Hypothetical: Direct Download only Future for Console Gaming?

At the end of the day, all those cons for physical disks and pros for DD mean nothing because gamers will be quick to realize that when they spend $60 on a DD game, they're out $60 for good and that adds up real fast. With physical disks at that $60 game might be worth $40 or $30 or $15... at least its worth something.
 
eastmen said:
Well what have we learned ?
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I've got a 25Mbps connection and I sure don't see me wanting to download more games than I already have to. It's alright for the occasional PSN title that is between a few hundreds of MB up to about 2-3 GB in size. For everything larger - no thanks, even if I can max out my 25Mbps connection, it's not something I'd want to do often.

Also, add to that - the installation process is quite a hassle with some games that are multiple GB in size. Think about it - if you download a title that's 10 GB in size, the unpacking and installing time will take a good chunk of the time you needed to download it in the first place.

The only positive thing about DD that comes to my mind is that I don't have to get up to switch disks anymore. Anything else is just con. I don't see developers profiting anymore off it either btw.
 
Phil said:
I've got a 25Mbps connection and I sure don't see me wanting to download more games than I already have to. It's alright for the occasional PSN title that is between a few hundreds of MB up to about 2-3 GB in size. For everything larger - no thanks, even if I can max out my 25Mbps connection, it's not something I'd want to do often.
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Most games preload up to a week before release and you can shape the times it will download as well.

Also, add to that - the installation process is quite a hassle with some games that are multiple GB in size. Think about it - if you download a title that's 10 GB in size, the unpacking and installing time will take a good chunk of the time you needed to download it in the first place.
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Um, no, it downloads in place for things like steam. Pretty much as soon as the last byte is down, you are good to go.

The only positive thing about DD that comes to my mind is that I don't have to get up to switch disks anymore. Anything else is just con. I don't see developers profiting anymore off it either btw.
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They are already profiting more off of it on the PC side with steam.
 
specwarGP2 said:
At the end of the day, all those cons for physical disks and pros for DD mean nothing because gamers will be quick to realize that when they spend $60 on a DD game, they're out $60 for good and that adds up real fast. With physical disks at that $60 game might be worth $40 or $30 or $15... at least its worth something.
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you really think next gen consoles won't go to online auth? Or developers won't figure out ways to get rid of the whole used market? Here's a clue, they've already been doing it with a lot of newer games.
 
aaronspink said:
Most games preload up to a week before release and you can shape the times it will download as well.
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Maybe I'm just a bit more skeptical, since I consider myself to be quite hardcore in that regard. I've got a server that runs 24/7 and downloads pretty much around the clock and I myself see bigger downloads as a hassle. Considering my downloads of multiple GBs over PSN are usually down and installed within the hour, I do know other friends that are less internet savy will not be as patient.

While I agree that the majority of gamers have an internet connection available (or in other words, that the gamers that don't have access to internet is quite small on a world-wide scale), I'm not convinced that that majority also has a good enough internet connection to make it hassle free. For some of them, internet connection will improve over the next 3 years, but not to the extend that would enable 10 GB downloads (and I assume high quality production games will be even larger).

In the last 3 years, I've gone from 15Mbps to 25Mbps. Technically, 100Mbps is right around the corner, just not active in my residentual area yet. I'm not the average customer though, as I pay close to the equivilant of $100 USD a month for internet (I'm from Europe). Most gamers I know, surf around with a medium range package deal. For them, internet access has roughly stayed around 5Mbps. At best, I'd expect them to move up to around 15Mbps within the next 3 years without having to pay significantly more for their internet access. Hardly enough to make DD "hassle free".

Then there are more than few that I know that prefer to have a physical copy of whatever they buy. Downloading legal movies is already an option to many, yet in most cases that I know, the physical medium is still way ahead in sales.

Also, if DD becomes true, what about harddrive requirements? Sure, it wouldn't stop hardware makers to go the cheap basic entry of only offering a 250GB harddrive in its console. At 20GB games + data, you'd be lucky to get around 10 games on it at once. What if you want to play something else? Delete one and wait 10 hours (not assuming high end internet subscription) for the game to download? I've got about 20 PS3 games mind you.

