welcome to the future of gaming

[Hypno-Sheep]

Doing digital only distribution doesnt make sense to me, for a start it would almost cripple game sales even for new titles because of the hard drive space that consoles come with. even for a 320gb ps3 you could only store around four maybe five triple a titles. The hard drive space would realistically have to be raised to around a terabyte to even start comparing with an average "hard copy" games collection.

And what of those people that dont yet have an internet connection for their consoles? are they to be trapped in this generation forever?

I can see a time when things will be digital distribution only but it wont be on the generation jump thats going to happen in the next few years and i doubt it will happen on the one after aswell. Its a farfetched theory that at this point in time is financially unfeasible for console manufactures to even attempt because the general public would simply stop buying their products which in turn would damage game sales too much for the console industry to continue.

 

[LiquidSolstice]

It doesn't have to be these forums but the companies would be pretty stupid to not listen to what consumers will and won't buy.

They listen to the only statement that you can make loud enough for them to hear; your money.

 

[Darknacht]

Haven't you heard? PC gaming is going to be dead soon...

PC gaming died in 1985 weren't you paying attention?

 

[twaddle]

I see Three possible outcomes from this.

1. All the bile everyone has been spewing about big name publishers like EA and Activision will stop being imaginary bullshit and we'll see the beginning of the dark empire.

2. With used games and piracy nullified, we'll see games go down in price and possibly become more accessible to newcomers (provided internet connection becomes a general thing like electricity is)

3. Most hardcore console gamers will migrate to the PC where cracking digital games is easily done and PC Gaming will simply be the more convienient choice at that point.

Being a PC Gamer, I have the luxury of getting to sit on the sidelines of console gaming and observe how it evolves without much of it affecting me too badly to be a problem. So I'm waiting with curiosity.

Steam pretty much saved most of our asses in this.

 

[TheVioletBandit]

I see a lot of people saying they don't care because this doesn't effect them, but are they not consumers as well? Even if a certain bad business practice doesn't effect you now, if you allow those type of practices to flourish in the market, it's an eventuality that it will effect you later.

 

[Madman123456]

People in the Future who wanna get out the old Videogame from their Childhood are fucked. Well, unless you're really old you're fucked anyways because most Consoles with Disc Media just wont work anymore.
With the Exception of the frontloader NES, old Cartridge Systems will probably last longer than my Body will.

The current Generation of consoles will not sit in your attic so you can dig them out in 20 Years, you've probably given up on it after the thing broke down for the fourth time and wont bother anymore.

But with Customers basically "renting" Games? Multiplayer games would be fucked after a month. I'm not paying for a Game sitting on my Console for years in Case i wanna play it occasionally.

I'd have a good laugh when those Console wont sell. For PC Games, there will be legal Battles where People defend their right to run a Server that merely imitates a "legit" authentification Server. Not distributing pirated Copies, maybe actually hhave some mechanisms in Place that prevent pirated Copies from having access to that Server.
Just a fake Server that wont install Spyware on your system without you knowing whatever EA or Ubisoft think of next.

 

[Buddahcjcc]

my main worry is that as we make the transition from discs to downloads is that without competition prices will never drop. that's what makes steam work is that they have to compete with the whole internet. What I'm seeing is the xbox 72 or whatever only allowing you to buy from microsoft (as the 360 does now) but without used games and for some time box copies they will have no need to charge less the whatever they can get away with I can see 2 year old games still running for $60 simply because there is no other way to get it. I see a similar problem with this. no used games for compitition means that they can charge what they please and the games industry will never need to learn that charging many peoples weekly food budget for a 8 hour game with little replay value is not a good way to make friends.

They still try to sell friggin Doom II on xbox360 for however much 800 M$ points is and given that game ran on 2 or 386 machines it SHOULD be free. Charging anything for a game THAT OLD is stupid