Disc are so Dead

[Porkchop]

This Wired artical is saying the downloads will replace disc for Movies.

http://www.wired.com/wired/archive/13.04/start.html?pg=2

Do you think this will happen for video games also?

i think this is what Microsoft is go for. They produce Xbox 2 without a hard drive to keep the price low and make sure they keep current video game business. They produce Xbox 2 with large hard drive and expand Xbox live to do Movie and Video Game downloads. Pay MS 49.99 for xbox live and for just 19.95 a month more you get unlimited Movie and Video Game downloads. O_O

Xbox becomes the iPod of Movies and Video Games and puts Blockbuster, Netflix and Gamefly out of business. :evil:

Could it happen?

[Cmosfm]

It wont happen, they'll still have to charge a hefty price per game for the right money to be made for developers and such, and people won't pay 50.00 for a download.

[Mr.FoodMonster]

I seriously hope that consumers will be smart here. I like going into Best Buy, looking at the shelves of DVD's, and grabbing one. I KNOW online wont succeed, just because the amount of people that dont want to deal with that, but I hope that HD-DVD and Blu-Ray wont replace DVD. Why? Because, so many people already have DVD, and it hasnt really been around long enough to need to be replaced. Everything that is already out on DVD would AGAIN need to be transfered to one or the other, maybe even both, and thats just annoying. There wont be that much of a difference in sound/video, and the extra space for extras, the companies just plain wont fill it up. They dont right now as it is with DVD. Sure, DVD isnt 'OMG TEH PWN', but its good enough for the average consumer to enjoy their favorite movies with.

/end rant

[Uzi 9mm]

I seriously hope that consumers will be smart here. I like going into Best Buy, looking at the shelves of DVD's, and grabbing one. I KNOW online wont succeed, just because the amount of people that dont want to deal with that, but I hope that HD-DVD and Blu-Ray wont replace DVD. Why? Because, so many people already have DVD, and it hasnt really been around long enough to need to be replaced. Everything that is already out on DVD would AGAIN need to be transfered to one or the other, maybe even both, and thats just annoying. There wont be that much of a difference in sound/video, and the extra space for extras, the companies just plain wont fill it up. They dont right now as it is with DVD. Sure, DVD isnt 'OMG TEH PWN', but its good enough for the average consumer to enjoy their favorite movies with.

/end rant

I agree with you man. I really like DVD, and it would really piss me off knowing there is a "better" format to play my movies on.

[Flack]

There WILL be a new format for home video, and it WILL replace DVD eventually. That's a given. What the debate is, is whether or not downloadable games will replace a physical media format.

I say no, and here's why. What good is one of those hotel gaming systems that downloads games now? They're worthless, because you can't download games into them from your house. What happens when a console can only play downloadable games and the servers go down? That's right -- no more games.

Of course there are other kinks to be worked out, like what happens if your console dies (do you lose all the games you've paid for?) and stuff like that, but the big reason I won't support a system like this is that just like Divx players, once the system is dead, the players are worthless.

[PhoeniX]

I seriously hope that consumers will be smart here. I like going into Best Buy, looking at the shelves of DVD's, and grabbing one. I KNOW online wont succeed, just because the amount of people that dont want to deal with that, but I hope that HD-DVD and Blu-Ray wont replace DVD. Why? Because, so many people already have DVD, and it hasnt really been around long enough to need to be replaced. Everything that is already out on DVD would AGAIN need to be transfered to one or the other, maybe even both, and thats just annoying. There wont be that much of a difference in sound/video, and the extra space for extras, the companies just plain wont fill it up. They dont right now as it is with DVD. Sure, DVD isnt 'OMG TEH PWN', but its good enough for the average consumer to enjoy their favorite movies with.

/end rant

It is likely that any future disc format player would be reverse compatable with current DVDs, so if they want to upgrade it shouldn't hinder our current DVD collections. What's more, many even major industry digital transfers (to dvd) don't utilize the best qualities possible, and until the quality of transfers improve and truely approach the threshold of the technology it would be to early for the industry to move beyond DVD.