What about harddrive crash? Think about the hassle...
 
Phil said:
Maybe I'm just a bit more skeptical, since I consider myself to be quite hardcore in that regard. I've got a server that runs 24/7 and downloads pretty much around the clock and I myself see bigger downloads as a hassle. Considering my downloads of multiple GBs over PSN are usually down and installed within the hour, I do know other friends that are less internet savy will not be as patient.

While I agree that the majority of gamers have an internet connection available (or in other words, that the gamers that don't have access to internet is quite small on a world-wide scale), I'm not convinced that that majority also has a good enough internet connection to make it hassle free. For some of them, internet connection will improve over the next 3 years, but not to the extend that would enable 10 GB downloads (and I assume high quality production games will be even larger).
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Im not meaning offence but I do believe you're highballing the figure for downloads. Most games will still be limited by the Xbox 360 DVD space restrictions on the overall content at that time so its likely the download sizes will remain in the 4-8GB range for the majority of the titles downloaded. In addition to this the entire download of a game doesn't need to be completed in many cases before you can start playing the game with the right application of technology.

In the last 3 years, I've gone from 15Mbps to 25Mbps. Technically, 100Mbps is right around the corner, just not active in my residentual area yet. I'm not the average customer though, as I pay close to the equivilant of $100 USD a month for internet (I'm from Europe). Most gamers I know, surf around with a medium range package deal. For them, internet access has roughly stayed around 5Mbps. At best, I'd expect them to move up to around 15Mbps within the next 3 years without having to pay significantly more for their internet access. Hardly enough to make DD "hassle free".
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@5Mbps a good yield for a download is around 400kb/s which is good for around 1.4GB per hour. Thats good enough to have a game fully downloaded in about 5-6 hours at most which means the player can likely start playing within about 30 minutes and assuming the download rate stays ahead of the speed the games played they can keep playing until finished if they want to. @15Mbps they can yield 1.2MB/s minimum which means the player can probably start playing the game within minutes of selecting 'download' as that yields 4GB an hour. I think it does make it hassle free. Your argument is still valid of course in the absence of the ability to play games partially downloaded which is what I believe will be implemented.

Then there are more than few that I know that prefer to have a physical copy of whatever they buy. Downloading legal movies is already an option to many, yet in most cases that I know, the physical medium is still way ahead in sales.
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Its ahead in convenience and experience. HDD speeds and download speeds are scaling up faster than games are getting bigger. We'll probably see at least 500GB standard in next generation consoles if not 750/1000GB as the minimum size. Direct download offers the convenience of fast loading and always being able to access your game library quickly from the console.

Also, if DD becomes true, what about harddrive requirements? Sure, it wouldn't stop hardware makers to go the cheap basic entry of only offering a 250GB harddrive in its console. At 20GB games + data, you'd be lucky to get around 10 games on it at once. What if you want to play something else? Delete one and wait 10 hours (not assuming high end internet subscription) for the game to download? I've got about 20 PS3 games mind you
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250GB is about the minimum size you can get laptop format drives in presently. 120GB is about the minimum for consoles as well. In 3 years you can probably expect that to double twice which ought to net around a 500GB HDD minimum for next generation consoles, especially if the console makers do indeed want you to download with them.

What about harddrive crash? Think about the hassle...
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You don't play your whole library at the same time, you'd only need to initially download the games you want to play at first. Its not much worse than any other mechanical/electronic failure a console can experience.
 
People are still getting hung up on DD vs Physical. It comes down to wether a company will make more money out of offering a console that allows us of optical media and DD, or a console that offers DD only...
 
aaronspink said:
If they don't want to sell them, I'm sure there are other retailers perfectly willing to make $ for hold stock on shelf..
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Yeah like grocery stores and gas stations? The attraction of big B&Ms to MS, Sony and Nintendo is that there are the most effective and efficient movers of consoles and software. The big B&Ms attraction to games is that games produces an abnormally high amount of revenue for a relatively small amount of shelf space. Most of the billions of dollars that spent on gaming software moves through the big B&M hands.


