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Denver, 9:38 PM
Sat Nov 21
21 posts in the last 24 hours
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11/06/09
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11/06/09
Look at music sales in the last 5 years. I'm one of the few in my city caught buying CD's at the store. Also, even my parents are aware that you can illegally download movies, music, games... 20 years is an extremely optimistic outlook to me. I'd say 5-10 years sounds more likely. #satoruiwata
11/06/09
Also add to that the popularity of music over video games (to disagree with this point would be hallucinatory), the size of music vs video games (3200 [average] songs on your 16gb mp3 player vs 16 [average] games on your 16gb PSPGo), and the general inability for major ISPs to provide FIOS speed and pricing to major metropolitan areas and you've pretty much got too many blockers to allow the death of physical media gaming within the next two decades. #satoruiwata
11/06/09
Digital Downloads are not solely meant to battle piracy. The actual production costs and shipping, etc involved in the physical copies of these games would be cut out almost completely. Companies stand to save a lot of money doing this.
If you want to stick your head in the sand and believe that our Internet speeds, reliability and coverage area won't improve in the next few years, be my guest.
Also, Digital Download does NOT mean strictly internet access only. You can have game kiosks at your local Wal-Mart (or Gamestop) where you can download games to your memory card/stick/wireless device that's synched with your account.
Your argument that physical media is necessary is wishful thinking.
11/06/09
See, here's the deal. If games keep developing at their current natural progression, then in 10 years everything will look better than Uncharted 2; everything will also take up much more drive space. If you look at the past of game-size vs drive-capacity, you'll probably see a ratio that stays at about a flat line (debatable, I know, but it's within reason.) The point that I'm making is that there will always be a point where the console owner will own more games than the console's drive can hold.
Here's where the death of physical media starts to matter. With the millions of people owning the three home consoles of the future, bandwidth costs begin to soar. Presently, Nintendo deals with this by sticking to the SD era, meaning game sizes are small. Microsoft deals with this by charging for Live. Sony deals with this by limiting the user to only 5 downloads of 1 piece of software. In the future, however, Nintendo will be in the HD era, Microsoft will need to increase the rates for Live, and Sony will begin getting a flood of complaints from people who can't download their old games anymore.
So basically at this point, it may have ended up being cheaper just distributing physical media in bulk than dealing with bandwidth costs. It's a bit IF, I know, but it's still there and it still remains to be seen. There is no other media or medium to compare to games, so whether you want to compare this to the Kindle and books, the mp3 and CDs, or the iPod to television (probably the closest you can make) there's no real way to know what the future may bode.
I will concede this whole point, however, if we can get holographic disk technology working for consumers in the next 5 years.
11/09/09
Wasn't Nintendo supposedly working on some type of holographic storage system? (or did I completely dream that...?)
Anyway, I kind of dread the day everything looks better than Uncharted 2. I like my cartoony escapism. :) #satoruiwata
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11/06/09
call me lazy, but less hassle in this case sounds beautiful.
my main reason for becoming a supporter of digital content though is that its much easier to collect. im a hardcore collector, and the thought of going back to constantly build my collection of classics coupled with new consoles every 5 years with massive libraries of games is overwhelming.
i would hope or imagine that publishers would have some sort of cards like ms points that would come in some cardboard encasement with instructions for a few extra bucks so that us dinosaurs would feel like we own something.
11/06/09
11/06/09
i started to realize that i just plain enjoy the games more than having them, and although i love seeing my stash.. id enjoy having my 100+ current gen games lacking the tangability of it all.
basically, i just want to be able to play all my stuff whenever (which includes 10 years from now). #satoruiwata
11/06/09
11/06/09
if i only kept a few games at a time, id feel different. #satoruiwata
11/06/09
Think about it, you can no longer leagaly import a game, not even within the European continent and you never own anything you could sell/lend later on.
And the big question: Will I still be able to download and activate the games I bought in 10 years or so?
