290°

Digital Delivery to Overtake Boxed Games in 2015

More than half (57 per cent) of videogames professionals believe that digital sales will overtake boxed product sales by 2015 according to a survey of 1,000 industry execs carried out by London Games Conference.

Read Full Story >>
electronictheatre.co.uk
Tachyon_Nova4552d ago

I guess it really depends on what next-gen consoles do. It would be surprising to me if they didn't go the way of PC where digital download accounts for probably the vast majority of game sales. Means we will be seeing some beefy harddrives in them finally.

iamnsuperman4552d ago

The manufactors are limited by what each country has to offer in term of infranstructure. At the moment the speed and download speed is not good enough for massive amount downloads of games that are big in size. At the moment not many countries can support this and cheaper digital snaller games are the type of games tha can be supported. The manufactors will not go digital yet especailly by 2015 when it takes years to make internet speed faster. I remeber not to long ago a plan was going to happen to make the uk speeds faster but was scrapped because it cost too much. It would be a massive mistake to go digital only and that would be ,as well as increasing speed, is the way to make gamers go digital only. Imagine downlaoding a game like bf3 or mw3 day one. It would be so slow

TheGameFoxJTV4552d ago

It could be like steam, allow be people days in advance to download the game, and jut unlock it on release date.

Autodidactdystopia4552d ago

Not many countries have the extra money to spend to waste on an xbox, theres only about 15 they're really interested in, and those that have the money for the xbox tend to also have the money for the internet.

Ares84HU4552d ago

I got 260 PS3 games at the moment. Let's just do an average of 25GB/game. That's 6.25TB and I'm getting at least 10 more games this year. There is no way in hell they will ad a 10TB hard drive in the next gen consoles. That is pretty certain. I think what will happen is everything will be cloud based which is total bullshit if you ask me. In a cloud based system you don't own your video game collection and you don't have the feeling of ownership. Just to prove my point, yesterday I was deleting at least 30 PSN games from my hard drive because they are just DL games and I don't really need them on the HDD anymore because I need space for something else.

DL and cloud based services are shit. For collectors like me and people who actually like to OWN their games and the products they spend their hard earned money on this DL or cloud based service is total bull. Especially when they charge $59.99 for a brand new game on PSN which is a DL only and it's the same price in the store. Bad business if you ask me but fools will support it.

caboose324552d ago (Edited 4552d ago )

I have over 100 games on my steam account and only a 500GB hard drive. That doesn't mean I have to keep every game installed on my hard drive forever.

I have 16 games installed and still plenty of room.

Ares84HU4552d ago

So what if they decide to pull a game or two you got on your account for some reason....any reason.

What than???

Persistantthug4552d ago

Then there will never be a such thing as a dig dist ONLY model for them.

Retail won't support it.

Ryudo4552d ago

@Ares84HU

"I got 260 PS3 games at the moment. Let's just do an average of 25GB/game. That's 6.25TB and I'm getting at least 10 more games this year."

LOLZ I have to say that's the worst Math I have ever seen in my life. No the average PS3 game is nowhere even close to 25GB.

Most multi plat games on the PS3 are actually around 6GB because unlike the 360 variant they don't have 1.5GB of copyright protection.

I have a merger 10MBit's connect average for Britain and I can download 4GB's an hour with that connection.

By 2015 the government should have the infrastructure in place to at least double that. BT is currently receiving massive funding by the government for fibre optic broadband rollouts.

And considering the UK by average has slow broadband to most developed counties 20MB should be an average speed in 2015.

That means 8GB's of data an hour can be downloading. Which is the size of an average multi plat game it begs the question can I drive the shop and pick up a retail box and get back in that hour?

Ares84HU4552d ago (Edited 4552d ago )

Some games might be 6GB....which I highly doubt. I think it's closer to 9GB than 6GB but you keep forgetting games that are 40-50GB on the blu-ray disk. And yes, there is plenty of those. That is why i said AVERAGE. If you don't know what AVERAGE is than please don't talk about math.

Also, next gen the games will be even bigger. Just look back at last gen. PS2 games are around 1.5GB-2.5GB each. Now the size not doubled but it's 10-20x as big. Next gen games might get even larger...maybe anywhere between 50-100GB or bigger.