aaronspink said:
The PSP has a high retail price because it has a higher manufacturing cost and is at best an also ran in the market place..
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The PSP has moved 60 million handheld since release. The problem with the PSP has never been moving hardware its been moving software and thats where its negative image lie. Ripping out the UMD drives and installing 16 Gbs of Flash is hardly to require the premium asked by the retail price.

aaronspink said:
Walmart only has leverage if you give them leverage. And quite honestly, I'm sure they wouldn't mind putting the physical media shelf to other uses. Its a minor minor part of their income..
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Again, name any other item where you house 10s of thousand of dollars in inventory in such a small amount of space. Walmart has leverage because it offers access to million of consumers every year. There is not alot of retailers that offer similar access and the ones that do would still have problems with selling consoles that offered a sliver of a profit margin. No business is going to whether B&M of online is going to offer products that don't produce good margins or attract attention to other products that do.

The revenue model will change, but basing it around a console introduction means abrupt change. How is not better to slowly build up DD on a optical based consoles. As DD grows it will show retailers that game cards are a viable revenue producer. As DD replaces optical discs sales, DD will become a bigger and bigger part of a retailers' revenue. Thus when you do transition to a DD only model you just transition retailers revenue to a steadily growing revenue stream from a dying revenue stream.


aaronspink said:
No it wouldn't require a data center in every region sold. In fact, that is about the most stupid way to do things I've ever heard. There are companies that specialize in high bandwidth delivery that have already partnered with pretty much every ISP on earth because it is in the ISPs best interest. Anyone with a clue doing DD ends up partnering with them due to their cost factors. 4U to a rack of DCD boxes can basically saturate most ISPs with up to 80 Gbit of delivered bandwidth (significantly more upend bandwith that most ISPs even have). The cost is exceeding low in reality since the ISPs basically give free local bandwidth because of their cost savings.
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Whether you invest in your own or pay someone else to do it for you it still requires a investment on the part of the console manufacturers. A data center is still required whether you own or you pay for its services. Wouldn't you rather start small and steadily grow your capital requirements based on actual consumers demand or based investment on a massive scaling based on projections on a new unproven console, a product thats notorious when newly launched having a history of failing more than succeeding.

Providing a DD service like a MS would need isn't as trivial as cheap bandwidth, if that was the case Xbox Live would be offered everywhere the 360 is sold. Its not.
 
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specwarGP2 said:
At the end of the day, all those cons for physical disks and pros for DD mean nothing because gamers will be quick to realize that when they spend $60 on a DD game, they're out $60 for good and that adds up real fast. With physical disks at that $60 game might be worth $40 or $30 or $15... at least its worth something.
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At gamestop a $60 game is worth no more than $25 at launch and quickly following will be under $20 a few months later.

Constantly buying and trading games gets expensive real fast also. On steam if Idon't like a game anymore I normaly sell it to someone and make back money.


dobawl said:
Yeah like grocery stores and gas stations? The attraction of big B&Ms to MS, Sony and Nintendo is that there are the most effective and efficient movers of consoles and software. The big B&Ms attraction to games is that games produces an abnormally high amount of revenue for a relatively small amount of shelf space. Most of the billions of dollars that spent on gaming software moves through the big B&M hands.
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I'm not sure. When someone goes into walmart and buys a toaster whats the attraction for walmart ? The intial profit is it not ? There is no add ons that walmart sells with the toaster. People go in and buy the toaster and walmart makes money.

People go in and buy the xbox next and walmart makes a profit . In fact instead of selling a $60 game in which they mae $5 to mabye $10 they now have all that room for more system space or higher margin items. That controller that MS makes for $5 bucks then sells to walmart for $25 and then walmart sells for $50 . Or that plastic guitar that they make much better profits on. Or game time cards where they can fit 100s in the space of 10 or so retail copies of a game.

Walmart and other big chains wont care if the revenue is replaced through other means.

The PSP has moved 60 million handheld since release. The problem with the PSP has never been moving hardware its been moving software and thats where its negative image lie. Ripping out the UMD drives and installing 16 Gbs of Flash is hardly to require the premium asked by the retail price.
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The retail price premium is so retailers make money off the hardware since the software will be sold online. The problem with the psp go is that they still sell the old psp and the old psp has every title released avalible used at a discounted price. They are competing against themselves. Which is why any company needs to go DD at the start. PSP2 thats only DD would make more sense than the GO. Because you can reap the advantages of DD from the start. Games will only be avalible online so used game sales go bye bye and retail chain is cut out of the loop largely so that more profit is made by the developer and sony. Retailers would get a cut of the retail sale of the system and would still cary high margin / low risk game cards and acessorys.

