310°

Gaming will never go fully digital

Digital game purchasing has become increasingly popular very quickly. Some have even come to question how much longer companies will continue to produce physical copies of games. With Next-Gen approaching there are some key reasons why going fully digital will still be a problem.

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gameblinx.com
dasbeer883854d ago

In response to the title of this article: STEAM begs the differ.

DeadIIIRed3854d ago

The size of games are growing at a much faster rate than bandwidth here in the states. Downloading 50 gig games would put a lot of stress on the existing infrastructure if everyone needed to do it.

SpitFireAce853854d ago

Well they need to sell games at a discount
if they want me to go digital $10-15 cheaper.
And I'am in otherwise no way will i pay
the same price as retail.

MicDude3854d ago

@DeadIIIRed

The same argument can be made that download speeds are getting faster and the price of storage is getting cheaper. I think we are looking at an all digital future, but it's still 5-10 years away.

PickAShoe3854d ago

Try Onlive, the quality is not good. Digital only works for music and movies. I prefer renting movies on disc anyway for better picture quality and sound.

DeadIIIRed3853d ago

@MicDude

Download speeds are getting faster, but imagine a next gen game as popular as GTA V and suddenly you have over 5 million people attempting to download 50 GB at once. At that point service speed doesn't matter if the current infrastructure can't support it.

Improvements are being made, but what we is more of a complete overhaul.

ChickeyCantor3853d ago

"The size of games are growing at a much faster rate than bandwidth here in the states. "

Not if Google can help it. The bandwidth you guys get ( not to forget the freaking data cap ) for that high price is a crime. I really hope Google shakes up the north american internet provider business.

No_Pantaloons3853d ago

DeadIIIRed hit the nail on the head. People are already talking 4k this and that, but very few are talking about how a 4k movie is over 100GB.

Thing's like google fiber are amazing, but they've only gotten to like 3 cities in 2 1/2 years, even with huge acceleration it will be a long time before something similar is available country wide. Comcast and the others have no interests in upgrading while they can still milk the current market.

Aceman183853d ago

i personally will never go full digital. physical media will also be in my collection. i'll buy a digital game here and there.

SilentNegotiator3853d ago (Edited 3853d ago )

"The same argument can be made that download speeds are getting faster and the price of storage is getting cheaper"

Counter arguing with that is like arguing that accelerating your car against an identical car that you're racing will guaranteed get you ahead of the other car.

Unless you deny that game sizes are quickly getting bigger, there's no argument that we're getting closer to an all-digital future.

+ Show (6) more repliesLast reply 3853d ago
P0werVR3854d ago (Edited 3854d ago )

Digital none the less. Besides, not everyone are game collectors.

So your average joe will more likely buy it only $60 for it.

@dasbeer88

Yes sir!

denawayne3853d ago

I think it'll come down to some of the game being downloaded to the local HD while the rest will be accessed on the fly. MS's cloud anybody?

pyramidshead3853d ago

Pretty much. As long as there are people will awful internet connections around, retail will be around for a long time.

+ Show (1) more replyLast reply 3853d ago
ZBlacktt3854d ago

Nope, collectors edition are not going away!

admiralvic3854d ago

Go away? Most likely never.
Stay physical? Terraria collectors edition ( http://www.gamestop.com/ps3... ) begs to differ.

Terraria: Collector's Edition

More details
Terraria 2GB Pick-axe USB stick
Exclusive New Items Crafting Poster
3X Velum Character Stickers
Digital Game Download Card

It's entirely possible that we will just see "special" editions that exist physically (that, ducktales, MvC 2, a couple of PSP games like Patapon 2), but are nothing more than X with a voucher code.

kjones05873854d ago (Edited 3854d ago )

It's like saying, "music will never go fully digital." Cd's haven't disappeared, but once the capacity is there, the majority of people will prefer the pros of having digital copies versus physical discs.

VitaOwner3854d ago

I think there will always be a use for physical copies if for nothing else but for Backup purposes. No matter how great your digital system is, There is the potential for Data loss.

keabrown793854d ago

Music cd's are not 50 GB+ With internet caps you are lucky to download "A" game per-month

Jovanian 3854d ago

Lol you serious bro? I've downloaded several games ranging from at least 10-20GB in size within the span of a month. And the only games that are 50GB are from idiots who don't know how to port, that is a gross misuse of hard drive space

keabrown793852d ago

@Swadian_Grognard many current gen PS3 games, examples being GTA 5 at 18GB, MGS 4 is about 32GB compressed. Those are quite bit for current gen and with next gen assets being a higher resolution you can expect quite a bit of an increase in file size to a low 20gb and then up from there. So potentially if you have an internet cap of 50 gb you could only download 2 games in a month.

Hufandpuf3854d ago

With services such as Spotify, google music, Hulu, red box, etc. I wouldn't be surprised if physical music and movies disappear just because of convenience. Physical copies may continue to go down in price until they eventually don't make a profit anymore.

If that can happen to those markets, the same can happen to games. Just not anytime soon.

deep_fried_bum_cake3854d ago

A future in which physical copies are still readily available is a future I will game in. Otherwise I just won't bother. I like the convenience of digital but I will never fully trust that I actually own games unless I have the physical copy.

sypher3854d ago (Edited 3854d ago )

Exactly, i think the closure of Games For Windows Live (any content you owned on that simply disappears) show's the future of any DD service. Once they disappear so does all your stuff because well you never owned it in the first place...

I do believe a Netflix like service will eventually become the norm on the systems. There will be too much competition and choice that its the only logical choice for digital only content.

deafdani3854d ago

A Netflix like service? That is pretty much what OnLive is.