But as far as discs being eliminated entirely, I think that we will see more and more content available on-demand, but this will be in practice much more analogous to TV or satelite service but likely over the internet. I don't see games being available in this manner except perhaps as an option; we might however see small arcady mini games being increasingly available for download rather than purchase, Xbox live I beleive is going to experiment with this. I doubt very much that any time soon we will see people ditching solid media.

[CartCollector]

Another thing about downloads is that they're easier to hack, so DEVELOPERS might not go for it either.

[crazyjackcsa]

Remember when email was going to be the end of paper? And online novels the end of books? Didn't happen. even the almighty Ipod hasn't killed the Cd -yet. I think a large segment of the population like holding onto the physical object. Be it a book, game, movie or whatever. As collectors we all fall into this segment with our games.

[Cirrus]

Jeez, let's not forget that not everyone HAS high-speed internet connections, and not everyone will. Ever!

Everyone, however, can go to Best Buy and pick up a game, at some point. For people without PCs, etc... do you really think they are going to pay an additional fee per month to get a high-speed connection on top of the price per game and the price for Xbox Live or whatever? I am very opposed to the idea of relying on anything but a cartridge/disc.

That's why we can't really play some of the neat satellite games from Japan without romming, that's why plenty of old online games that have had the servers shut down are unplayable, and Flack is right, if the server goes down... no game. It's stupid. People are materialistic. They want something in their hands.

[Bluteg]

This will never come into play because everyone wants something real they can touch and feel. What if the Xbox HD failed and someone had 10-20 games a $50 each that $500-$1000. I think people realize this enough not to want download only unless they could back it and then MS would have piracy. It's really a no win situation.

[stevec1636]

This will never come into play because everyone wants something real they can touch and feel. What if the Xbox HD failed and someone had 10-20 games a $50 each that $500-$1000. I think people realize this enough not to want download only unless they could back it and then MS would have piracy. It's really a no win situation.


I totally agree, i have seen many X-Box hard drives fail and people get pissed when all they lose is there saved info. What would happen when you lose tons of cash with downloaded games. plus as a collector i would hate to do that. nothing more to collect.

[FlufflePuff]

I personally can't see the gaming world going simply download, but what if Microsoft put a burner into their Xbox 2. You would download the software, then create a disc as a backup. They would have to make it so that the burned copy wasn't able to be uploaded onto another Xbox, but I think that would be the safest alternative. Now I personally don't like this idea at all. I love having cases and manuals and discs with artwork on them, but if they're going to go download only, this would be the way they would do it.

[16-bit]

For gaming, I think it will be a combination of immediate gratification and materialism.

A game will first be available online only for the first 3-6 months. This will allow them to skip the middlemen during the critial release time period and reduce the secondary and rental market. After the online release period, it will be released in stores as a special edition physical copy to cater to the collector/materialist crowd.

It is not much different from the way movies are distributed today and with game budgets approaching that of movies....

[Sylentwulf]

Personally, I'm DYING for a downloadable movie site that is fast cheap and legal. As long as I can burn it to DVD somehow once I download it, I'm all for it.

Videogames is another story. I suppose I don't really care either way since I don't collect non-cart based systems.

[Xantan the Foul]

I would never pay for downloaded games. I much prefer having something physical.

[Nature Boy]

I can definitely see it happening. Look at iTunes and how successful that model has turned out to be.

The argument that people don't have high speed and will never get it is probably a useless one. The majority *will* have highspeed, so they'll still get good sales from it.

I'm sure they'd price the games cheaper (the fewer middle men, the less the price has to increase at each step). And who knows what sort of online services will exist once this becomes more feasible (it's not unreasonable to believe you'll be part of a service through your ISP).

And as to acquiring something physical: that's definitely something that can't be overlooked. But again, iTunes does pretty well for itself and all it does is let you burn your purchase yourself. And people *do* get a buzz over collecting files - how many people do you know that *have* to have every ROM for any given version of MAME?

