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Game companies are putting pressure on Sony and Microsoft to do this because they don't seem to realize that a robust used market supports the new market. People frequently trade in games towards a new game that they would not have otherwise bought. This has allowed game makers to keep the prices of new games higher longer than they otherwise could have because people can subsidize new games with their old games. Being able to trade in a game also makes it more valuable to the buyer, which in turn supports the high price of new games.
People will often point to Steam and say that Valve has been doing for years what Microsoft and Sony are getting crucified for wanting to do now. The differences though is that Steam provides much greater price flexibility, and someone can easily wait for a Steam Sale to grab a game at a steep discount to help make up for the value they've lost in buying a game that can't be resold.
By way of comparison, Microsoft's digital offerings don't see the same deep discounting. Often downloadable games on Xbox Live are still retailing for up to $40 or more when the PC version of the same game on Steam is on sale for $5.
There's also a trust aspect to all of this. If I'm going to buy a digital only game, I need to trust that I'm going to be able to redownload that game years in the future. I trust Steam because, in the 9 years of used it, I've never been unable to redownload a game I bought. On XboxLive, I have heard of games being taken off the service (and no longer available for redownload), and frankly I just don't trust Microsoft that much to maintain game servers far into the future.
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