Also you forget that some places limit how much data you can DL/month with your internet connection. Here in the USA I got Road Runner Turbo which supposedly is 25mb/s and it takes me around 20-30 minutes to download around 2GB worth of data from PSN but it's not even the speed that is the problem for me and you at least. But the space to store all that data and you can forget about actual ownership. It will more likely be a "renting" kind of thing. You'll see.

Awesome-Xanto4552d ago

Well think about this, by 2015 next gen will be here and it likely that your average game will be 25 to 50 GB. Games expand faster that the Internet, and by the time everyone has decent Internet gaming will be even larger and then the cycle repeats...

This is why digital will never replace retail, you typical user will not download a game if it takes longer than going to the store... and don't even get me started on streaming games, that's total crap... there is zero chance ISP will allow that to continue to happen. All that does is waste bandwidth and cost them wasted money, and you will see even stricter caps by 2015.

Everything is against digital replacing retail by 2015....

Ryudo4552d ago

I don't even know why I bother you clearly both mentally retarded.

Games expand faster that the Internet.

When I get responses like that I have to admit I cannot win this argument blind fanboyism and moronic opinions triumph every time.

Ryudo4552d ago Show
Ares84HU4552d ago

Really??? You are listing the possible worst games you can find Karaokie Revolution??? really NASCAR??? The only game that worth a dime there is CoDMW3 which is...guess what....closer to 9GB.

And you call me a retard??? That is uncalled for. Just because I don't share your opinion. Nice one buddy.

God of War 3 - 42.15GB
Killzone 2 - 12.4GB
Yakuza 3 - 18.6GB
GTAVI - 10.84GB
R.U.S.E. - 12.36GB
Ar Tonelico III - 22.8GB
Assassin's Creed II - 16.2GB
Battlefield 3 - 9.34GB
BioShock 1 and 2 are over 9GB each
CodBO - 18.2GB
Castlevania LoS - 12GB
Darksiders - 20GB
Dynasty Warriors 7 - 19.3GB
Final Fantasy XIII - 41.1GB
Heavy Rain Move Edition - 26GB
Killzone 3 - 25.4GB
Knights Contract - 19GB
L.A. Noire - 23.7GB
Lair - 23GB
LBP2 - 18.3GB
MGS4 - 30GB
RAGE - 20GB
R&C:A Crack in Time -23GB
Resistance - 17GB
Resistance 2 - 22.7GB
Resistance 3 - 34.9GB
Socom 4 - 20GB
Star Ocean: The Last Hope - 22.2GB
Star Wars: Force Unleashed - 20.4GB
UFC 2010 Undisputed - 41GB
Uncharted 1 - 21.1GB
Uncharted 2 - 26GB
Uncharted 3 - 45GB
Yakuza 4 - 20GB

While there is a few that's around 6-9GB there is tons that are more. So how about you do actual research before pulling things out of your behind and calling people retards. I'm sorry but I REFUSE to download 40+GB just to play a game. It would take a lot longer than just going down the store and picking up a copy.

You need to think about how you talk to people, especially when you don't know them.

Awesome-Xanto4552d ago (Edited 4552d ago )

News Flash!

It takes years to lay new lines for better speeds and to improve the internet infrastructure... and right now the average speed is not high enough to support digital downloads and likely won't in the next 5 years or even 10 years.

But that won't matter to developers, every year games will get larger (especially with next gen right around the corner)... the infrastructure and the internet speed will not be able to keep up to still have it effective for consumers to download a game vs going to a store. It will take longer for the average person, so it doesn't matter because consumers will most likely still buy a physical disk.

That's why gaming expands faster than the internet... just look how far gaming has come in the last 10 - 15 years vs the internet. Gaming has came a long way, while granted the internet is faster we are not seeing huge giant leap in speed for most of the world.

Physical media is the "best" way to deliver content... but if you choose not to believe that, well you can't fix stupid.

chanmasta4552d ago

Wow, you two really have too much time on your hands.

Writing fuckloads of text to an unknown person on the internet which will all get forgotten about next week.

Nice way to spend the short time you have in this world.

+ Show (4) more repliesLast reply 4552d ago
kneon4552d ago

I think the capabilities of the next gen consoles is largely irrelevant here. It's not that Battlefield 4, KillZone 4, Final Fantasy 35 etc. will ship as digital downloads. It will be the billions of casual games that will make the difference.

