Ron Gilbert unravels the mysteries of The Cave and calls time of death on physical media (interview)

GamesBeat's Sebastian Haley: At a recent preview event in San Francisco, I had the chance to go hands-on with an entire area of the game — an underground carnival — as well as sit down with Gilbert himself to talk about The Cave and his thoughts on digital distribution over traditional retail.

[Lifeequals42]

Every time I hear a dramatic prognostication like this, I shake my head.

[RuperttheBear]

It's only a matter of time until it is a reality. And it may be sooner than you think.

It's okay to bury your head in the sand and think it won't happen, but digital is going to take over. It's just a matter of how long it will take to do so.

People will argue that games are getting bigger, and connections aren't fast enough. But those problems will be overcome, and have already in many cases.

[caseh]

'Gilbert: The hard truth is that I think physical media is dead. It just doesn’t know it yet. We live in a world where most people have broadband at home.'

Gilbert my boy, most people have broadband that much is true, but for me to download the likes of MGS4 or Uncharted 3 it would take a day, A DAY. I could honestly buy online and have it shipped quicker than that, cheaper as well.

[Alos88]

Buying games digitally for consoles is ridiculously overpriced in the UK right now, I've seen prices as high as £59.99 in some cases!

[Tetsujin]

Digital as an option? Yes, I vote for that and support it.
Digital for mandatory? You f-ing crazy!

Some games I can see digital only however ALL games? Even if everyone had 100+ Mbps internet you still have to factor in caps, down times, and the fact that not everyone has internet still.

[madjedi]

just like everyone downloads their music instead of buying the cds./s
@rupert

We will have abandoned optical disks for a type of flash memory cartridge long before it's all digitally downloaded.

Not everywhere in the world has japans blazing fast internet speeds.

Btw digitally downloaded only lol, then you run into the hdd slowing your system down greatly because ssd are too expensive per gigabyte versus old harddisc drives.

You just traded one bottleneck for another, brilliant move there buddy taking a unnecessary performance hit.

Just because your setup is perfect for dd doesn't mean it's the same for everyone. Maybe for casuals or people who beat a game 1 time and never touch it again, dd is perfect for collectors not ideal.

Consoles aren't a pc.