11/06/09
my ipod touch messed up and i had to reformat it, erasing all my content. my favorite game for the thing is edge, but that jerk tim langdell sued, and it was gone from the store.
that was just a few bucks, but i couldnt imagine a 40 or 50 dollar purchase being lost to something like that. #satoruiwata
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if msft, sony, and nintendo want to digitally push the games on their consoles.. theres really nothing that can be done by the retailers or unfortunately even the consumers. #satoruiwata
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11/06/09
if its the only way i can get them, and if the masses respond well, then im missing out, not the companies. #satoruiwata
11/06/09
That's a pretty safe bet, since all video games are digital now. #satoruiwata
11/06/09
11/05/09
I believe this is yet another example of Nintendo misreading the game. 20 years befor digital distribution takes over? More like 10 maximum.
11/05/09
And seriously, how lame would it be getting a download code for XMAS instead of a boxed game? #satoruiwata
11/06/09
if you went to the store to buy games physically, why would it be any different for cards that distribute digital content?
id say the lack of high speed internet in some areas would be a bigger problem than that. i think stores will figure a way out though.
11/05/09
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11/06/09
yes I've heard of steam, what self respecting gamer hasn't? While I can attribute much to Steams success, I can in the same sentence point out that the PC audience is vastly different from the console audience. I mean more than just the fact that the PC audience is a dwindling species at this point in gaming as the PC becomes less and less relevant.
Keep in mind that Steam also has direct competitors which consoles do not so any correlation between the PC market and the console dies at the words digital distribution. However I will say this, Steam has not obliterated the physical media market, has not managed to solve piracy, and had nothing to do with the complete lack of a used games market. PC gaming has been a shit mess for over a decade now. #satoruiwata
11/06/09
i doubt that the "soccer moms" or the guy who just wants to play gta, madden, or cod will be bothered by not having a box and instructions..
plus, i also know that these companies are greedy, and may very well charge "tangible" prices for intangible games, but i also believe that digital prices may be so high at this point because less people buy them in that form.
i mean most of the outrageous prices are coming from who? the first parties.. i think that third parties (save for bobby koticks evil empire) would price games like they do on pc, and i think that trend might affect first party pricing.
one thing that i know could affect this negatively is the licensing fees to make console games.... but im just guessin here, who knows! #satoruiwata
11/06/09
Hardcores, that keep their games tend to believe that they will some day go back to them and play them again. Some will go as far as calling it a collection. Others manage to juggle their collections by selling games they know they'll never play again. Paying for anything more than 20 dollars is a bit of a stretch when you can't get rid of it. Only thing I can justify doing that for is groceries and subscription based services (electric, water, cable/internet, etc) even then I have to judge if the service is worth the cost.
That really is where the crux of all this is... are gamers willing to have their games tied to them until the end of their days. Unless new releases start between 10 and 15 dollars I just don't see this happening unless the person is already a huge fan of a series. Console gaming climate is built like that and has as far more hardcore gamers then PC.
Games you listed certainly no one gives a damn if it is DD or PD, but lets be realistic those games have depreciating value as is. A lot of the times in the case of games like Madden it should just be a downloadable roster update for 8 to 10 bucks each year.
As far as soccer moms go, how many of them actually run out and buy a throw away title for 50 dollars? They are buying PS2's right now and guess what the PS2 has a large abundance of: used 20 dollars or less titles.
DD is a great model for things like PSOne titles and I see this being an excellent market after the PS3 is over the hill and the PS4 is released. If they manage PS2 titles on the PSN well you see where I'm going with this.
