Sony Files Patent for Pre-Owned Games Block

Near-Field Communication technology has been touted as the next great thing in mobile devices, allowing users to pay for items using their phones and scan special trading cards using Wii U GamePads. But, if a patent filed by Sony is any indication, it can also be used to tag retail games in an attempt to prevent them from being sold second-hand.

The filing - spotted on NeoGAF (via VG247) - mentions NFC-style technology that can track whether a game has been purchased before, or played on a previous console.

The system could potentially block the playback of games on other consoles, thus knackering the pre-owned market. It'd also bugger up any chances of you taking a game to a mate's house. Sony has been rumoured to be working on techniques that locks out pre-owned and used game playback for its next PlayStation console.

The existence of this patent, naturally, doesn't mean that Sony will definitely implement such tech. But if it does, try to feign some sort of surprise. For its part, the company is declining to comment on the story.

Here's some of the patent filing detail, in patenty gibberish. "According to the present embodiment, realized is the electronic content processing system that reliably restricts the use of electronic content dealt in the second-hand markets.

"As a result, the dealing of electronic content in the second-hand markets is suppressed, which in turn supports the redistribution of part of proceeds from sales of the electronic content to the developers.

"Though in the following description a game application (AP) is exemplified as the electronic content, the present embodiment is similarly applicable to various kinds of electronic content such as an office suite, images, and music content."