Microsoft is thinking about digital trade-ins for Xbox One games

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Microsoft is measuring interest in a digital trade-in program for Xbox One, according to part of a customer survey posted on Reddit. The hypothetical new option for the Xbox One Store would let players "sell back" their downloadable games to the store for 10 percent of the purchase price in in-store credit.

Buying a game on Xbox One digitally means you're stuck with it in the current system, unless you get a refund from customer support. This new sell-back option would narrow the gap between buying digital games and buying physical games a bit, since the only thing stopping you from selling or giving away a game on a disc is any digital-locked content (like online passes, may they never rear their gruesome heads again).

Getting 10 percent back on a purchase - or $6 for a $60 game - really is a little bit. But if it's a game you're no longer interested in playing, exchanging it for some credit toward one you actually want would be better than nothing. The survey doesn't mean this feature is definitely in the cards for Xbox One, but it does mean Microsoft is serious enough about the idea to seek consumer feedback.

Back when it first announced the console in 2013, Microsoft planned to let Xbox One users share their games with friends and family via a universal system that would bridge the gap between retail and digital purchases, while also upending the current used games model. That would have required the console to do regular online check-ins to keep playing games, and consumer protest led Microsoft to drop the idea in favor of a more traditional model before launch.

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Connor Sheridan
Connor Sheridan

I got a BA in journalism from Central Michigan University - though the best education I received there was from CM Life, its student-run newspaper. Long before that, I started pursuing my degree in video games by bugging my older brother to let me play Zelda on the Super Nintendo. I've previously been a news intern for GameSpot, a news writer for CVG, and was formerly a staff writer at GamesRadar.