I'd love to go at this all day with you, but I really did give this a lot of thought. not just from my own perspective of being a gamer that does dabble in used games and spends 40 dollars on a remastered set of God of War games. For me this isn't about the box, the disc, or the store. It's about the after market and what this does to me as a hardcore gamer. For me it has to do with having that used game being a window of opportunity for a new franchise to catch my interest and hopefully hold onto it. It's the used games that often times determines if I buy a new Sequel in that series. Keep in mind it's that same approach that EA is taking in hopes that Mirrors Edge has a future. Clearly they see something other companies don't. #satoruiwata
11/05/09
Telltale Games already does a great job there. You can buy their games online, download them (and re-download them if needed) without any proprietary software and, once the season is complete, have the option to get the DVD+box+manual for the price of postage and packaging, with extra features like an audio commentary and design notes.
It's a shame that Steam doesn't allow you to order a physical copy. Imagine the money they could skim off the top. If all else fails, at least they could let us back our copy of the game to a DVD so that we can make our own box.
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I think it's problematic to say that it will become our only choice if consumers resist it. The companies that offer DD for consoles will only have to test the waters long enough to see that sales are doing poorly before they revert to the medium that are practical to gamers.
I don't doubt a bit that DD is the future of gaming; and indeed, all software. It's a matter of time before CD/DVD/Blu ray, etc. are obsolete entirely. But the change will be met with market resistance and will be slow. I'm willing to posit more than 20 years. #satoruiwata
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11/06/09
basically, without trading hurting the publishers/developers... they can quickly discount titles in a timely fashion. similar to whats going on with the iphone/ipod touch.
so you get halo 5 for the next xbox for 40 when it releases, a few months later. after staying there for a year or so.. itd drop to 20 and so on and so forth.
itd be easier for devs to have frequent price drops since they dont sell 1.5 mil and then trickle out slow lifetime sales due to second hand sales.
so i think itd be fairly even, except you dont have to worry about little kid boogers or whatever on your used games lol. #satoruiwata
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11/05/09
The first is storage size. Sony goes on and on about 50GB storage sizes for Blu-Rays. And that's fine. That's a rather nice accomplishment. But the biggest internal hard drive any of them offer is 250GB. So, basically, five PS3 games. Until an affordable console drops that has, like, a freaking TERRABYTE harddrive, then full-on digital distribution for a home console is unlikely.
The second is manufacturer dedication. Nobody's really taken the plunge yet because of a number of factors, including bandwidth concerns (imagine 2,000,000 people trying to download Call of Duty: Modern Warfare 2 all at once, and none of them being able to because they collapsed the pipeline) and the potential shutting-out of markets. Sony's giving it a try with the PSPgo, but they're half-assing it by still making the UMDs and the PSP-3000's. Microsoft is starting to bring their Games-on-Demand service as well, but they're games that've been out for years already. Until they have a big new release drop on the service, this is about as relevant as XBLA games.
There are a lot of technical limitations to this happening. Maybe once FiOS becomes mainstream and it's as readily available as a phone line, a huge chunk of the infrastructure will be able to handle the potential for an all download console. But, uh... 20 years is maybe early for that kind of thing. #satoruiwata
11/06/09
so you walk in, and there are like 5 - 10 kiosks with some sort of area that you just attach your hdd to.. (like the 360s detachable hdd), and theres a touch screen that you select the game and it downloads it to your hdd directly.
it wouldnt be that hard for them to come up with something to keep on making money man! #satoruiwata
11/06/09
Can see it now.... I want to purchase this game, game stop employee comes around and types their code in.. and hands a receipt to turn to the register...customer walks out of the store without paying. Oh Snap... you can't put an anti-theft device on a digital download. #satoruiwata
11/06/09
so no it wouldnt be, and i know youre joking.. but ive never encountered gamestop clerks that stupid. i dont know where you live, but maybe its the area.
11/06/09
People like physical media for games because of reselling, and the fact that you're buying the actual full game, not just a "license" that "lets" you play something you dropped $60 on. That's another thing that's in the way of full-on digital distribution; ownership of the data. All it takes is one jerkwad company repealing a license for a game to make the entire structure of console EULAs come crashing to the ground. #satoruiwata