HMV's Simon Fox - 3
The retail boss on pre-owned, digital distribution - and the 3DS
In the final part of our wide-ranging interview with HMV UK & Ireland's CEO and MD, Simon Fox, we discuss the thorny issues of pre-owned software and the onward march of digital distribution.
The retail boss also fields questions on the price points of current generation hardware, and explains why he's excited about the launch of the Nintendo 3DS next year.
I understand where the publishers are coming from - on the other hand it's hard to find a market where I think the original owner/publisher/manufacturer benefits from the future trade of products - whether it's the second-hand book market, the second-hand furniture market or the ticket resale market.
The fact is, in every case, the manufacturer of whatever it might be makes their profit from the original sale, transfers the IP or ownership to the buyer - and if the buyer then chooses to sell that item, it's up to them. You don't hear book publishers asking for a share of the second-hand book market. I've never heard that.
Or the Amazon market place, or eBay... People trading amongst themselves - car boot sales around the country. People are free to trade their goods between them, and I think it's slightly odd that publishers should somehow think that they have a claim to profit that a customer might make on a second sale.
As a retailer all we're doing is providing an intermediary service, just as eBay is, or Amazon is. We genuinely think that actually what it does is enable people to buy new product - and it allows them to trade-in previously-played product to get a credit and put that back into the games market. The way we've certainly geared our offer is that it's far more advantageous for the customer not to take cash, but to take a credit that's then used in buying another game.
The vast majority of our pre-owned sales are to support new releases.
That's what we think - and better for them to trade it in an environment where they're far more likely to buy another game than if they trade it in for a bit of cash and go to the pub.