[GaijinPunch]

I personally think you won't see downloads replacing media for a while, and they won't truly replace them. Probably in the next few years, you'll see more and more PC games available for download and retail packaging. Eventually, as more people get broadband, the downloads will outnumber the retail packaging. Remember though, until EVERYONE gets on at least current broadband standards, they'll have to make retail packaging, as they'd be dipping way into profits.

Eventually you might see this with console games, but it will be several years later if ever, that downloads become the main method of getting games. Look at this current genertion of consoles. Hardly embraced the technology it could use. Every console became online capable at one point, and the X-box is the only one that made an attempt and being a truly mean online machine, and even that took a year or so.

[Cmosfm]

I can definitely see it happening. Look at iTunes and how successful that model has turned out to be.

The argument that people don't have high speed and will never get it is probably a useless one. The majority *will* have highspeed, so they'll still get good sales from it.

I'm sure they'd price the games cheaper (the fewer middle men, the less the price has to increase at each step). And who knows what sort of online services will exist once this becomes more feasible (it's not unreasonable to believe you'll be part of a service through your ISP).

And as to acquiring something physical: that's definitely something that can't be overlooked. But again, iTunes does pretty well for itself and all it does is let you burn your purchase yourself. And people *do* get a buzz over collecting files - how many people do you know that *have* to have every ROM for any given version of MAME?

.99 for a song compared to 50.00 for a game, it's a big difference, I'VE paid for a .99 song before and would never pay 50.00 to download a game. Not even 30.00. MAME roms are free as well.

[jajaja]

It wont happen, they'll still have to charge a hefty price per game for the right money to be made for developers and such, and people won't pay 50.00 for a download.

I dont think a game would be $50 if you had to download it. Its $50 because people who make the package/manual shall get money, the ppl who work at the factory who print the games, the ppl who drive the games to the stores etc etc.. Everyone shall have their piece of the cake.
Personaly I prefer to have the game on a disc or a cartridge.

[Xantan the Foul]

Every console became online capable at one point, and the X-box is the only one that made an attempt and being a truly mean online machine, and even that took a year or so.

The day that consoles shift their focus to online gaming will truely be a sad one for me. It pains me now when I see awesome screenshots for a game, just to find out that it's a MMORPG. :(

[Cmosfm]

It wont happen, they'll still have to charge a hefty price per game for the right money to be made for developers and such, and people won't pay 50.00 for a download.

I dont think a game would be $50 if you had to download it. Its $50 because people who make the package/manual shall get money, the ppl who work at the factory who print the games, the ppl who drive the games to the stores etc etc.. Everyone shall have their piece of the cake.
Personaly I prefer to have the game on a disc or a cartridge.

Go to iTunes, it costs about 10.00 to download a whole CD. In the stores, it costs about 12.00 to buy the actual CD.

Yeah, there will be a price drop, maybe down to about 30.00, but I'd say about 30.00-40.00. It won't be signifigant enough to replace a tangible media source.

[Nature Boy]

.99 for a song compared to 50.00 for a game, it's a big difference, I'VE paid for a .99 song before and would never pay 50.00 to download a game. Not even 30.00. MAME roms are free as well.

Why the hell does *anybody* think they're going to charge $50 to download a game? Is that a figure that's been made public? 'Cause it seems to me that pricing would be lower, just like 99 cents a song is a lot lower than what CDs have gone for in the past.

Companies put a lot more thought into pricing than "oh, we were getting $50 before - let's charge $50 now!"

[Nature Boy]

Go to iTunes, it costs about 10.00 to download a whole CD. In the stores, it costs about 12.00 to buy the actual CD.

Yeah, there will be a price drop, maybe down to about 30.00, but I'd say about 30.00-40.00. It won't be signifigant enough to replace a tangible media source.

Then why does a $2 drop from a tangible media source have *so* many customers?!? Well because you don't have to buy the whole album of course. That's why their pricing works so well.

Even $30 is just a number you're throwing out there. I'm saying it's possible they'll come up with a number that works, instead of what you're saying which is there *is* no such number...

