It seems that Sony is planning to adopt a licensing system that will mean gamers won't own the PS3 titles that they've paid money for. Instead, they will only be purchasing the licence to play the game and that the software itself will still be Sony property - meaning that the disc won't be the customer's to sell.

We assume that the thinking behind this move will ultimately be to stop PS3 games being resold several times - which currently snatches potential sales away from Sony - and to counter the impression in consumers' minds that games are only really worth their pre-owned price and are not worth buying new.

The scheme is similar to that used in much current software, though it has not traditionally been strongly enforced when it comes to used sales through retail.

Bear in mind that the GamesRadar story is not sourced and should be taken with a great deal of salt. Unsurprisingly, Sony has not officially commented on this current rumor. However, last year, a similar rumor surfaced. In November, reports emerged that PlayStation 3 would physically disallow usage of previously owned games, as opposed to the current rumors that used game sales will simply be legally prohibited. Those previous rumors were flatly denied by a Sony representative, who said, "I would like to clarify that this is false speculation and that PlayStation 3 software will not be copy protected to a single machine but will be playable on any PlayStation 3 console."

There are a few possibilities as to these related reports. They could in fact be describing the same policy, with Sony denying that there is any technical limitation in place but not commenting on legal restrictions. They could be completely unrelated, giving no indication one way or the other as to the veracity of this new one. They could also both be completely incorrect and founded on the same original misguided information.