I just want to go on the record here and say that I absolutely, positively love both Valve and Nintendo (yes, even Nintendo, believe it or not). Half-Life is one of the greatest video game series I've ever played, and even though the Wii has been getting a lot of flak lately, I still love mine. However, there's one thing that bothers me about both Steam and Nintendo's new microphone peripheral, Wii Speak: You're locked into your purchases.



To be honest, I actually don't hate Steam. In fact, I think it's one of the best PC gaming services I've ever used. I've been really interested in Left 4 Dead lately, and I'm sure I'll pick it up for the PC. The problem I have with Steam, however, is how you will forever own any games you buy, even if you decide you don't want them in the future anymore. For example, I have the Half-Life 2 Game of the Year Edition, and I've wanted to grab the Orange Box and the Half-Life 1 Anthology, just to have two nice compilations of all the games. But if I do that, I would have no more use for the GotY package. So what could I do with it? Nothing. I can't sell it, I can't lend it to a friend, I can't even freaking give it away for free, unless I give my account information away with it. Obviously, I'm not going to do this. Now I never buy games with the intention of getting rid of them later, but sometimes it just happens to turn out that way. At least with Steam you can download demos of pretty much all the games on there to make sure you like what you're planning on buying. This isn't the case with Wii Speak, however.



Wii Speak is Nintendo's new voice communication solution for the Wii, which is something that's long overdue. It's been way too long already that we've had to play the few online Wii games that are worth playing without being able to talk to anyone. But with this new device comes something that's absolutely ridiculous: A special code that must be entered to be able to use the mic. Now, at first, this doesn't sound too awful, but the problem sets in when you learn that the code can only be used once, and only on one console. This is absolutely unacceptable. Not only does this make it impossible to ever get rid of the device if something happens to it, but you can't even bring it to someone's house to even use it on another console. You're more stuck with this than you are with games in Steam. And this takes it one step further --- Wii Speak is untested. We're used to using standard headsets to chat with people online while gaming, not just speaking out into nothingness and using the TV speakers to listen for the response. We as consumers don't even know if we'll like how this device functions, yet we can't buy any used or even borrow one from anybody before we spend the $29.99 for a brand-new unit.

This all goes back to the war against used gaming products that companies have been fighting in full force lately. I understand companies don't get any money from used sales, but it's not like they're hurting for money. Once the games and accessories are paid for by the consumers, the ownership of the products changes hands, and no one should be allowed to tell us that we can't sell our own property.



Now, for some people this stuff may not be much of a problem, but it really bothers me. I feel like we're being told what we can and cannot do with our own property, which is exactly what Steam games and a Wii Speak are. Once that hard-earned money leaves out wallets, we own the product, and we shouldn't have to feel like we don't. Does anyone share my opinions, or am I delving a bit too deep into it?