They don't cost much but a lot of people buy them, regardless of how crappy most of them are.

SilentNegotiator4552d ago (Edited 4552d ago )

So the majority of the world is going to have fully updated internet connections in a measly 4 years for it to be a sensible choice to be mostly digital, then?

Because I have one thing to say to anyone that thinks that is the case:
LOL

Prophet-Gamer4552d ago

As long as there are internet caps, it will limit the advance of this kinds of technologies. Greedy corporations can go to hell.

+ Show (4) more repliesLast reply 4552d ago
Laxman4552d ago

It would be good if we all had good internet. Here in Australia, there are NO fast speed internet deals that give unlimited downloads, you can pretty much have one or the other, and even our 'fast' broadband plans are slow compared to a lot of the world and your hard pressed to find one that has a decent download limit without completely breaking the bank.

Tachyon_Nova4552d ago (Edited 4552d ago )

I dunno, I'm on 40megabits/second (cable) up here on Brisbane with 230GB a month. It isn't unlimited, but its enough for me to download TV, about 10 games a month plus multiplayer gaming, and its pretty damn quick.

Laxman4552d ago

Damn, I wish I lived in a proper city. Small crappy NSW town here, its terrible speed and I pay 130 a month. I get like 50-100kbs on torrent downloads :(

Highlife4552d ago

I have comcast and I'm at about 28 mbps with a 250 gig cap. I have never come that close to the cap but I don't buy my games online. I like to have the physical copy. I use internet for slingbox, web, movies, and online gaming. If I were to add downloading next gen games that would for sure put me over my cap. No thanks. Plus there are 5 other family members in the house.

BitbyDeath4552d ago (Edited 4552d ago )

I'm north of Brisbane and the best i can get is 10mb/s :-(

Hopefully the liberal party won't get in otherwise they will kill the NBN and it'll probably be at least 20 years before we get anything better.

EDIT: I forgot it is actually 20mb/s but as my house is two streets away from the box it gets limited to 10mb.

BlmThug4552d ago

My connection is very fast. 1.5 MB/s on Utorrent and no lag unless the game itself is laggy and buggy also i got unlimited downloads so no worries for me

DigitalRaptor4552d ago

Digital Ditribution is all well and good, but boxed game packages will always be there for people who want that, and trust me, there's millions of us.

Who really wants to own a digital licence to ALL their games rather than something they can hold and call their own? You only own that licence as long as the publisher says so.

Laxman4552d ago

If you read a game's booklet, you still only own a license if you buy a hard copy, not the actual game copy.

Persistantthug4552d ago (Edited 4552d ago )

is what what you want to do.

You actually OWN that piece of hard disk media.

I prefer that. I think most people do.

Baliw4552d ago

Tell that to collectors.

Captain Qwark 94552d ago

this ^^^^

it will never happen and if it does somehow, i will not be one of the supporters. for a few reasons....

1. i collect games / like to show them off. impossible to have shelfs of games if their all on a hdd

2. not everybody has the interent much less broadband, how would they get thier games?

3. what happens if a comapany goes under? not that it will but for example xbox brand? if they shut it down, i already stand to lose all my arcade games, if i had bought retail games off there and the service goes dark i may never be able to play them again or what would happen if i deleted something to make room for another game then went to redownload it one day and it was removed from the service? im beat, thats what

4. unless they start including 20TB hdd's, this will never work. games are around 6 gigs now and only getting bigger. you would fill up your dive too fast and then you would have to download it again anytime you wanted to play an older game.

5. streaming wont work regardless of onlive trying to say otherwise, once again becuase if for whatever reason i lose my internet or my bandwidth is capped by the isp then i wouldnt be able to play my games.

thats just a few......terrible idea and would never happen, period.

Show all comments (46)
290°

6 console flops that were actually amazing, from the Sega Dreamcast to the Neo Geo Pocket

DS:
Sometimes life just isn't fair. Vincent Van Gogh went completely unappreciated during his lifetime despite his obvious genius; Jesus - a man who could turn water into wine, don't forget - was nailed to a cross and left for dead; while Steve Brookstein has only ever had one number one single, despite winning the very first series of The X Factor. Now what's that about?

