OXM: Why we're not ready for a download-only Xbox 720

OXM's Edwin gives four reasons against dropping the disc drive.

[Snookies12]

I'll never be ready for any console being digital only... I think that is a horribly stupid idea. I LOVE packaging, it's a part of the experience and when I like a game, I enjoy displaying the case proudly. There are some cases where I don't mind digital if it's super cheap, or there's no other means of obtaining it. Though if I can, even if it costs a bit extra, I will ALWAYS go for a physical copy.

[dirigiblebill]

Indeed, there's something about having something in a box. It's a little bit primal.

[Snookies12]

Haha, my inner caveman needs boxes for things.

[Dante112]

Yeah, if the next MS console is digital (rumor), I wouldn't buy it at all. The PSP Go tried that and failed badly.

[TekoIie]

PSP Go only had one thing going for it which was portability. I could barely fit the original PSP in my pocket but it was possible with the PSP Go.

[Veneno]

the GO failed cause of it's price. Consoles are supposed to go down in price over time like the PS3 slime with the price cut. But sony were kinda foolish to think they could sell this at a higher price as a premium product when it didn't do anything better than the earlier models of PSP.

[NukaCola]

Digital only would be a real fail. You need a disc drive. I know CDs are about as dead as they come due to MP3s but I still play movies and Blurays in my PS3 and Netflix and Hulu will probably never replace that.

[Captain Qwark 9]

couldnt agree more.

[dark-hollow]

so this, and the fact that they will have full control over the prices which is bad for the consumer.

[bumnut]

I can see your point, but if digital copies were 30% cheaper than physical people would buy them.

Sadly that won't happen because MS are greedy and will charge full price

[Lirky]

Maybe xbox720 could be like Steam, a client from xbl thatll install dlcs, and full games. And the console shell for 360 will be replaced with a xbox720 shell..

[Persistantthug]

.

[mauleriscool]

They should just have the digital download released the same day as the disc. That would allow people to choose what they want.

Being a steam user, I'd love to just download all my games. I have a 320gb xbox hard drive and the only thing filling it is all my disc games being installed(and any DLC for those games). Plus moving all my current disc games and xbox back and forth from the university to home would be much easier if it was only the xbox(or even just the hard drive if you somehow had another xbox at home).

[Havok123]

DD ONLY WILL NEVER HAPPEN, EVER..........even if everyone had 100000000000 terabyte download speeds

[AllroundGamer]

Because -

[kma2k]

Good example i downloaded a 15gb file the other day for my ps3 (not 360 but still a console) it was dc natio or whatever the mmo game was called to try it out. I have a 15mbps speed which isnt the fastest or slow by any standards i downloaded after the game had been out for a few months on a wensday afternoon (non peak hours) & it took 6 horus to download. Imagine trying to download Halo 4 on release day, it would serisouly take a week! Not to mentio download caps from ISP's get rid of ISP caps & have 1gbps be standard & digital only could be a serisous posobility!

[ZeroWil]

15gbs? That's quite hefty. Though it is an MMO. For comparisons however, I downloaded Halo Reach a while ago from XBL, and it was just under 7GB I think. But your point on the download caps is indeed a serious problem. Optimum Online recently started throttling me, so even when I'm downloading say a 300 MB patch, if I reach a certain download speed (1MBps I think), everything goes down.

[KidMakeshift]

Disc based games will stay but everything will be locked unless you buy a temporary pass to play

[Summons75]

Download only will never be standard, like at the psp go it failed because of the download only.

[OC_MurphysLaw]

Digital download is around the corner. All the console makers need to do is figure out the proper way to handle it... and I do believe Steam has shown us part of the way.... and a service like Gaikai or Onlive could be the other missing element.

For Digital download to be successful I think 3 things need to be in place console wise. 1) Pricing.. it has to be more attractive than $5 off the sticker price plain and simple. 2) Digital delivery needs to allow for pre-order staged delivery ala Steam. PSN is starting to do it... all of them will need to allow for it so servers are not crashing due to high demand day 1. 3) Having a way to get an initial install that might allow for a "stream" play while the game continues to download fully in the background.

edit: I will say I am not sure how plausible option 3 is but it would stand to reason that the initial tutorial sections of most games are something that could be parsed out into a smaller file that could be downloaded first and played easily enough and allow for the rest of the game to download in the back ground. Its not a perfect solution but if these things were in place I would feel much easier about digital download only consoles.

[InklingGirl]

I'm all for digital downloading, as a former owner of a huge collection of games/consoles and have lost it all due to the economy. Having the ability to buy a game and be able to it re-download it later if I ever need to sell my console again is a plus, this way I only lose the console and not the more important games.

Also, I don't like having discs and boxing everywhere anymore and being able to launch any game from inside another game is pretty sweet.

[kingPoS]

Until the whole of America is cruisin on at least 15mb with a min 350gb cap, We won't see download only consoles in the US.

ISP's would have to change their act. And sadly I don't see them changing any time soon.

[Derpy]

I couldn't read the article because the link seems to be dead at the moment, but speed versus size is a real problem. Games keep growing in size and not everyone is lucky enough to have the kind of speed needed to easily download some of these larger games. Today it is not uncommon to see games that are over 10gb in size and it's only going to get larger.

I live in the country and have what's considered a pretty good internet speed in my area, but it still takes me 6-8hrs to just download a 3gb file. I don't want to be tying up my system for days at a time, every time I buy a game. I tend to buy 5-8 games a month, so my system would always be busy downloading (also any form of online access in games would certainly be out with the bandwidth being tied up.) So for me, any download only system is out.

Besides, I love having physical copies of my games, so even if I had an insane amount of internet speed, I doubt I'd want a digital only system.

[Stansolo]

Retail game stores will die if it goes all digital download.
Its there way of stopping the second hand market, they want maximen profit.
What about the pirates, will they find away to copy?