Download only (or mostly can work for the PC), however it would be a disaster for consoles.
Alot of people dont understand this. The reason why it would be a disaster on console is because MS and Sony would form a monopoly for their respective system. Want an Xbox game can only get it from XBL, want a Playstation game can get it only from SEN. Thing is each of these networks would have no reason to drop prices.
On PC things are a lot different. You have Steam, D2D, Gog, Gamers gate, Origin, GFWL etc all competing at the same time for the PC market. If i want to buy ABC game if i find it cheaper on D2D, ill probably skip buying it on Steam vice versa. Hence this promotes a healthy competitive behavior.
With console it will be a restricted network only sellers will be MS and Sony for each of their respective networks. Meaning if they have an internal agreement not to drop prices, no one can do anything about it. Now console gamers might disagree here, however its already a fact that DD games are cheaper on PC vs console and this is purely due to many networks competing.
Hence i would think the existance of a retail sector on console would be a good thing as it would promote price competition. Leave it to MS and Sony they will with DD only and they will screw up console gamers worse than they already do.
@godmar290
Which is why GFWL or Origin arent successful at all, as long as they keep their greedy policies the other networks will keep them at bay. However imagine if we only had Origin or only had GFWL. Thats the situation consoles are in.
You're right but at the same time things like GFWL and Origin are in fact trying to monopolize the PC download market.
Mind you they're being so obvious about it they're ruining themselves, but still.
At the same time download-only for consoles will only lead to lower quality titles because - somehow - console makers and game publishers have gotten it into their heads that they don't have to try as hard, just make it look pretty.
Don't see how Origin or GFWL are all that bad when Valve is worse in terms of trying to monopolize the market.
GFWL just blows because it's so outdated and broken, but Origin ain't that bad.
As for consoles, I don't mind downloading primarily multiplayer games. (Like KZ3's MP). It's cheap, saves me the trouble of loading in the disc, and the thing inherently needs online anyways so all's good.
Valve doesn't try to monopolize the market... They just do. Their customer service is phenomenal and they have the best sales in the gaming industry. They're not "trying" to monopolize, they already have...
It's not like they came and took the PC space from a different company, NO! The PC space was basically dead before Steam became successful, and now GFWL and Origin are making a pathetic attempt at duplicating steam's success with service which is not comparable. If it were not for Steam, the PC market would be dead! They not only have the support of customers but they also have support from so many indie developers that were basically not wanted on Microsoft's platform (just ask Edmund McMillen and Tommy Refenes).
I look at the PC market and think: Damn valve is doing a good job with Steam, but then again, when you compare a company to EA and Microsoft, it's not hard to look bad.
I have to disagree about their customer service being phenomenal. My uncle hasn't been able to get his account working for about 6 months. There is no way to contact them directly or talk to someone. At least have a chat option.
The purpose of the article is to offer a response to all of these concerns you just posted. It's all in there.
Xbox Live isn't a monopoly. All of the console guys compete in the same space. If SEN had better prices, it would drive PS3/4 adoption ahead of Xbox.
If physical retail didn't exist and digital download was the primary revenue stream, they would need to price games attractively through that, or risk losing the install base. They can't say we are going download only now, but we will have download prices you won't like.
The main reason download prices are high on console versus PC is because they want parity with the physical retail RRP to please the stores like Gamestop who stock those games. On Xbox they even hold the digital version off for 6 months to avoid displeasing the retailers. It is the mixed market problem, they haven't gone into digital dl full force yet in a way that would kill physical retail, because for now that is still good for them, but one day they will complete the transition.
you forgot one thing, on sen the prices are set by the publishers, not sen. and each publisher are in competition with each other at all times. And if you ever noticed, they are always sales on SEN, and permanent price drops.
I am a VALVe videogame fanboy, but Steam, I am not a fan of at all. However, I want VALVe to be successful, but I am sticking with XBL for my gaming pleasure. Speaking of, I must return to Dust: an Elysian Tale, it is a fantastic experience, IMO of course.
No. Can't speak for any other products as I only have a Vita and a PSP to use PSN's services, but even after they've adopted a fluid pricing model for games after the failure of the PSP Go, they STILL can't seem to price their games competitively compared with the retail market.
