I wouldn't want a digital distribution only console. Steam is competitive on pricing because there exists competition, but PSN/XBLM are very expensive.
I don't think any console manufacturer would want to stop selling games physically any time soon either.
Hard to imagine Sony not wanting to continue pushing blu ray (specifically 3D blu ray) with its next console.
Not a clue what MS or Nintendo will do. Stick with DVDs probably.
I could see, perhaps, a move to make it so all games are available digitally, not just select few.
I think the next consoles will stick with DVD, but in order to combat the size limitations of DVD, we'll start seeing mandatory multi-disc installs. Maybe something like a game coming on 3 DVDs, but you can fully install the second 2 into your console so you only have to pop the first in to play.
What's the state with discs anyway? Dual-layer DVDs are occasionally too small for games, but it's not impossible for them to improve upon discs used specifically for games--and probably a lot cheaper than the cost of changing the entire ecosystem to online distribution.
Sony I imagine will stay with blu-ray discs to overcome any potential storage problems, though they will have to do something about load times (and I'm sure they will). I guess that's not an option for Microsoft or Nintendo?
What's the state with discs anyway? Dual-layer DVDs are occasionally too small for games, but it's not impossible for them to improve upon discs used specifically for games--and probably a lot cheaper than the cost of changing the entire ecosystem to online distribution.
Sony I imagine will stay with blu-ray discs to overcome any potential storage problems, though they will have to do something about load times (and I'm sure they will). I guess that's not an option for Microsoft or Nintendo?
It costs money to develop proprietary discs, for example Sega's GD-Rom standard for the dreamcast. I think the size of DVDs are becoming a problem, but the solution isn't simply "make bigger discs." IMO it's smarter, and more cost efficient to just let players install their games.
What's the state with discs anyway? Dual-layer DVDs are occasionally too small for games, but it's not impossible for them to improve upon discs used specifically for games--and probably a lot cheaper than the cost of changing the entire ecosystem to online distribution.
Sony I imagine will stay with blu-ray discs to overcome any potential storage problems, though they will have to do something about load times (and I'm sure they will). I guess that's not an option for Microsoft or Nintendo?
It costs money to develop proprietary discs, for example Sega's GD-Rom standard for the dreamcast. I think the size of DVDs are becoming a problem, but the solution isn't simply "make bigger discs." IMO it's smarter, and more cost efficient to just let players install their games.
Perhaps, but "just let players install their games" is just one solution that manufacturers may or may not be behind. We don't seem to be moving towards mandatory installations like we have on PC, but that could still be the case. Then again, the cost of developing a proprietary format certainly did not stop Nintendo or Sony, and I don't think it'll stop Microsoft.
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AbsoluteZeroThe new film by Quentin KoopantinoRegistered Userregular
The future isn't cartridges or optical media, it's digital distribution. Lower manufacturing and distribution costs and zero resell -- publishers love that sort of shit.
I'm gonna go ahead and say while this is true, it is still a couple generations out.
Really? To the best of my recollection I haven't had an Internet interruption for longer than 5 minutes for... three years? I think that's the last time I recall asking a roommate if his net connection was working. I've lost power twice in the last year, although obviously this killed my Internet access, too. Does rain or snow just kill Internet lines a lot more often than it hits the power or something? We don't get much of either in San Diego.
It really does boggle my mind that "Oh no, my Internet might go down and then I wouldn't be able to play video games" would factor even infinitesimally as a consideration. The service going down seems much more real to me.
Again, out in the middle of nowhere here. My internet goes down almost every single day. Usually it's in the morning while I'm at work, but I've had several instances in the evening where it has dropped out for an hour or more.
The future isn't cartridges or optical media, it's digital distribution. Lower manufacturing and distribution costs and zero resell -- publishers love that sort of shit.
I'm gonna go ahead and say while this is true, it is still a couple generations out.
The future isn't cartridges or optical media, it's digital distribution. Lower manufacturing and distribution costs and zero resell -- publishers love that sort of shit.
I'm gonna go ahead and say while this is true, it is still a couple generations out.
People love thems some physical media.
I have to agree with this completely.
While I love DD for my iPhone, I just can't see myself wanting to buy into a console that has no physical media whatsoever. I like owning things. I like displaying my game library on a shelf. People are going to have a hard time adjusting and some people simply won't adjust. There will be a market for physical media for a long, long time yet.
If game costs went down, I'd be all for it... but there's no way I'm going to pay $69.99 for a digital copy of a game. Besides that, digital distribution has restrictive bandwidth caps to overcome. Which has become the norm for a lot of ISPs. These caps are getting smaller each year to top it all off. The world simply isn't ready to switch over to DD completely.
We don't seem to be moving towards mandatory installations like we have on PC, but that could still be the case.
On the Wii and Xbox 360 maybe. Mandatory installs have been there since day one on the PS3.
But then again, i wasn't talking about mandatory installs. I was talking about games coming on many discs, with the option to install the remaining discs to avoid swapping. I.E. game comes on 3 discs, you install discs 2 and 3, and can play uninterrupted from disc 1.
We don't seem to be moving towards mandatory installations like we have on PC, but that could still be the case.
On the Wii and Xbox 360 maybe. Mandatory installs have been there since day one on the PS3.
But then again, i wasn't talking about mandatory installs. I was talking about games coming on many discs, with the option to install the remaining discs to avoid swapping. I.E. game comes on 3 discs, you install discs 2 and 3, and can play uninterrupted from disc 1.
There are PS3 games you don't have to install. Or so I've been told.
In any case, I think an option is just fine, but it's not going to be standardized immediately. And putting everything onto multiple disc pretty much solves the problem--for years, PC games coming on multiple discs was perfectly fine.
EDIT: I know Uncharted 2 you didn't have to install. It's very much a "maybe" situation.
We don't seem to be moving towards mandatory installations like we have on PC, but that could still be the case.
On the Wii and Xbox 360 maybe. Mandatory installs have been there since day one on the PS3.
But then again, i wasn't talking about mandatory installs. I was talking about games coming on many discs, with the option to install the remaining discs to avoid swapping. I.E. game comes on 3 discs, you install discs 2 and 3, and can play uninterrupted from disc 1.
There are PS3 games you don't have to install. Or so I've been told.
In any case, I think an option is just fine, but it's not going to be standardized immediately. And putting everything onto multiple disc pretty much solves the problem--for years, PC games coming on multiple discs was perfectly fine.
EDIT: I know Uncharted 2 you didn't have to install. It's very much a "maybe" situation.
Right, it's not universal, but several games do have mandatory installs. To clarify, I'm meaning mandatory in the sense that it's not optional for some games, instead of it being required for ALL games.
But yeah I agree, I don't think the space issue will be an issue in the future, simply because it's cheaper to just include 2 DVDs instead of developing some proprietary disc.
I realized something today looking at Mass Effect 2 on PSN. I can not bring myself to pay $60 for a DD game. I think $20 may be my limit. I doubt I'm alone in that either. I can not fathom paying more for a DD game than I can buy with a single PSN card. If I'm going to drop $60 on something I want something better than a lengthy download and install time to show for it.
I realized something today looking at Mass Effect 2 on PSN. I can not bring myself to pay $60 for a DD game. I think $20 may be my limit. I doubt I'm alone in that either. I can not fathom paying more for a DD game than I can buy with a single PSN card. If I'm going to drop $60 on something I want something better than a lengthy download and install time to show for it.
Even with my current connection, I'd much rather spend a half hour driving to Best Buy/Target/etc. and back to pick up any game. I'll order from Amazon.com if I want it release day (with free S&H), or if they're trimming the price off by $10 or $20.
Paying the same price, minus tax (I assume PSN is tax free), to wait for a game to download overnight? Not so attractive. So outside of sales and special deals, my interest is much diminished. If given the option, I'd happily buy XBLA games on discs, especially if they came with reference cards and manuals. But the downloading is considerably shorter with those smaller games.
And then there's the exact opposite where a game is nowhere to be found in stores, so you order it online and have to wait x number of days before you receive it. Whereas with digital distribution, it takes a couple of hours to download (if it's a big game).
I primarily game on PC, so it's not an issue for me that often. I still think I'll provide an actual example, though. I ordered Ghost Trick from Amazon a week ago and am yet to receive it. If there was digital distribution for the DS (or, hell, if I had pirated it) I would be playing it the same day that I decided that I want it.
I realized something today looking at Mass Effect 2 on PSN. I can not bring myself to pay $60 for a DD game. I think $20 may be my limit. I doubt I'm alone in that either. I can not fathom paying more for a DD game than I can buy with a single PSN card. If I'm going to drop $60 on something I want something better than a lengthy download and install time to show for it.
Even with my current connection, I'd much rather spend a half hour driving to Best Buy/Target/etc. and back to pick up any game. I'll order from Amazon.com if I want it release day (with free S&H), or if they're trimming the price off by $10 or $20.
Paying the same price, minus tax (I assume PSN is tax free), to wait for a game to download overnight? Not so attractive. So outside of sales and special deals, my interest is much diminished. If given the option, I'd happily buy XBLA games on discs, especially if they came with reference cards and manuals. But the downloading is considerably shorter with those smaller games.
I bought Mass Effect 1 off of the XBL marketplace because my disk would randomly give me a DRE. I exchanged the disk about 4 times until I just gave up and waited for it to be released.
I realized something today looking at Mass Effect 2 on PSN. I can not bring myself to pay $60 for a DD game. I think $20 may be my limit. I doubt I'm alone in that either. I can not fathom paying more for a DD game than I can buy with a single PSN card. If I'm going to drop $60 on something I want something better than a lengthy download and install time to show for it.
Even with my current connection, I'd much rather spend a half hour driving to Best Buy/Target/etc. and back to pick up any game. I'll order from Amazon.com if I want it release day (with free S&H), or if they're trimming the price off by $10 or $20.
Paying the same price, minus tax (I assume PSN is tax free), to wait for a game to download overnight? Not so attractive. So outside of sales and special deals, my interest is much diminished. If given the option, I'd happily buy XBLA games on discs, especially if they came with reference cards and manuals. But the downloading is considerably shorter with those smaller games.
I bought Mass Effect 1 off of the XBL marketplace because my disk would randomly give me a DRE. I exchanged the disk about 4 times until I just gave up and waited for it to be released.
It's a good reason. I know my distrust of DD was shaped by my repeatedly foiled efforts to play a legally purchased copy of Half-Life 2: GOTY Edition. Ultimately, I ended up buying another two copies digitally before Steam finally let me play any of them, and a refund was, of course, out of the question.
Since then, I think the other copies have "unlocked" for whatever reason. Lovely.
I've, luckily, never had any problems with DD. I own about 192 games on Steam and so far so good. But I do have this bad feeling that my account is going to get hacked one day..
Eh, I consider myself lucky despite my problems because I've never been victim to some of the horror stories I've heard from others in forums online (including this one), which usually begin with Sam at Valve deciding you're doing something wrong and locking you out of your account, and end with you setting fire to yourself outside Valve's office in Washington like they did against tyranny in South Vietnam.
My problems are comparatively minor. Then again, I don't have thousands of dollars invested in Valve--just a few hundred. And, come a rainy day, I keep the necessary steps to circumvent blocks on the actual disks I own written down. Just in case.
The more I think about it, though, I think that I wouldn't be quite as devastated if I lost my games anyway... Other than the amount of money I put into them, I have no attachment to any of them. I own about 192 games, and MAYBE 180 - 185 games I will never touch again. So I'd just have to rebuy a few games, which isn't that big of a deal.
Still. It's a lot of power for one company to have.... But Valve is probably the only company I'd trust with such power.
I...don't think I'd trust any one company with that much power, including Valve. But my game library is smaller, and filled with games that pre-date Steam/aren't available on Steam/could be installed outside of Steam in addition to a few Steam titles.
Thus, actually loosing the ability to install all of them would have to involve something to the extent of a catastrophic fire or meteor.
Ironically enough, I opened Steam to check how many titles I had, and Garry's Mod is refusing to update. I've tried pausing and resuming, but it just...sits there. Always Garry's Mod. It's very sensitive.
EDIT: Eh, nevermind. Just stuck for a bit. Started up fine.
Synthesis on
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HeatwaveCome, now, and walk the path of explosions with me!Registered Userregular
It's a good reason. I know my distrust of DD was shaped by my repeatedly foiled efforts to play a legally purchased copy of Half-Life 2: GOTY Edition. Ultimately, I ended up buying another two copies digitally before Steam finally let me play any of them, and a refund was, of course, out of the question.
Since then, I think the other copies have "unlocked" for whatever reason. Lovely.
This mother fucking game is the reason I don't game on the PC (Well, that and the fact that my computer is ancient). Being forced to download the entire game on a crap internet connection (at the time) instead of letting me play it from the disc was insane.
I'm thinking that an interesting alternative (It's been done before though) would be that the next consoles use propietary flash devices, that you can take to a retailer, and retailers are linked to the big companies, so they pretty much purchase the game there like if it were Steam, and probably tie it to your PSN/XBLA account, and they then copy the game into your console's flash drive, which you just take home and install.
From a consumer perspective, there is literally no reason to want DD exclusively.
Digital distribution is great as an option. However, if, some day, games were only available through DD, I really doubt that the lack of manufacturing/physical distribution would lead to any kind of savings for the consumer.
Competition is a good thing for the consumer.
Not to mention, a lot of people simply like owning physical copies of things, regardless of whether or not there's technically an advantage to doing so.
The future is going to be physical media and digital distribution side by side.
Posts
I think the next consoles will stick with DVD, but in order to combat the size limitations of DVD, we'll start seeing mandatory multi-disc installs. Maybe something like a game coming on 3 DVDs, but you can fully install the second 2 into your console so you only have to pop the first in to play.
Sony I imagine will stay with blu-ray discs to overcome any potential storage problems, though they will have to do something about load times (and I'm sure they will). I guess that's not an option for Microsoft or Nintendo?
It costs money to develop proprietary discs, for example Sega's GD-Rom standard for the dreamcast. I think the size of DVDs are becoming a problem, but the solution isn't simply "make bigger discs." IMO it's smarter, and more cost efficient to just let players install their games.
Perhaps, but "just let players install their games" is just one solution that manufacturers may or may not be behind. We don't seem to be moving towards mandatory installations like we have on PC, but that could still be the case. Then again, the cost of developing a proprietary format certainly did not stop Nintendo or Sony, and I don't think it'll stop Microsoft.
I'm gonna go ahead and say while this is true, it is still a couple generations out.
People love thems some physical media.
Again, out in the middle of nowhere here. My internet goes down almost every single day. Usually it's in the morning while I'm at work, but I've had several instances in the evening where it has dropped out for an hour or more.
And people have thems some crappy ISPs.
I have to agree with this completely.
While I love DD for my iPhone, I just can't see myself wanting to buy into a console that has no physical media whatsoever. I like owning things. I like displaying my game library on a shelf. People are going to have a hard time adjusting and some people simply won't adjust. There will be a market for physical media for a long, long time yet.
If game costs went down, I'd be all for it... but there's no way I'm going to pay $69.99 for a digital copy of a game. Besides that, digital distribution has restrictive bandwidth caps to overcome. Which has become the norm for a lot of ISPs. These caps are getting smaller each year to top it all off. The world simply isn't ready to switch over to DD completely.
On the Wii and Xbox 360 maybe. Mandatory installs have been there since day one on the PS3.
But then again, i wasn't talking about mandatory installs. I was talking about games coming on many discs, with the option to install the remaining discs to avoid swapping. I.E. game comes on 3 discs, you install discs 2 and 3, and can play uninterrupted from disc 1.
There are PS3 games you don't have to install. Or so I've been told.
In any case, I think an option is just fine, but it's not going to be standardized immediately. And putting everything onto multiple disc pretty much solves the problem--for years, PC games coming on multiple discs was perfectly fine.
EDIT: I know Uncharted 2 you didn't have to install. It's very much a "maybe" situation.
Right, it's not universal, but several games do have mandatory installs. To clarify, I'm meaning mandatory in the sense that it's not optional for some games, instead of it being required for ALL games.
But yeah I agree, I don't think the space issue will be an issue in the future, simply because it's cheaper to just include 2 DVDs instead of developing some proprietary disc.
Even with my current connection, I'd much rather spend a half hour driving to Best Buy/Target/etc. and back to pick up any game. I'll order from Amazon.com if I want it release day (with free S&H), or if they're trimming the price off by $10 or $20.
Paying the same price, minus tax (I assume PSN is tax free), to wait for a game to download overnight? Not so attractive. So outside of sales and special deals, my interest is much diminished. If given the option, I'd happily buy XBLA games on discs, especially if they came with reference cards and manuals. But the downloading is considerably shorter with those smaller games.
I primarily game on PC, so it's not an issue for me that often. I still think I'll provide an actual example, though. I ordered Ghost Trick from Amazon a week ago and am yet to receive it. If there was digital distribution for the DS (or, hell, if I had pirated it) I would be playing it the same day that I decided that I want it.
I bought Mass Effect 1 off of the XBL marketplace because my disk would randomly give me a DRE. I exchanged the disk about 4 times until I just gave up and waited for it to be released.
It's a good reason. I know my distrust of DD was shaped by my repeatedly foiled efforts to play a legally purchased copy of Half-Life 2: GOTY Edition. Ultimately, I ended up buying another two copies digitally before Steam finally let me play any of them, and a refund was, of course, out of the question.
Since then, I think the other copies have "unlocked" for whatever reason. Lovely.
e: Changing my Steam password now.
My problems are comparatively minor. Then again, I don't have thousands of dollars invested in Valve--just a few hundred. And, come a rainy day, I keep the necessary steps to circumvent blocks on the actual disks I own written down. Just in case.
Better safe then sorry.
I'm a cheap bastard.
Still. It's a lot of power for one company to have.... But Valve is probably the only company I'd trust with such power.
Thus, actually loosing the ability to install all of them would have to involve something to the extent of a catastrophic fire or meteor.
Ironically enough, I opened Steam to check how many titles I had, and Garry's Mod is refusing to update. I've tried pausing and resuming, but it just...sits there. Always Garry's Mod. It's very sensitive.
EDIT: Eh, nevermind. Just stuck for a bit. Started up fine.
Steam / Origin & Wii U: Heatwave111 / FC: 4227-1965-3206 / Battle.net: Heatwave#11356
Digital distribution is great as an option. However, if, some day, games were only available through DD, I really doubt that the lack of manufacturing/physical distribution would lead to any kind of savings for the consumer.
Competition is a good thing for the consumer.
Not to mention, a lot of people simply like owning physical copies of things, regardless of whether or not there's technically an advantage to doing so.
The future is going to be physical media and digital distribution side by side.
Er....I think you may have misread him, Seol.
Yeah, I'm going to assume he misread what I wrote, since he and I seem to be in agreement.
Compared to £32.26 ($51.41) for the disc version (at release, it is only going to get cheaper over time).
For a version that you can't resell.
Do not want DD only.