AppleQueso wrote:
Uh... yeah? Has anyone ever suggested that the industry isn't slowly transitioning to full digital distribution?
In the mean time we get to continue to resell our physical games and buy them used. Yay.
Nobody who is thinking logically.
Point was more that Sony seems to be gearing up to convince consumers that direct digital is how they want their games delivered, rather than making that decision for them.
I can see it now.
Gran Turismo 6, with 10 more cars and you get to play it a week early if you buy it on download.
Yeah, that sort of thing.... doesn't really bother me. The physical version is still available, and we've got at least another generation or two before they're phased out entirely.
It's probably the best way of going about it, really.
TheRev wrote:I don't think we'll have the Infrastructure for full on digital for a while. Not everyone has Fios or Googlenet
There's a lot of hurdles to overcome right now, but I think it's inevitable that it'll happen one day. I won't be shocked if 20 years from now physical media is a thing only enthusiasts and collectors (aka, us) are into.
TheRev wrote:I don't think we'll have the Infrastructure for full on digital for a while. Not everyone has Fios or Googlenet
True, but they don't need everyone to have it. Just enough for it to be profitable. That some random guy living in a shack in the wilderness doesn't have 4G data coverage doesn't stop Apple from making billons on iPhones, for example.
TheRev wrote:I don't think we'll have the Infrastructure for full on digital for a while. Not everyone has Fios or Googlenet
Hasnt stopped Steam. Unless you meant purely streaming, then I would contend that it hasnt stopped OnLive from etching out a living. Most people do not use the majority of the bandwidth they pay for, and if you can download the games to your console and play them (ala Steam), then it will be ok. One of my friends who is a huge gamer, lives on a 2 megabit ADSL connection that has a 512k upload, and he handles everything fine. Now big downloads have to run overnight, but other than that he doesnt have any issues playing any game on the market right now. He can even host when we play multiplayer, works fine with two people, playable but gets iffy with alot going on with three, and is bizarre at four (Ill get rubberbanding in L4D2 while he has nothing which leads to odd issues sometimes).
Collecting is something that's just part of human nature. Digital may be killing off CDs, but alot of people have gone back to vinyl. Why? You can argue for Vinyl's superior quality yes but it's simple, there's an appeal that Vinyl has that hits people at their programed nature to collect.
Old games for me has the same effect there is just something about a Japanese Saturn game that appeals to my collectors nature. For 3 years I was playing Saturn games on SSF but the experence was hollow.
Same with movies, YEAH we can download them and when we buy a movie we have the option but the physical copies and how they look on our shelf, there's a sense of Pride.
So for all those reasons I don't see digital taking over completely. It's a nice thing to have if our collector nature has us in a cluttered room but there will always be a place for physical media.
^There will always be a bit of something for the collectors out there, certainly. That's what I meant when I said that in 20 years, the only people interested in physical media will be enthusiasts and collectors.
