The events during the first months of 2012 led many to focus on the internet, specifically where online data storage and questionable online activities are concerned.

After the protests of online media outfits (like Wikipedia) against SOPA and PIPA, changes have taken a domino-effect turn in the ways and means that happen in cyberspace, and the areas those ways and means have or pose to have an impact in on certain related industries.

Sony and Microsoft, leaders in the console game industry, may just be ushering a new era for media control.

With tips indicating that a built-in “used games control” system will be featured in the next generation of gaming consoles, Sony’s PlayStation Orbis and Microsoft’s Xbox 720 are reported to be future killers of game rental service providers (such as GameStop) and essentially the killers of online game re-sale practices.

The two giants are reported to be heavy in thought, considering the implementation of native “used games control” systems, limiting the games which are loaded into the said consoles.

Sources indicate that the Xbox 720 will be made to completely cut-off from used games, with a game tied down to the console it was first loaded and played on. If this rumor is true, this would mean that one-time-one-user-only discs and downloadable games with tracked registration information are the only methods of getting any games to work with the new gaming console.

For the PlayStation Orbis, reports talk of a similar scenario, only that a “restricted amount of gameplay” is allowed for “non-linked-to-console” games, thereby allowing users “full experience” once a “restriction remover” is purchased via the PlayStation Network.

Granted, these are tips and rumors, but as the way things are (consider the hot water Kim Dotcom, Founder of the now-defunct MegaUpload), it’s a possibility that one can’t dismiss are mere ramblings.

What say you? Think this does well with your tastes?