Read Full Story >>
digitalspy.com
WilliamSheridan2977d ago

Dreamcast was definitely ahead of its time....

Knushwood Butt2977d ago

Loved my Neo Pocket Colour

Spent hours on card fighters clash games

InTheZoneAC2977d ago

the dreamcast was not amazing:
-It's graphics were in between ps1 and ps2
-the controller felt so narrow and skinny
-no dvd drive

I don't know why people act like it was anything more than another overrated undersold flop of a console. My friend had one because "next gen" and I told him I'm just waiting for PS2.

He always talked about graphics, non stop. Of course when I played it did look better than anything I've seen before, but that was it. The games were ok at best. I didn't like NFL 2K's control scheme compared to Madden's.

Even as a kid I predicted this console would die off in 2 years, well what happened...

filchron2977d ago

You must have hated arcades. Youre probably real fun at parties /s

between PS1 and PS2? no. DC had much better filtering than grainy ass PS2. compare the DOA2 on PS2 and the DC and then revise that wrong statement buddy. and the sad thing is PS2 had TWICE the ram of the DC and the 480p signal from DC still came out WAY cleaner than PS2's.

InTheZoneAC2977d ago (Edited 2977d ago )

arcades are definitely fun. Went to celebration station any time we could :)

"you're" probably real fun at parties...because wtf does that have to do with anything...

if dreamcast was any good it wouldn't have died faster than the wii u has...

don't be so defensive, I'm not the one that controlled everyone else not to buy it lol

DivineAssault 2977d ago (Edited 2977d ago )

DC ran games at 60FPS and was an arcade players "Dream" come true.. For the first time, arcade games were surpassed by a console.. Saturn had it 1:1 if you imported with the 4mb cart.. I wasnt in love with the DC controller but i had a 6 button layout 3rd party i used for all those great fighting games.. PS2 was superior in hardware but why is it games like Grandia 2 played like crap on there? Just like the original that played way better on Saturn than PS1..

Yes they both died but they werent bad machines.. Sega was always a middle gen console.. Genesis was meant to compete with NES, Saturn was meant to 1 up Nintendo again but the PS deal fell through and there it went.. VMUs, online, high res 60fps gameplay, 4 control ports... They were ahead of their time..

FlyingFoxy2977d ago

That's the main reason that DC failed, because people lost faith in Sega after the 32x, MEGA CD & kinda the Saturn. People were hyped for the PS2 and that's a big reason why DC failed to sell, it really didn't have many poor games at all and most were good to great.

Not sure what you're on about with the graphics either, most games were just as good looking as ones on PS2.

The only thing you could say was lacking on the DC was storage on the GD roms and maybe they could've added a second thumb stick. There wasn't really anything wrong with its graphics capability for the time, don't forget it came out way earlier than the PS2.

You kinda lost credibility by saying the DC had grainy graphics.

Godmars2902977d ago

Part of the DC's failure was the loss of faith from the core gaming audience coupled with finical choices which left Sega in bad sorts, but another was the lack of a similar hook to the PS2, namely movie playback. At the time GD roms had the option, remember seeing discs for the format in a few places, and if Sega had included it things might have been different.

People/gamers look at the PS2 and only say/think that the games for it made all the difference, sold well over 100 million of the consoles, but it was DVD movies that tipped the scales as far as the general public was concerned.

InTheZoneAC2977d ago

who said anything about grainy?

Segata2977d ago

I should kick you into outer space for such a ignorant comment.

Picnic2977d ago

Of course the graphics were inbetween PS1 and PS2... because it was released between PS1 and PS2!

The graphics were closer to PS2 level than PS1 level.

In fact, many early PS2 games did not look as good as Dreamcast games. And Jet Set Radio and Shenmue look great for the time to this day.

Picnic2977d ago (Edited 2977d ago )

Your prediction that it would die off within 2 years was not without basis - the MegaCD, the 32x, the Saturn. Sega's past history of releasing expensive add ons, abandoning some of their previous successes (like no new Sonic game on Saturn!), coupled with a new entrant in the market, Sony, meant that, unfortunately, Sega was like the Ghost of Christmas Past to many people. And if you didn't like arcade games, or arcade-STYLE games, or RPGS, there really wasn't all that much on it. It was a bit like having a new NEO GEO in a way- quite good visually, if a little rough round the edges sometimes, but just not as personal to many people as the competition and not having sufficient sense of depth gameswise apart from Shenmue.

iplay1up22977d ago

Um, when Dreamcast came out it was the most powerful system available. In some ways it was MORE powerful than PS2.