[Garry Silljo]

There are far more casual gamers than collectors and the casual gamers will SURELY reject this idea. When They drop x-amount of dollars for a game and get tired of it two days later, if its a download, there's nothing to trade in. People like having a physical copy because whether for a quick buck or genuine emergency cash, you can sell it back. There will be no more dumping five old games for the latest release or getting rid of one of your gems to get that damn bill payed.

That and people need to dump their "last year" sports games to maintain the new and cool.

[Garry Silljo]

Hey Nature Boy, what are you suggesting the price will be? 99 cents per level? I think comparing game and music pricing are apples and oranges. I-tunes works because you can like one song and not like the rest of the ablum and just get that song, but for the majority of games, no one level truly works without the rest of the game, so all you can really compare is the prices of the whole. So using the earlier used $10 album stat, not all that impressive a drop.

[Nature Boy]

Hey Nature Boy, what are you suggesting the price will be?

I'm not suggesting it will be anything, just that a price might exist. Seems to me that immediately poo-poohing the idea of buying stuff online is more than a little presumptious.

My iTunes example wasn't intended to be a direct price point comparison. What it is is an example of an industry adopting a download strategy that is clearly doing very well. Does one success imply another? Definitely not. But if it's succeeded once I don't think it's a stretch to see it succeed somewhere else.

(On the topic of the music industry - they're *dying* aren't they? Because people don't buy physical CDs nearly as much as they used to? Because of downloading and whatnot? Doesn't it make sense to avoid falling into a similar pitfall by looking at an iTunes strategy where they control the disemmination of their product directly instead of giving it to you in a format that you can easily duplicate?)

[ManciGames]

What about retail? Do you think Best Buy, EB, Gamecrazy, or whoever, is going to promote the hell out of the newest release that is only available as a download? Besides that, most specialty stores (EB, etc.) make most of their cash on trade-ins. As someone else pointed out, they'd have to kiss that goodbye.

No sir, the retail stores won't like it.

I think movies, games, music, etc. will see a growing market for legal downloads, but there will always be a physical widget to buy as long as any of us are alive...

[WanganRunner]

A BIG, fundmanetal difference between music and games is that with games, the hardware is proprietary, and with music, it ain't.

Thus, this gives Microsoft, Sony, and Nintendo the last word on what will (licensed software) and will not (dupes, imports, blah blah) play on their consoles.

Yes, there are modchips, but modchips still aren't a mainstream thing, it's too much effort, expense, and risk to an expensive piece of gear than most people are willing to deal with.

Fundamentally, that's why this is all less serious a risk to gaming than it is to music. Music listeners don't have to risk damaging their CD player to listen to downloaded music, but gamers void their xbox warranty to play bootleg games.

Furthermore, I don't think that games can ever be effectively parsed up into little, $1, $5, or $10 snippets that is conducive to downloading. Maybe in terms of playable time, like you buy 10 hours of online DDR playtime or something.....but that wouldn't work with everything.

I definitely do NOT think that people are going to pay $50 for a secured download that they can't turn around and sell to someone else. People want to get something of value for their money, and "of value" means that it has value when you want to sell it to someone else.

None of this really applies to PC gaming, because it is at risk, because of the fact that the hardware isn't proprietary.

[mezrabad]

I think that a mainstreamed console in the next 5 years would not make enough money off of a download-only service. Like any transition from one medium of storage to another there will be a noticeable overlap period. Remember cassette's replacing LPs? Didn't happen. But when they started selling CDs the LPs dissappeared first.

I think that it would make sense for a console to sell things retail and then sell expansions and additional content as downloadable patches. It's a nice hybrid from both mediums and it doesn't kill the market for the console if things go wrong with the downloadable content.