Now, that platform is a superb idea, but it's still a bit ahead of its time. There's still a lot of people that just don't have the required connection speeds to use OnLive effectively, and hell, there's even still a fair amount of people without internet!

However, that will obviously change over time. In the future, when everyone has a minimum of 100 MB internet speed or something like that, then yes, OnLive (and other services) will be as popular for games as Netflix is for movies now, if not more.

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180°

Bethesda Needs to Reduce the Gaps Between New Fallout and Elder Scrolls Releases

Waiting a decade for new instalments in franchises as massive as Fallout and Elder Scrolls feels like a waste.

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gamingbolt.com
-Foxtrot11h ago

Microsoft have Obsidian but I feel it's Bethesda who just don't want to play ball as they've always said they want to do it themselves.

Once MS bought Zenimax in 2020 they should have put the Outer Worlds 2 on the back burner, allow Bethesda to finish off its own Space RPG with Starfield (despite totally different tone why have two in your first party portfolio with two developers who's gameplay is a tad similar) and got Obsidian for one of their projects to make a spiritual successor to New Vegas.

When the Elder Scrolls VI is finished Bethesda can then onto the main numbered Fallout 5 themselves.

The Outer Worlds 2 started development in 2019 so putting it on the back burner wouldn't have been the end of the world, they'd have always come back to it once Fallout was done and it would have been nicely spaced out from Starfields release once they had most likely stopped supporting it and all the expansions were released.

If they did this back in 2020 when they bought Zenimax and the game had a good, steady 4 - 5 years development, you might have seen it release in 2025.

We are literally going to be waiting until 2030 at the very earliest for Fallout 5 and all they seem bothered about is pushing Fallout 76.

RaidenBlack9h ago(Edited 9h ago)

Its not just only Todd not playing ball.
Obsidian have made a name for themselves in delivering stellar RPGs, but most famous once have always been sequels/spin-offs to borrowed IPs like KOTOR 2, Neverwinter Nights 2, Fallout: New Vegas, Stick of Truth etc.
Obsidian wants to invest more in their own original IPs like Outer Worlds or Pillars of Eternity with Avowed.
Similar to what Bluepoint & inXile wants to do or Kojima is doing (i.e not involving anymore in Konami's IPs).
So yea, even if New Vegas has the most votes from 3D Fallout fans, Obsidian just wants to do their own thing, like any aspiring dev studio and MS is likely currently respecting that.
But a future Fallout game from Obsidian will surely happen. Founder Feargus Urquhart has already stated an year ago that they're eager to make a new Fallout game with Bethesda, New Vegas 2 or otherwise. Urquhart was the director of the very first 1995's Fallout game after all.
And don't forget Brian Fargo and his studio inXile, as Brian Fargo was the director of Fallout's 1988 predecessor: Wasteland

KyRo5h ago(Edited 5h ago)

Obsidian should take over the FO IP. They're do far better with it than Bethesda who hasn't made a great game for almost 15 years

Duke195h ago(Edited 5h ago)

I disagree. Part of these games is the support for the mod community. If they move to releasing a "next game" every 2 or 3 years, the modding support plummets and the franchises turn into just another run of the mill RPG.

Make the games good enough to withstand the test of time, to keep people coming back to them and expanding on them with mod support.

--Onilink--2h ago(Edited 2h ago)

I dont think anyone is saying they need to come out every 2 years (not to mention almost no game is released that quickly anymore)

By the time Fallout 5 comes out, it will be more than 15 years since Fallout 4 came out (same with ES6 coming out 15 years after Skyrim). Even if you want to use F76 as the metric for the most recent release, that one came out in 2018. It will be a miracle if F5 comes out before 2030

The point is that for a studio that doesnt seem to operate with multiple teams doing several projects at once, that their projects normally take 4-5 years as a minimum, and that now they even added Starfield to the rotation, it becomes a 15+ years waiting period between releases for each series, which doesnt make sense. Imagine that Nintendo only released a mainline Mario or Zelda game every 15 years…

They either need to start developing more than 1 project at a time, let someone else take a crack at one of the IPs or significantly reduce their development times

Duke191h ago(Edited 1h ago)

Why should someone else take a crack at one of the IPs? Look at what happened to Final Fantasy as a recent example - there is pretty clear FF fatigue setting in because they are now pumping out titles in the franchise every few years. Pumping out more games faster doesn't always make a series better.

There are plenty of options to make new games, not just create more titles in the same universe at a faster pace.

mandf2h ago

Yeah I’m going to say it, who cares about the modding community when making a game? Half the time developers only tolerate modders because they fix there game for them.

Skuletor4h ago

Yeah, let's all advocate for smaller gaps between series' releases, then we'll probably get headlines about how the series have dropped in quality and they could have benefited from more time in the oven. Let them cook.

SimpleSlave3h ago

"how the series have dropped in quality and they could have benefited from more time in the oven" So every Bethesda game then? Got it.

Listen, I would agree if this was about From Software or something, but Bethesda?

🤣

C'mon now. What timeline are you from?

Skuletor1h ago

Think about it, they're already bug filled messes on their current schedule, can you imagine how much worse it would be if they rushed things?

Duke191h ago

I mean you aren't wrong. People are going to complain about anything

isarai3h ago

Hows about you focus on quality, just a thought 🤷‍♂️

Sciurus_vulgaris2h ago

Bethesda [or Microsoft] would have to reallocate internal and external studios towards fallout and elder scrolls titles. Bethesda has the issue of developing 2 big IPs that are large RPGs on rotation. If you want more Fallout and Elder Scrolls, development will have to be outsourced.

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