PS4, and the the future of gaming: Digital distribution? (new article)

I hope DD doesnt happen next gen. :(

I like owning the physical copy, and holding the book, and opening the case, and having it years later on my game collection.

What bothers me is worrying about owning games on an HDD... and if the HDD goes bad? Then what? What if you didnt back them up? I just dont really like it. Ya know, Arcade/Virtual Console/PSN games are fine because they are small, but I dont want to buy Uncharted over the PSN.

Blu-Ray may never take the market from DVD before different formats become prevelant, but I think Sony will stick with it next-gen also. I could definitely see consoles offering full games for download as common practice. They already do at some level. PCs have been doing this for a long time and it can be a good way to get a game sometimes.

Hopefully consoles never fully abandon hard copies. I want the game on a disc in a nice case with the manuals. If I want to trade/sell it I have the option.

What bothers me is worrying about owning games on an HDD... and if the HDD goes bad? Then what? What if you didnt back them up? I just dont really like it. Ya know, Arcade/Virtual Console/PSN games are fine because they are small, but I dont want to buy Uncharted over the PSN.carljohnson3456

I want the game on a disc in a nice case with the manuals. If I want to trade/sell it I have the option.

gamecubepad

Like, say, in my first post, a jump-drive like contraption that holds the game on it. Or even a media stick, or something of that like, that you just "plug into" your console, and it works.

But I just want to know where all these business people and analists are getting their info? Do they even consider the time it would take to download a fullscale game?

0rin

I could see that happening. I think Nintendo already does something like that in China with the iQue(?). People love hard copies though.

They don't consider how angry people would be if they did that. Full Games would probably take anywhere from 4 to 10 hours to download. There's nothing quite like buying a game from the store and ripping it open in the car to see how cool it looks. Maybe it's just me.

There's nothing quite like buying a game from the store and ripping it open in the car to see how cool it looks. Maybe it's just me.gamecubepad

It's time for optical media for game to die, Digital Distrubution is so much better, well with steam it is. It keep all your games together, allows you to buy new games with the click of a button, no need to put the disk in when every you play the game, can play your games from anywhere in the world without having to take the game with you. Doesn't waste lots of space needed for disk cases.

As for the downloading times current games can easily be downloaded in a day or night with pretty average internet conections. Grid is like 10gb and doesn't take more than a day and night to download on most internet concections.

I hope DD doesnt happen next gen. :(

I like owning the physical copy, and holding the book, and opening the case, and having it years later on my game collection.

What bothers me is worrying about owning games on an HDD... and if the HDD goes bad? Then what? What if you didnt back them up? I just dont really like it. Ya know, Arcade/Virtual Console/PSN games are fine because they are small, but I dont want to buy Uncharted over the PSN.

carljohnson3456

then you download them again as many times as you like. what if you break your disk, its all gone, but with dd its always there

It's time for optical media for game to die, Digital Distrubution is so much better, well with steam it is. It keep all your games together, allows you to buy new games with the click of a button, no need to put the disk in when every you play the game, can play your games from anywhere in the world without having to take the game with you. Doesn't waste lots of space needed for disk cases.

As for the downloading times current games can easily be downloaded in a day or night with pretty average internet conections. Grid is like 10gb and doesn't take more than a day and night to download on most internet concections.

imprezawrx500

[QUOTE="carljohnson3456"]

I hope DD doesnt happen next gen. :(

I like owning the physical copy, and holding the book, and opening the case, and having it years later on my game collection.

What bothers me is worrying about owning games on an HDD... and if the HDD goes bad? Then what? What if you didnt back them up? I just dont really like it. Ya know, Arcade/Virtual Console/PSN games are fine because they are small, but I dont want to buy Uncharted over the PSN.

imprezawrx500

then you download them again as many times as you like. what if you break your disk, its all gone, but with dd its always there

There is a major obstacle in the way of all this digital content......the ISP.

Many ISP's are considering a bandwidth cap of some sort.

There is a major obstacle in the way of all this digital content......the ISP.