However, I was in an Electronics Boutique today (as opposed to EBGames, this was actually still called an Electronics Boutique) and I felt assaulted. They had the TV on, loudly advertising cartoons and movies (which I hadn't actually come to shop for, I was there for games). They insulted me by telling me I "needed" the strategy guide for the game I was getting (Morrowind GOTY ed). They also asked me if they could help me find anything every five minutes. I don't think they're evil for this, but I do know I'd prefer to just order something from ebay, or online or download it. I don't collect "per se" so if I could get something for $20 bucks that I could back-up, I would.

So, I'm not saying a downloads only format would work or not, I'm just saying that for me, personally, I would prefer it to shopping retail.

Maybe a console could sell an exclusive proprietary medium that would be the only medium their machine could read and then provide a means to download and back up to that medium only. For instance: the weird, backwards spinning mini-DVD's the Gamecube uses. Sell them for half the price of a downloadable game. When you download the game, you pay the other half of the cost and your console burns it on that weird medium. You could have a stack of those things waiting around for the days when something is launched so you could avoid the pre-order stuff.

Just babbling off the top of my ass. Please, someone say something else.

[Porkchop]

I think downloading of Movies will start soon as the Movie industry rushes to put an iPod like model in place before they git hit like the music industry did. People are also use to the idea of renting the movie for a little while, so hard drive lose of the movie is not an issue.

The conversion of video games to a down load market will take much longer. I don't think renting games has ever been as big as renting movies.

I'm sure we will see and Xbox with movie download capabilities because that is why Bill Gates went into the Xbox business. He did not build it because he loved gamers, he built it to put a MS computer on top of your TV. MS has been in the settop box business before, but they were ahead of their time and it failed. You need high speed internet to make it work and this is just now geting to American Houses in large numbers.

Also if you saw the GDC keynote by MS their big buzz was HDTV and the HD world. Stand by for MS to bring HD movies and games into your home.

The Sony MS battle has is heating up.

[whoisKeel]

Well...that article is crap. No casual gamer or movie watcher is going to keep downloads open long enough to get the content of the next media. Broadband is just too slow right now for that sort of thing. DVD's are a good 7.5 GB as is (assuming no compression), which even on a good connection is at least overnight. Sure, for the internet community like us, that's not a big deal, but the the rest of the public that's a good bit of time.

Then there's the $.99 a song thing, which really isn't much cheaper than just buying the cd online. I mean really, you save what, 2 bucks for not actually buying the cd?

Then incorporate the fact that burned cds and dvds DO fail much quicker than originals. It's rare, but it happens and it sucks.

Go ahead and support the phantom, i'll just stick to buying my games.

[Cirrus]

I'm with you. If games start becoming download only, I really will stop playing new games. I will just collect up to where they stopped making physical games, and I will stop. There's already enough to collect as it is.

It would be nice to know when to stop.

[tssk]

Won't happen eh?

How about this.

Sequel to a very popular FPS is made d/load only. Even if you buy the boxed copy you have to d/load the game for access.

Every so often you have to 'reverify' the game. If you can't log into the server you can't play the game.

Won't happen eh?

[Nature Boy]

What about retail? Do you think Best Buy, EB, Gamecrazy, or whoever, is going to promote the hell out of the newest release that is only available as a download? Besides that, most specialty stores (EB, etc.) make most of their cash on trade-ins. As someone else pointed out, they'd have to kiss that goodbye.

Why would anybody want to promote a downloadable release at a retailer anyway? They'll promote on TV/radio/print media.

And publishers hate used games sales, don't they? Didn't they try to stop it? So how is this a problem for them again?

The only problem might be selling the hardware itself. But I don't see Best Buys not stocking a console just because they can't stock games for it. If there's money to be made it'll sell.

There's so little imagination in this thread it's astounding. It's like every naysayer thinks absolutely nothing will change between now and when something like this happens. 'Cause the world remains static don't you know...

[Griking]

Wasn't Half Life 2 downloadable via Valve's Steam service or something? I don't seem to remember hearing that there was any significant discount for downloading the game over purchasing it in a retail store.

