A new study has found that if the second-hand videogame market was eliminated and publishers dropped prices, they would be better off profit-wise.

Conducted by marketing professors Masakazu Ishihara (New York University) and Andrew Ching (University of Toronto), the study used data from the Japanese gaming market to simulate the effect the removal of the used videogames market would have on consumer behaviour and sales.

It found that in the absence of a used game market, publisher profits dropped about 10 per cent.

However, if publishers then dropped their prices by a third, their profits per game would rise by about 19 per cent.

“The reduction in price is partly driven by the fact that if the used game market were eliminated, gamers would no longer be able to sell their games and get back some money (so they need to be compensated),” Ishihara told Wired.

“So roughly speaking, in the US, game prices should go down to about US$40 (NZ$50).”

The study called into question the assumption that the second-hand market was a threat to game producers, said Ishihara and Ching.

Second-hand game sales have been under scrutiny recently, with rumours flying that Microsoft will charge a fee to activate second-hand games on its upcoming Xbox One console.

Although no firm answer has been provided by the firm, Microsoft vice president Phil Harrison has insisted that a second-hand market would exist.

“We will have a solution that we will talk about in very short order about how previously played games can be traded between players,” he said.