Many ISP's are considering a bandwidth cap of some sort.

danjammer69

ya its more annoying if your a gamer like me and end up getting 50 plus even 100 titles on each console,

i dont think they should go this way . i own over 60 wii games, imagaine if they did his today,

redownloading all the vc wii ware games plus all the hard copy games . those are over 8 gigs some times more on ps3 and 360 lol ,

im sorry but if it goes this way im done with gaming simple as that, i got a pc, installs for it take long already so no i prefer hard copies of the games,

edit

i disagree on it will play a bigger role,

it cant , simpe as that unless the hard drives are free of charge and the download isnt all day , lol,

it simply cant and wont happen , maybe for nes snes ps1 n64 genesis neo geo tg16 anf the older consoles that didnt take much space

but for next gen games do you realise all 3 or 2 consoles next gen can use bluray lol, or another bigger media lol, that will take days if not 2 also take a big hunk out of your hard drive, oh and yes digital stuff is always there but sony takes their sever down for ps2 lol so ya , but xbox original games, they still are there, infact i dont know why they are still charging 5 dollars for pgr2 packs i went in dlc today on that game and it still cost 5 dollars, come on now,

but ya memory bandwith and more will become a major problem if this happens,

especailly if you are a collector like me, my 120plus snes games alone would take more then a day to re download if it were digitally served ,

heck my 360 collection would take a month if not more these games are bigger lol , and ps3 bluray mgs4 forget it,

ill have no time to wait for that and thats only this gens games, you wait till wii 2 x720 ps4 come, omg,

i seriously hope this never happens, never, unless they do it like they did warhawk sell a digital copy as well as hard copy,

give us a choice

sure disc risk scratch cracks thats nothing compared to never playing the game when they shut the servers down and you lose your games because of corruption

i have my vc games on a sd 360 arcade games on a hdd, so ill be fine also its tied to my xbl account /nintendo account so ya thats fine but what im trying to get at is time,

time is not an essance every one has,

we gotta work cook dinner do all the other stuff ,

that doesnt even include us playing the game yet,

and not every one has crrdit/debit cards . thats what would also be a problem for kids/teens that play games,

and no one should trust internet transactions, not in this day in age lol,

all it takes is a hacker, and they can get your account etc

all this is a growing problem preventing this from happening, unles they have point cards which i know sony doesnt, at least not in gamestores lol they only carry psn cards at 7 11 and gas stations across the country, not all gas stations only ones listed on the site lol

so that way we would be screwed as well . also if the game cost a certain amount of points and you dont have or you want an even so you can equal to a 0 balance , youd gotta use your math skills lol,

or else that money will sit there instead of being used for food clothes etc it will sit there until you get more lol

Nice thread man.

Personally i dont use DD, unless its an extremely good price and a "meh" game. I like that feeling of walking into a store, and buying a brand new game, then opening it :D. On a console, its an even worse idea!!! But hey, maybe in 5 games...., i hope it dosent happen but maybe.

It would be AWESOME for the company! But HORRIBLE for people like me.

Like i said, buying a brand new game and the feeling of opening it > cursing your console for download speeds

For PC games, I've already converted to DD.
It's a hell of a lot cheaper than buying retail games here in Australia, and it means I can skip the months of delays we usually have - especially on little-known adventure games that frequently aren't even released here.

For PC games, I've already converted to DD.
It's a hell of a lot cheaper than buying retail games here in Australia, and it means I can skip the months of delays we usually have - especially on little-known adventure games that frequently aren't even released here.

Planeforger

I could see that happening. I think Nintendo already does something like that in China with the iQue(?). People love hard copies though.

They don't consider how angry people would be if they did that. Full Games would probably take anywhere from 4 to 10 hours to download. There's nothing quite like buying a game from the store and ripping it open in the car to see how cool it looks. Maybe it's just me.

gamecubepad

iQue is a company, not a product. To make a long story short, up until recently, if you wanted to get into the Chinese market, you had to form a joint-venture with a Chinese company. Basically it's just a way for the Chinese company to steal your technology and you're powerless to stop it. So here, you can buy an iQue DS or an iQue GBA- they're not branded as Nintendo. Only the Wii is, and that's because you have to import it from Japa.

For me, I'm ok with DD in the following circumastances: a) the game is old and not available on store shelves, b) it's just a small downloadable title, or c) it's episodic content, simply because there's no way to ship that on disc.

I for one will never take DD over the physical software title.-Renegade

People argue how "next gen" the 360 and the PS3 are but at the same time the majority of them are against digital distribution, a definite move into the future a.k.a. next generation.

[QUOTE="imprezawrx500"][QUOTE="carljohnson3456"]

I hope DD doesnt happen next gen. :(

I like owning the physical copy, and holding the book, and opening the case, and having it years later on my game collection.

What bothers me is worrying about owning games on an HDD... and if the HDD goes bad? Then what? What if you didnt back them up? I just dont really like it. Ya know, Arcade/Virtual Console/PSN games are fine because they are small, but I dont want to buy Uncharted over the PSN.

0rin

then you download them again as many times as you like. what if you break your disk, its all gone, but with dd its always there

Digital supply = unlimited supply, can't be lost, doesn't take up physical space.