I love Steam and its sales, but I will almost always pay more to get a physical copy of a game. A DD-only future would have me buying a LOT fewer games, and never at full price.
There are NO legitimate reasons why we should do such a thing. Digital has its benefits, but it's NOT the best path for the future of gaming.
Anybody with two brains cells to rub together can see that. Unfortunately, once they start using those brain cells, they start getting ideas. And ideas are often wrong.
I'll officially quit gaming the day this comes to fruition. Don't know if it's the new generation of kiddies who support this but i for one prefer hard copies of all my games. That way i can resell it cause i bought the darn thing.
All digital and I'm done gaming. I like to actually own the things I buy. Plus I like artwork and booklets. The physical games I own I'll own my entire life. With digital there's nothing stopping publishers from pulling it off live or psn after you've bought it, all you paid for is access to a game you don't own and no guarantee that it will be there tomorrow.
So I think digital is cool and all, but today it pissed me off and I would like to send a middle finger out to Sony.
So I bought The Uncharted Dual Pack on PSN a few days ago. Yeah so I'm late to the party blah blah blah who cares. Better late than never. I completed Uncharted yesterday (great game, surprised me in a lot of ways), and decided to put Uncharted 2 to download early this morning while I slept. It's 19 gigs huge so it took until this afternoon to complete. Next step was installation...and that's where I get pissed off. The installation starts fine and everything, until it reaches the 14% mark and an error message pops up stating that the file may be corrupt blah blah blah. I google around to see that this a problem people been having over the years and Sony has never commented on it, which I find unbelievable. There seems to be no official solution and the best advice I can get is "keep trying even though it continues to fail. You may get lucky eventually". So after running out of patience, I decided to spend the remainder of my day downloading this huge game again. No I had nothing else to do besides sit patiently at home and watch both Batman Begins and The Dark Knight on bluray while it downloaded again. That's amazing and all, but I would prefer to be enjoying me some Uncharted instead. I could have easily bought the dual pack on disc, but I decided not to...Don't make me regret doing that entirely Sony.
Digital only is good for live/psn games, full retail games a disc is better for alot of people. Realise not everyone in the world lives in south korea or japan with it's ridiculously fast internet speeds.
I didn't bother with some digital games, simply because i was always running out of room on my hdd. I have a digital copy of reach installed on my xbox, yeah it works fine but i don't always want to wait 3-5 hrs to dl a 5-7 gig game. And some of the ps3 exclusives at 25+ gigs hell no.
Digital only is a pipe dream, it's not practical for everyone, so the discussion for a digital only future atm is impractical at best. Try again in 15-20 yrs, when we have enough affordable bandwidth to support everything being done digitally.
Btw they need work on getting ssd's cheaper, higher capacity, reliability closer to hdd levels and phasing out discs and replacing them with a type of high speed flash memory cartridge/drive.
It will do a hell of alot more good for gamers everywhere overall rather than endorsing a all digital push, when the infrastructure is 50 yrs or older and not designed to handle anywhere near the capacity. Without a expensive and complicated overhaul.
Now - Join us on Filmwatch as we celebrate the release of Star Trek Into Darkness this month with a must-have collectible for Star Trek fans! | Promoted post
10°
20°
10°
10°
Ad 
20°
Alot of people dont understand this. The reason why it would be a disaster on console is because MS and Sony would form a monopoly for their respective system. Want an Xbox game can only get it from XBL, want a Playstation game can get it only from SEN. Thing is each of these networks would have no reason to drop prices.
On PC things are a lot different. You have Steam, D2D, Gog, Gamers gate, Origin, GFWL etc all competing at the same time for the PC market. If i want to buy ABC game if i find it cheaper on D2D, ill probably skip buying it on Steam vice versa. Hence this promotes a healthy competitive behavior.
With console it will be a restricted network only sellers will be MS and Sony for each of their respective networks. Meaning if they have an internal agreement not to drop prices, no one can do anything about it. Now console gamers might disagree here, however its already a fact that DD games are cheaper on PC vs console and this is purely due to many networks competing.
Hence i would think the existance of a retail sector on console would be a good thing as it would promote price competition. Leave it to MS and Sony they will with DD only and they will screw up console gamers worse than they already do.
