One of the great unfulfilled dreams of the present hardware generation is the ability to buy full, retail console games online. On the day they're released in stores.
Microsoft sells old games via Xbox Live, but they're laughably over-priced. Sony has sold a few as well, like Burnout Paradise, MAG and Warhawk, but had never offered one for sale on the same day GameStop or Walmart had.
Until Mass Effect 2 came along.
BioWare's sci-fi RPG was quietly released day-and-date on the PlayStation Network, meaning if you felt lazy and didn't want to leave the house on the day it came out in stores, you could just download it from home. And it looks like a lot of you did just that.
EA boss John Riccitiello says that, despite not marketing the game's online availability at all, the downloadable version accounted for "a double-digit percent of total sales for Mass Effect 2 on PS3".
Considering Sony was using the release as a test - the company having never released a retail game online on the same day it was out in stores - it's surely an encouraging sign that we could be seeing more of this in the future.