Physical supply = limited supply, will be lost as time passes by, takes up physical space.

I guarantee you in 30 years, I'll still be able to download whatever game and put it into whichever platform the successor of the platform that game was on may be and play it.

http://www.hdtvuk.tv/2007/07/bt_consider_inc.html

Is that fast enough?

Don Reisinger (from Cnet) said in this article on MAXCONSOLE that he thinks the PS4 will ditch blu-ray in favor of "streaming and HD downloads--the future of the industry."

Now, what I want to know is, where do all these analists get their information? Do you honestly think in 5 years, the world is going to be able to acchieve the bandwidth, and speeds necessary to download a 10-15 (in some cases upwards of 20-50)GB file in a reasonable amount of time? Even so, Wouldn't it be faster for the majority of people to just go out and buy a disc with the game on it?

Then theres the fact that Some Companies *cough* COMCAST (read that if you have Comcast, like me) are restricting the bandwidth their users can have. Whilst the restricted size is still fairly large, a 20 GB game is a huge chunk of bandwidth, and if you are the kind that buys multiple games a month, and have comcast will be jacked.

"but thats only a small portion of people! and you can alwasy get another ISP!" Sure, but to what end? It's still going to take me hours/DAYS to download a game, versus a 10-15 minute WALK to the nearest gamestore to pick up a preorder.

Why would you opt for DD for a full-scale game? Unless it was "pay $20 for DD or pay 80-90$ for it on disc". even then, i think 1: that is a chickens*** way of promoting DD, and 2: that is just obsurd price points.

I know developers like DD, because of the inability to resale/trade. There is also a nice article on [/url=http://www.gametrailers.com/bonusround.php?ep=26&pt=3]GT's Bonus Round[/url] about the future of gaming, and they talk about this very issue.

I really don't see how DD can be "the future of gaming" by next-gen. maybe a few decades down, when we all have massive broadband connections, and you can download 100GB in less than an hour, but for now? people are still using dialup, and even our broadband companies are running out of bandwidth because of so many users.

Anyway, I'll cut this short and ask: What is your opinion on Digital Distrubution? Do you think it'll be popular in 5 or so years when the next-gen consoles come out? do you think the next-gen consoles will completely scrap external media (blu-ray, or some sort of disk/cartridge/card). I think it'd be plausible to have games sold on a certain type of USB-like jumpdrive device, that you just plug in (ala the cartridges of old). That is plausible. But doing EVERYTHING via the internet?

I just don't see it.0rin

If it DOES become mainstream, and the "in" thing... it will be falling right into M$'s lap. They, not Sony, are the muscle in this department.

That being said, honestly, I'm not too keen on the whole idea. I prefer having a "collection", whether it be DVDs, games, or whatever, that I can amass and lay my eyes on and see my work in progress, so to speak. I guess a good analogy (at least, for me, being the huge Star Wars fan that I am, lol..) would be comparing the Original Trilogy to the prequels. The Original Trilogy didnt rely on CGI and had a "real" feel to it, while for me, thats where the prequels failed. It may be old school, but I like being able to touch, look at, and move around my collection of goodies. :D

Digital distribution simply cannot give you that same ole feeling.

[QUOTE="0rin"][QUOTE="imprezawrx500"][QUOTE="carljohnson3456"]

I hope DD doesnt happen next gen. :(

I like owning the physical copy, and holding the book, and opening the case, and having it years later on my game collection.

What bothers me is worrying about owning games on an HDD... and if the HDD goes bad? Then what? What if you didnt back them up? I just dont really like it. Ya know, Arcade/Virtual Console/PSN games are fine because they are small, but I dont want to buy Uncharted over the PSN.

Hexagon_777

then you download them again as many times as you like. what if you break your disk, its all gone, but with dd its always there

Digital supply = unlimited supply, can't be lost, doesn't take up physical space.

Physical supply = limited supply, will be lost as time passes by, takes up physical space.

I guarantee you in 30 years, I'll still be able to download whatever game and put it into whichever platform the successor of the platform that game was on may be and play it.

I hope DD doesnt happen next gen. :(

I like owning the physical copy, and holding the book, and opening the case, and having it years later on my game collection.

What bothers me is worrying about owning games on an HDD... and if the HDD goes bad? Then what? What if you didnt back them up? I just dont really like it. Ya know, Arcade/Virtual Console/PSN games are fine because they are small, but I dont want to buy Uncharted over the PSN.

carljohnson3456

And publishers like to EARN money.

