsation 4 that continues to support them, then I will be buying a PS4. 

Life will be tough without Master Chief, but I’ll have to learn to deal…