Digital distribution? Like it or hate it..

Ive been reading all over the net lately about digital distribution on the next gen of consoles... tbh this really worries me and heres why:

I live in the UK and my internet connection for my town is avg 1.5Mb, It takes me about 3 hours to download a demo from xbox live let alone a game. Also with my internet IP i have a usage each month of 50Gb which sounds alot but if you consider games getting bigger each year i could use my usage up on a few games...and then theres storage issue on the next gen consoles, you'd need massice memery to store all them games you download.

I know what i've said sounds selfish but i really am against the idea of selling games as download only, The game in a box will always be my fav :)

What are your thoughts on this?

Well it's convenient to use, but it usually costs more than boxed copy of the game. And you won't get a nice game box nor printed manual with your purchase. So I only buy boxed copies myself as I want to save as much money as possible and get more bonuses.

As it is now, I'd have to say I hate it. It costs more than getting a physical copy of the game and you can't sell it when you're done with it. Until the pricing gets more competitive, I'm sticking to buying physical copies of games. (although for pc steam does have some pretty sweet deals here and there)

Hate it and you really shouldn't worry as physical is not going anywhere anytime soon for many reasons some of which you have already stated. Next gen systems are def going to be more involved in digital distribution but it's def not taking over completely. The biggest two imo being price and size. Like you mentioned games are going to and already have begun to become huge in size. The average now for a 360 game is 6 or 7 gigs and there are plenty that go way over that. Next gen games are bound to be like 15 to 20 gigs average. I have fast unlimited internet and downloading a 20 gig game will take me forever. Many people don't have unlimited and/or fast Internet so they would be screwed.

The price is also gonna hold digital distribution back. Put simply their absurd. There's few to no price drops / sales and no resale value which would destroy a whole market.

The one pro being convenience for those who want it but imo the cons far outweigh the pro.

what shocks me alot of the time is that the big companys seem to think this really is the way forward because they base there figures on phone games and XBLA titles that are smaller in download size and cheaper so people by them.

But like some of you have mentioned if you change that to full £50 title prices and 20Gb downloads then i for one will not be buying them...

I really hope that the next gen dont go down this road with digital distribution in the future

what shocks me alot of the time is that the big companys seem to think this really is the way forward because they base there figures on phone games and XBLA titles that are smaller in download size and cheaper so people by them.

But like some of you have mentioned if you change that to full £50 title prices and 20Gb downloads then i for one will not be buying them...

I really hope that the next gen dont go down this road with digital distribution in the future

corb77

Their not sure what they way forward is but they really hope it's digital distribution because it's 100% win for them and 100% loss for us. We get screwed over while they make a boatload of extra money and completely cut out the middle man. The cost of production would be greatly reduced but i bet they wouldn't pass those savings on to us. Games would still cost full price.

Hate it to the bone, this cannot happen on consoles. I have not bought 1 piece of dlc, retail games with DLC codes included, or anything this generation. You can't resell, can't bring it to a friends house, HDDs crash, and it will not work with the next system probably since backwards compatibility seems to be unimportant (isn't it hard to even re-DL on another of the same system if one breaks?). Also with consoles, only the manufacturer will host the software so there will be no competition at all so high prices and rare sales. Plus, full 1080p + 3D games are going to be what file size?

They control everything about your gaming and you have to be tethered to a good internet connection.

At least with PCs you can always DL your things on the next gaming rig you buy and they always include some DRM trash that makes physical copies digital anyways (EA is starting this with consoles somewhat already, scary). This is evil for consoles.

I love it. Im sorry, but I love nothing more than to either preload a game or stay up until 12:01 am and hit download on Steam or D2D. I dont need nor do I care about physical packaging. To all of you nay sayers...Steam, D2D and Gamestopsays Helloooooooo! It works just fine!! I fully believe that the next generation of consoles will support digital distibution much, much more than what it has been this generation. This is exactly the way that MS can get an advantage over Sony if they choose to not go digital distribution. The next XBOX should have a 500GB-1 TB HDD, 4-6 GB RAM and a few tweaks to the XBL connectivity and digital distribution is no problem! It is the future. Acccept it!

Consoles will continue to die until they become all digital

Digital is the way of the future, the ability to have content licensed to you for your lifetime is amazing and the more people embrace it the more it'll grow

I do prefer having a hard copy of a game ie:- a cd. But if a game I may have missed first time around and if want to play it and have space on my hdd I consider purchasing it. My net connection is fast enough to download but is a bit varied on how fast it is so unless it's a real important download I wont get it expecially if it's over 5gig.

I hate the idea of it.

1. My internet connection is horrible. It would probably take days to download an entire full length game, epecially RPGs, which is what I play the most.

2. No competition. If the only person selling Microsoft's games is Microsoft, then that could be bad. Currently I can wait a few months and pick up a game for half the price online. This likely wouldn't happen with a digital distribution Monopoly.

3. I would be scared of losing all of my content. What happens if my harddrive corrupts? What if Microsoft decides to ban my account for no reason? Will I not be able to use all the content I had bought?

4. I like to share games with friends. I don't live in an area with easy access to lot of games. So I am constantly trading the games I do have with friends. It will be a sad day when I can longer do this.

These are all just my thoughts, which could be entirely wrong.

I prefer a solid copy, but I don't hate it.

I like it, because it's easier to keep track of games and you can share them with friends (not sure if it's legal or not, but it works).