[QUOTE="Hexagon_777"][QUOTE="0rin"][QUOTE="imprezawrx500"][QUOTE="carljohnson3456"]

I hope DD doesnt happen next gen. :(

I like owning the physical copy, and holding the book, and opening the case, and having it years later on my game collection.

What bothers me is worrying about owning games on an HDD... and if the HDD goes bad? Then what? What if you didnt back them up? I just dont really like it. Ya know, Arcade/Virtual Console/PSN games are fine because they are small, but I dont want to buy Uncharted over the PSN.

0rin

then you download them again as many times as you like. what if you break your disk, its all gone, but with dd its always there

Digital supply = unlimited supply, can't be lost, doesn't take up physical space.

Physical supply = limited supply, will be lost as time passes by, takes up physical space.

I guarantee you in 30 years, I'll still be able to download whatever game and put it into whichever platform the successor of the platform that game was on may be and play it.

I agree. This is why digital distribution is the better option.

It's time for optical media for game to die, Digital Distrubution is so much better, well with steam it is. It keep all your games together, allows you to buy new games with the click of a button, no need to put the disk in when every you play the game, can play your games from anywhere in the world without having to take the game with you. Doesn't waste lots of space needed for disk cases.

imprezawrx500

So basically it would create an obesity epidemic that even Oprah can't make you feel good about

For PC games, I've already converted to DD.
It's a hell of a lot cheaper than buying retail games here in Australia, and it means I can skip the months of delays we usually have - especially on little-known adventure games that frequently aren't even released here.

Planeforger

so true pretty funny how stalker cs is already out on steam yet you have to wait another week to buy it at the shop, crysis comes out today on steam and another week til it comes out at the shop. just need those stupied people at ubisoft, atari thq etc to let everyone buy their games on steam/d2d regardless of where you live, they are just thowing away sales

[QUOTE="0rin"][QUOTE="Hexagon_777"][QUOTE="0rin"]

Always there? so in 30 years, i'll still be able to download pixeljunk racers (or some other less-than popular game) off PSN for my PS3?

I guarantee you in 30 years, I'll still be able to put MGS3 into a PS2/PS3/PS4 (maybe?) and play it. In all my years, I have yet to unintentionally break a disc. Yet I have had numerous HDD's die/get corrupted.Hexagon_777

Digital supply = unlimited supply, can't be lost, doesn't take up physical space.

Physical supply = limited supply, will be lost as time passes by, takes up physical space.

I guarantee you in 30 years, I'll still be able to download whatever game and put it into whichever platform the successor of the platform that game was on may be and play it.

I agree. This is why digital distribution is the better option.

if anything, wont the Next Xbox capitalize on the market........sicne MS is expected to get yet another head start?

Arent they all ready dominating with Netflix and 10 000 episodes/movies (non netflix)?

Plus XBLA, XBorigionals, and XBox Community games (XNA games).

[QUOTE="Hexagon_777"][QUOTE="0rin"][QUOTE="Hexagon_777"][QUOTE="0rin"]

Always there? so in 30 years, i'll still be able to download pixeljunk racers (or some other less-than popular game) off PSN for my PS3?

I guarantee you in 30 years, I'll still be able to put MGS3 into a PS2/PS3/PS4 (maybe?) and play it. In all my years, I have yet to unintentionally break a disc. Yet I have had numerous HDD's die/get corrupted.0rin

Digital supply = unlimited supply, can't be lost, doesn't take up physical space.

Physical supply = limited supply, will be lost as time passes by, takes up physical space.

I guarantee you in 30 years, I'll still be able to download whatever game and put it into whichever platform the successor of the platform that game was on may be and play it.

I agree. This is why digital distribution is the better option.

If you lose the data, a good digital distribution service such as Steam will let you download the game again. Doesn't Nintendo do that with WiiWare and Virtual Console games as well? What about games downloaded off Xbox Live and PlayStation Network? Aren't you paying for a license to play the game? That means you didn't pay for the game itself, but a license to play it, which in return means that you can use that license to download and play the game anytime you want.

If your disk is lost and you can't find it, what then? If it breaks, you will definitely need to buy another one. And you are definitely right about Dreamcast games. That's the thing about disks; they come in limited supply. Digital distribution has unlimited supply, however. That is why I jumped in joy when I saw that Steam offered games I had missed out on.

In my opinion, digital distribution and disks will live alongside one another for a while longer but digital distribution will eventually take over. It seems logical to me.

if anything, wont the Next Xbox capitalize on the market........sicne MS is expected to get yet another head start?

Arent they all ready dominating with Netflix and 10 000 episodes/movies (non netflix)?

Plus XBLA, XBorigionals, and XBox Community games (XNA games).

-General_Ram-