The second hand games market is something that helps many of us in experiencing more games on a limited budget. It lets us impulse buy more games than we might be able to, and trade those we've finished to knock even more off the price. I recently took advantage of this by trading in 20 of my completed / unloved games to get a 3DS and Zelda before going away on holiday. This is the first second hand console I've bought from this generation that encourages us to store semi-personal data on most media, and I've always wondered if the shop you sell to would take the time to ensure this data is kept private by wiping the memory.
I discovered that unfortunately this is not always the case, when I booted up my 3DS and one of the built-in games to find a photo of the previous owner smoking weed. This didn't really bother me but could have definitely lead to some awkward questions had the 3DS gone to a child, even more so if the previous owner had decided to take some more illicit 3D photos. I contacted the CEO of Game / Gamestation to let him know of this and asked if it was their store policy. As expected, apparently it is store policy to clear the data from all consoles that are bought. I was assured that the importance of wiping all data from any console they buy would be stressed with their training department. As well as that, I received £25 compensation which is awful kind!
Still, I can't help but think that I wouldn't sell a console to a shop that had a photo of me smoking a bong on it. Granted, it was probably one of the previous owners' friends but it's still quite foolish. So remember everyone - always clear the data from anything you sell back to a shop as you can't guarantee they will do it for you.