@godmar290
Which is why GFWL or Origin arent successful at all, as long as they keep their greedy policies the other networks will keep them at bay. However imagine if we only had Origin or only had GFWL. Thats the situation consoles are in.
Mind you they're being so obvious about it they're ruining themselves, but still.
At the same time download-only for consoles will only lead to lower quality titles because - somehow - console makers and game publishers have gotten it into their heads that they don't have to try as hard, just make it look pretty.
GFWL just blows because it's so outdated and broken, but Origin ain't that bad.
As for consoles, I don't mind downloading primarily multiplayer games. (Like KZ3's MP). It's cheap, saves me the trouble of loading in the disc, and the thing inherently needs online anyways so all's good.
Valve doesn't try to monopolize the market... They just do. Their customer service is phenomenal and they have the best sales in the gaming industry. They're not "trying" to monopolize, they already have...
It's not like they came and took the PC space from a different company, NO! The PC space was basically dead before Steam became successful, and now GFWL and Origin are making a pathetic attempt at duplicating steam's success with service which is not comparable. If it were not for Steam, the PC market would be dead! They not only have the support of customers but they also have support from so many indie developers that were basically not wanted on Microsoft's platform (just ask Edmund McMillen and Tommy Refenes).
I look at the PC market and think: Damn valve is doing a good job with Steam, but then again, when you compare a company to EA and Microsoft, it's not hard to look bad.
I have to disagree about their customer service being phenomenal. My uncle hasn't been able to get his account working for about 6 months. There is no way to contact them directly or talk to someone. At least have a chat option.
Xbox Live isn't a monopoly. All of the console guys compete in the same space. If SEN had better prices, it would drive PS3/4 adoption ahead of Xbox.
If physical retail didn't exist and digital download was the primary revenue stream, they would need to price games attractively through that, or risk losing the install base. They can't say we are going download only now, but we will have download prices you won't like.
The main reason download prices are high on console versus PC is because they want parity with the physical retail RRP to please the stores like Gamestop who stock those games. On Xbox they even hold the digital version off for 6 months to avoid displeasing the retailers. It is the mixed market problem, they haven't gone into digital dl full force yet in a way that would kill physical retail, because for now that is still good for them, but one day they will complete the transition.
Anybody with two brains cells to rub together can see that. Unfortunately, once they start using those brain cells, they start getting ideas. And ideas are often wrong.
So I bought The Uncharted Dual Pack on PSN a few days ago. Yeah so I'm late to the party blah blah blah who cares. Better late than never. I completed Uncharted yesterday (great game, surprised me in a lot of ways), and decided to put Uncharted 2 to download early this morning while I slept. It's 19 gigs huge so it took until this afternoon to complete. Next step was installation...and that's where I get pissed off. The installation starts fine and everything, until it reaches the 14% mark and an error message pops up stating that the file may be corrupt blah blah blah. I google around to see that this a problem people been having over the years and Sony has never commented on it, which I find unbelievable. There seems to be no official solution and the best advice I can get is "keep trying even though it continues to fail. You may get lucky eventually". So after running out of patience, I decided to spend the remainder of my day downloading this huge game again. No I had nothing else to do besides sit patiently at home and watch both Batman Begins and The Dark Knight on bluray while it downloaded again. That's amazing and all, but I would prefer to be enjoying me some Uncharted instead. I could have easily bought the dual pack on disc, but I decided not to...Don't make me regret doing that entirely Sony.
I am upset.
I didn't bother with some digital games, simply because i was always running out of room on my hdd. I have a digital copy of reach installed on my xbox, yeah it works fine but i don't always want to wait 3-5 hrs to dl a 5-7 gig game. And some of the ps3 exclusives at 25+ gigs hell no.
Digital only is a pipe dream, it's not practical for everyone, so the discussion for a digital only future atm is impractical at best. Try again in 15-20 yrs, when we have enough affordable bandwidth to support everything being done digitally.
Btw they need work on getting ssd's cheaper, higher capacity, reliability closer to hdd levels and phasing out discs and replacing them with a type of high speed flash memory cartridge/drive.
It will do a hell of alot more good for gamers everywhere overall rather than endorsing a all digital push, when the infrastructure is 50 yrs or older and not designed to handle anywhere near the capacity. Without a expensive and complicated overhaul.