[ManciGames]

Why would anybody want to promote a downloadable release at a retailer anyway? They'll promote on TV/radio/print media.
Yeah, but the point you're missing is that the majority of game advertising is done at a local level...at the retailers. Sure you see the odd national commercial, but most games are advertised and sold at the local level. Do you know of any big internet only movies? CDs? Books? Anything? Same thing would happen with games...



And publishers hate used games sales, don't they? Didn't they try to stop it?
Of course the publishers hate it. But the game-stores like it. See above for why they'll still need game-stores. See, you can't just cut out a major business partner without it having major ramifications. Again, I'm not saying it'll never happen. But it'll never happen in our lifetime.



The only problem might be selling the hardware itself. But I don't see Best Buys not stocking a console just because they can't stock games for it. If there's money to be made it'll sell.
These places don't make much on games as it is ($15, tops), and they make even less on the hardware. Why do you think they make you bundle 4 games with them at launch? Without games, there's no incentive to even promote the hardware, unless, of course, they lower the retailers' cost.



There's so little imagination in this thread it's astounding. It's like every naysayer thinks absolutely nothing will change between now and when something like this happens. 'Cause the world remains static don't you know...
"Naysayer"? How so?

[Nature Boy]

Yeah, but the point you're missing is that the majority of game advertising is done at a local level...at the retailers. Sure you see the odd national commercial, but most games are advertised and sold at the local level. Do you know of any big internet only movies? CDs? Books? Anything? Same thing would happen with games...

The point that I made is that things can and do change. Which means that just because it's like that now doesn't mean it'll be like that tomorrow. Which means I'm not missing your point at all - I'm disagreeing with it.

You make national advertising sound so insignificant. But lets say you're right. Instead of retailers maybe they'd use websites. After all, that's where you're downloading the stuff from anyway. And maybe EB becomes an online only company.

The infrastructure will surely change (to something I can't imagine, or I'd be implementing it and making a lot of dough).

I think a lot of the people who are naysaying are those that don't want it to happen so they're trying to justify it. I'm not crazy about it either but that doesn't mean it won't ever occur.

[ManciGames]

You make national advertising sound so insignificant. But lets say you're right. Instead of retailers maybe they'd use websites.

Web sales are insignificant compared to retail sales and will remain so until we die. When Wal-Mart closes up shop and becomes online only, what you're proposing may happen.

Until then, there will always be a physical alternative to any entertainment medium.

[Gregory DG]

Remember when email was going to be the end of paper? And online novels the end of books? Didn't happen. even the almighty Ipod hasn't killed the Cd -yet. I think a large segment of the population like holding onto the physical object. Be it a book, game, movie or whatever. As collectors we all fall into this segment with our games.
There is no alternative to books as of yet, so of course they're still around.

Vinyl records were replaced with cassette tapes.
Cassettes were replaced by CD.

Beta was replaced/supplanted by VHS.
VHS is/will be replaced by DVDs very soon.
DVDs will give way to HD-DVD or Blu-Ray or whatever.

Technology does advance, and old media is replaced. There is no precident for downloadable content taking over any area. YET. But we are giving way to it step-by-step. Just look at cable/satellite TV and DVR recorders. There's no media involved with that stuff. Half-Life 2 was available for download. Others will follow.

It will take a long time (probably beyond our lifetimes), but downloadable content will eventually take over and there will be no more physical media. The content providers have discovered they can make more money if they don't have to press DVDs, print inserts/labels, ship them to stores, etc. Turnover time will be instant. Making deals with stores will no longer be necessary. It may not be what YOU want, but I guarantee it's what the content providers want.

They will make it attractive to consumers as well. Giving you an all-in-one box to keep your media. Music, movies, video games... One box that you can add content to any time you want. You don't have to dedicate a room or a bookshelf to a bunch of space-eating DVDs. You don't have to have a DVD player stacked on a VCR stacked on a DVR stacked on an Xbox. Clutter will be eliminated. No more kids stuffing peanut-butter into your DVD player. LOL

Yes, much of the population enjoys having physical media, but it's only because it's all they've ever known. Take pysical media away right now, and in 100 years people couldn't comprehend why anyone would ever exert themselves by going to a store and buying a game (or whatever) when they could just download it straight to their machine. People are lazy. Remember that. (You think the washing machine was invented because someone LIKED beating their clothes against a rock!?)