GameCube, had more power than PS2, as well as XBOX. PS2 was the weaker of that gen, but it still won, and went on to be the 1 selling game console o all time.

2977d ago Replies(1)
gangsta_red2977d ago

"-It's graphics were in between ps1 and ps2"

Wow, I was all set to read why the Dreamcast was not amazing and then all credibility became lost with your first point.

InTheZoneAC2977d ago

and I fail to see any of your points why it was great, completely disputing the fact that it died because it did suck

gangsta_red2977d ago

The Dreamcast was great because it did have better graphics than the PS2, they had some of the best looking games at that time. Capcom's fighters played flawlessly on the Dreamcast and was the go to machine to play their games because of how fast the gamer played compared to a much slower PS2.

Dreamcast was also the first system where I played Madden online. Which blew my mind at that time since online was mainly a PC thing.

The system was ahead of it's time, Sega channel and the VMU were just a few examples of what made that system so great along with online and the great Sega games that released with it.

The system failed partly due to lack of third party support. Sega burned many third parties by dropping the Saturn so quickly, many third party devs including Sega of America had games in development for the Saturn. The Saturn architecture was already a nightmare to develop for so imagine these devs having to scrap that work because Sega dropped the Saturn.

Sega also burned a lot of retail stores by not only moving the release date of the Saturn up but exclusively releasing the system in only some retail stores. Because of this some retailers KB Hobbies (i believe) refused to carry Sega products.

"..completely disputing the fact that it died because it did suck.."

You made even less points and more opinions based on nothing really and yet you say "facts"?

+ Show (8) more repliesLast reply 2977d ago
blawren42977d ago

Failure is always relative. How many sales makes something successful? "If your not first, your last", or in this case, you failed. I'll admit, I've never heard of a couple of these.

PhoenixUp2977d ago

GameCube made the most profit in its generation. I don't consider that console a flop.

I consider a flop to be a product that has a negative impact financially for a company.

Picnic2977d ago (Edited 2977d ago )

Have you got proof that the Gamecube made the most profit in its generation as, despite how cost effective Nintendo said it was to make a Gamecube, which had no complicated Emotion engine in it nor DVD drive, I would still highly doubt that the Gamecube overall made more profit for Nintendo than the PS2 did for Sony. The mass popularity of the PS2 meant that it was often sold at (a higher price (sometimes 2-3 times the price) of the Gamecube. For a month or 2, you could get a Gamecube and Resident Evil 4 or Wind Waker for just 40 UK pounds (55.55 dollars). And even if Sony could have made a bit more profit overall on the consoles, surely Sony get a cut on the games. With 155 million owners compared to Gamecube's 21 million, Sony would rake it in.

PhoenixUp2977d ago

Nintendo made profit on every GameCube sold since day one while it took Sony a while before they broke even on PS2.

Picnic2976d ago (Edited 2976d ago )

Please can you provide your source? I can imagine that piracy could have eaten in to Sony's profits whereas piracy was close to impossible on Gamecube. But it would have much more to do with that, I think, than with any minor difference in console manufacturing cost versus console price.

Concertoine2977d ago

Nintendo made the most profit that gen but that was largely due to the GBA and not the GC.

Show all comments (37)
30°

Gamer Created a Personal Cloud-Gaming Service, and So Can You

OnLive announced that they would be shutting down their streaming service for good at the end of this month, which has unsurprisingly upset some of the streaming service’s supporters. While some took to griping on forums, OnLive user Larry Gadea decided to take action.

Read Full Story >>
hardcoregamer.com
killatia3294d ago

That pretty cool actually. Glad something cool came out of the demise of Onlive

40°

The End of OnLive - Goodbye & Thank You

OnLive has been acquired by Sony and will shut down all services on April 30th, 2015. Vault of the Gameverse says Goodbye & Thank You.

Read Full Story >>
gameversevault.com