"Imagine that the world works exactly the way Microsoft wants it to" is pretty much the company vision statement.
It worked pretty well for 'em until about 2004.
I've become a much different type of consumer in the last couple of years. The last two game systems I got were a PSP and a 360. In both cases, I waited until the price had bottomed out (and indeed in the Xbox case it was free with a new computer).
We've spent maaaaybe $200 total on all our 360 kit. That's the console (new), an extra wireless controller (new), a third-party wired controller (new but cheap), a Kinect (used), a hard drive (scrounged from an out-of-lifecycle laptop on the recycle pile at work), and a pretty solid collection of games (most used, some marked down to $20 because they'd been out a couple years).
Now, Microsoft may lose money on customers like me. (Or not. I don't know how much money the hardware costs to manufacture or what their cut is from the new games I bought, either on digital or physical media, how much money they got from Dell for the OEM license on that computer the Xbox came with, etc.) But customers like me are the reason people are willing to shell out sixty bucks for a game.
We're already living in a world where Skyrim costs $5 less used than new, and the same amount new after two years as it did at launch (today's NewEgg sale marking the Legendary Edition down to a mere fifty bucks notwithstanding). I'm willing to bet we've got more people starting to look twice at a price tag and wonder if this game's really worth that much if they can't get much for reselling it.
This doesn't just make that worse, it also breaks the very notion of lending and borrowing.
BTW, my latest Xbox purchase is a game I borrowed from my cousin and liked. Yeah, I waited until it was marked down to $18. But that's $18 more than I would have paid for a new game if I hadn't borrowed it first.