Like it or not, it's coming. Maybe not in our lifetimes, but it will take over. All forms of physical media will end up as popular as 8-track tapes are today.

[Dr. Morbis]

Vinyl records were replaced with cassette tapes.
Cassettes were replaced by CD.

Beta was replaced/supplanted by VHS.
VHS is/will be replaced by DVDs very soon.
DVDs will give way to HD-DVD or Blu-Ray or whatever.

I understand your argument, but the above examples do not support it.
You're argument: physical media will be wholly replaced by non-physical media.
You're examples above: all incidents where one form of physical media was replaced by another form of physical media.

To use the worn-out cliche, that's "apples and oranges". No one is suggesting that Discs in general or DVD's in particular won't be eventually replaced by something else, though it seems that that is what your examples are suggesting.

[Gregory DG]

To use the worn-out cliche, that's "apples and oranges". No one is suggesting that Discs in general or DVD's in particular won't be eventually replaced by something else, though it seems that that is what your examples are suggesting.
Try reading the rest of my post. Those examples were just to show that all media gets replaced by something better, easier, and of higher quality. Downloadable content is all of those things combined. ;)

[XxMe2NiKxX]

I've read a lot of comparison to music downloading. Music and games are different. Music can be downloaded quickly and in a disposable form, with a song taking less then two minutes to download if the conditions are right, and each individual song would range from free to 99 cents. A videogame, however, is large and would take hours to download, and each one is a costly investment ($50, I'd suppose), and downloading games would probably impose a regional restriction. On top of that, you're forgetting that not all console owners take advantage of the online capabilities of the console, and by making it a download-only or urging towards downloading, you're excluding a large portion of your market, majority or not.

[Nature Boy]

A videogame, however, is large and would take hours to download, and each one is a costly investment ($50, I'd suppose)

Look, nobody is gonna charge $50 for a download. I don't know why so many people think pricing would remain the same - you're all nuts.

Let's say they wanted $20 for the downloadable version and $50 for the physical version. Would you bite? What if it were $30? $10? These are the sorts of conversations businesses have when the offer new products and services people!!!

(Annnnnnnnd I'm spent)

[Daria]

Let's say they wanted $20 for the downloadable version and $50 for the physical version. Would you bite? What if it were $30? $10? These are the sorts of conversations businesses have when the offer new products and services people!!!

(Annnnnnnnd I'm spent)

They have that now. $40 for the PC version, $0 on bit torrant. :P

[Garry Silljo]

Hey Nature boy,

You already admitted you don't know what the pricing is going to be. Certain games may very well be $50. I know if I were a company like Square and I knew I had a mob of loyal fans who would probably throw down $50, then I would make it 50, simply because I could. If you can't predict what the "lower price" will be, then you in all fairness can't predict what it won't be either.

[rxdoga]

Hey Nature boy,

You already admitted you don't know what the pricing is going to be. Certain games may very well be $50. I know if I were a company like Square and I knew I had a mob of loyal fans who would probably throw down $50, then I would make it 50, simply because I could. If you can't predict what the "lower price" will be, then you in all fairness can't predict what it won't be either.

The statement above about a developer asking whatever they want for a product is the reason why downloadable only games may come sooner than you think. Companies are in the business of making money and if they can get a bigger slice of profits from cutting out retailers and others they have to share profit with, they will do so. I can remember in the early 90's gamers and high profile people in the gaming industry saying a disc based gaming system would never be successful. Claiming discs were too easily damaged, had long load times and was overall in inferior medium and people would never go for it, but almost every system since 95 has been disc based because developers pushed for because producing games on disc is cheaper than cartridge. Gamers as a whole didn't want games on disc at that time, but we got them anyway and games are better for it today. Those greedy bastards know they can get away with it and in all honesty if I were the head of major game development company I’d be doing the same thing. :evil: