Next gen(next) consoles going all digital?

[saprano]

I was reading an artical where an army of 2 producer said retailers hate sony because of the psp go. he also said some things that scared me:

Army Of Two: The 40th Day Producer, Matte Turner, in a recent interview with PLAY magazine, reckons that retailers must “hate them”, after the recent release of its download-only PSPgo.

It shouldn’t come as too much of a surprise that developers and publishers are far more positive about Sony’s brave excursion into digital distribution when you consider that it bypasses the entire second-hand market – an estimated multi-billion pound worldwide industry in itself – for which publishers will never see a single penny of profit.


Turner also reckons the whole “download only thing is very cool”, pointing to the fact that the end of discs is potentially far closer than we think, he goes on “It’s all going that way and Sony is going that way early. I’m sure [retailers aren’t] very impressed, but I think it’s cool and we’ll see how it does”.

People love their second-hand games, but the benefits of digital distribution are very convincing when laid end to end. As well as being better for the environment, potentially cheaper games with greater profits for the industry will translate to bigger budgets and ultimately better games – at least that is what one would hope.

The debate over whether second hand games are ethical or not will no doubt rage on, but ultimately, it will be console manufacturers who decide on our behalf. The writing, as they say, is already on the wall. NowGamer will stick its neck out here and now, positing that if the an optical disc drive feature’s in the design of any of the next generation of consoles, we shall scoff our collective millinery items.

http://www.nowgamer.com/news/1477/ar...lers-hate-sony



I hope this doesn't happen, i love disc and i like the way it looks on my shelf. theres so many things wrong with DD for it to take over disc based media. people are still buying disc and i dont see DD replacing it anytime soon. i see it as another choice.

[Marine Mike]

If I could, I would buy all of my games in digital format.

[saprano]

Originally Posted by Marine Mike

If I could, I would buy all of my games in digital format.

I would never do that. what happens if you lose all your data? dont you like collecting things? how are your freinds going to borrow your stuff?

[Blu Titan]

I am a huge fan of discs or physical media. I would hope that they incorporate something tangible that we could actually hold.

[saprano]

Originally Posted by Blu Titan

I am a huge fan of discs or physical media. I would hope that they incorporate something tangible that we could actually hold.

I dont really care if DD happens, as long they give a choice to by the disc version.

[Hedchekr]

I like having a physical medium for everything. I like that if my harddrive goes I still have the media and don't have to jump through hoops trying to regain whats mine. I also believe that it is a way for companys to "rip me off" further. Games are so expensive to begin with and digital distribution should make producing titles cheaper, but I highly doubt we will be seeing a price drop. So we get less for more (or the same).

[jono_0101]

i would hope that if this happens, there would be a failsafe in place for people that do have system crashes, like what the PSN does now, allowing you to redownload items that are lost or corrupted in some way, but i think that the market will demand that there be physical media of some kind, at least for one more console generation, people enjoy being able to hold something that they have paid for, myself included, it makes it feel more like you got your moneys worth for your purchase, and another hurdle to DD only is storage space, with this generation bringing HD gaming, we arent going to want to go back to compressed information, so we also are going to need a lot more HD space for people that collect and play a lot of games, not to mention if they want to start selling movies this way only as well, i dont believe physical media is going anywhere any time soon

[supercutz]

IMO, Sony's next home console will not be DD only. By that time, bluray will be the standard for disc media and Sony would be stupid to ditch the format. The thing is, even in the next 5-7 years, the mainstream will most not be buying most of their media digitally only. That's still another console cycle out from the next one. People don't seem to have a problem buying cheaply ($20 or less) but it will be quite sometime before most people will not think twice about spending 50 to 60 bucks.

[KingBing]

I like having my nice design cases

[Spiderbri]

I don't think it will be completly DD, until storage media gets much bigger. i know there are terabyte drives but still considering the storage of Blu-ray games now consider all that on a hard drive intsead of just the 3 mb save file. We'd never be able to buy all the games we want, the industry would lose money.

What I'm more concerned with is the loss of rights to ownership. I am fairly certain I read that with the PSP Go, you don't own the games. you just LEASE them. Even when you pay $60 and download it. It's not yours, not like the disc based games. You just purchased the right to download one copy of it. I fear serious abuse by big companies and more screwing of consumers.

[Terjyn]

This is just another variant of the "Blu-Ray is doomed because of Digital Downloads" logic.

No, I'm *not* going to download 20+ gig games in 5 years. No one else is either.

[Hedchekr]

Originally Posted by Spiderbri

What I'm more concerned with is the loss of rights to ownership. I am fairly certain I read that with the PSP Go, you don't own the games. you just LEASE them. Even when you pay $60 and download it. It's not yours, not like the disc based games. You just purchased the right to download one copy of it. I fear serious abuse by big companies and more screwing of consumers.

That is one of my concerns as well. I just don't want to hear "we are sorry that happened, but you have to buy this again."

[Groo The Perverted]

Originally Posted by saprano

I would never do that. what happens if you lose all your data? dont you like collecting things? how are your freinds going to borrow your stuff?

if I lose my data? I'd assume it would be like the PSN store is now. Your downloads are logged in your profile, so if your system crashes or whatever, you still have all your games ready to download again.

only problem I see is having enough hard drive space for all the games.

[PS3-Playb3yond]

A few things wrong with digita, one is there is the download thing and then installing it (if required) and that just takes too much space.

If they offered a game in both digital and disc, I would still get the disc. And what's going to happen to GameStop, Best Buy and etc if everything is digital?

[saprano]

Ummmmm, why is this off topic?

[Propellarhead9]

The amount of games I usually play would make having to download them suck really bad. I would much rather just have the disc. That way also you can let someone borrow it and what not. Or if you decide you hate the game you can always still trade it in at Gamestop.

All digital format for games would be terrible. It's one of the reasons I really don't like the PSP Go.

[DeathByAsh'aman]

If they can fix the DRM issues, games are really cheaper, and if we can get much bigger HDD (or SSD) then Im 100% all for it.

Ever since I got my PS3 Ive put my DVD collection on it and put my discs in a box in my closet. I hate discs now.

@PS3-Playb3yond - Best Buy and Gamestop will have to adapt or die.

[mikejet]

This wouldn't be a problem if the US would catch up as far as bandwidth is concerned.

It would be great for piracy too. An always online system would thwart that pretty well.

[Grumpz]

I've been calling for this forever and for whatever reason this forum is full of nay sayers.

Disks are doomed, WE DON'T NEED MOVING PARTS.

[mikejet]

Originally Posted by Grumpz

I've been calling for this forever and for whatever reason this forum is full of nay sayers.

Disks are doomed, WE DON'T NEED MOVING PARTS.

One less thing to worry about breaking in the console. I'm all for an online only gaming only console.