The revenue model will change, but basing it around a console introduction means abrupt change. How is not better to slowly build up DD on a optical based consoles. As DD grows it will show retailers that game cards are a viable revenue producer. As DD replaces optical discs sales, DD will become a bigger and bigger part of a retailers' revenue. Thus when you do transition to a DD only model you just transition retailers revenue to a steadily growing revenue stream from a dying revenue stream.
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I don't see how this can work . DD will not grow well with the used market still breathing down its neck . DD ould not only be squeeze by the used market but also hit again by retailres who still want to sell plastic discs at $60 bucks and get mad if DD is priced less or has frequent sales. Also the handheld or ocnsole will not be able to shed the optical drive form its console thus making the system more expensive. A clean slate would be best.

Whether you invest in your own or pay someone else to do it for you it still requires a investment on the part of the console manufacturers. A data center is still required whether you own or you pay for its services. Wouldn't you rather start small and steadily grow your capital requirements based on actual consumers demand or based investment on a massive scaling based on projections on a new unproven console, a product thats notorious when newly launched having a history of failing more than succeeding.

Providing a DD service like a MS would need isn't as trivial as cheap bandwidth, if that was the case Xbox Live would be offered everywhere the 360 is sold. Its not.
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The companys are already investing in a DD service. This generation on the xbox 360 you went from 50MB DD titles to 8.4 gig DD titles offered on the service and xbox arcade titles will continue to grow in size.

Xbox live doesn't exist to subsidize the DD system , it exists to pay for the message servers and gamer tag servers and what not and make a profit in doing so .

From the xbox to the xbox 360 we saw a shrinking of game size. I don't see why xbox next games need to go from 6.8 gig to 50 gigs. Going from 6.8 gigs to 10 gigs to 15 gigs over the next generation is more than enough. The games cangrow in size with the DD service just like what happened this gen.

That some people will argue endlessly over the minutiae of a topic that bares little relevance to the immediate future? (Yeah I know, welcome to the internet!)
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Need to do something when i'm in the john
 
I find it odd anyone thinks any system will go DD only after how many retailers boycotted the Go. A DD only system without a physical medium based version would only be treated worse.

Retailers are already pissed off over Mass Effect's project $10. You really think they'd sit idly by?

If devs could have gotten rid of used sales, they would have by now. It's a simple matter of CD keys like PC games have done for years.

Its ahead in convenience and experience
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Hence why the physical version sells better.
 
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If you have the bandwidth, DD is very convenient and has few downsides IMO. The biggest downside of them all is that they don't let you give away or sell your purchased games. They've got you by the balls there unless you play the system by making individual accounts for every game you buy.

If you don't have the bandwidth for it, that makes it much less appealing obviously too. :D

I really like Steam and Impulse, but I have bought a few games I wish I could ditch at the used game store. FarCry 2 and AVP3 come to mind.
 
Phil said:
While I agree that the majority of gamers have an internet connection available (or in other words, that the gamers that don't have access to internet is quite small on a world-wide scale)
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Sony has said 1/3 of all PS3s arent even connected to the internet

Thats quite a lot of people to be excluding from buying games. Especially when PS3 has a hard enough time getting developer support as it is.
 
As I have mentioned in the past, there is no doubt in my mind DD is the future, and the real question is if the so called optical disc-less console will happen next gen or next next gen.
Some people are still hang up on the idea that publishers "want" to sell games at retail and would've done CD key already if they wanted. Both of these are not accurate.
First, the retail chain till recently was the only option and the necessary middle man. They take their cut which is not small - depending on the publisher it could be 30% to 50% of the retail price.
Second, CD keys just piss off consumers and was a big no-no on consoles, because there was no alternative. It's not like publishers don't want you to resell your game, they just want to take a cut.
With DD both of those resolve naturally. The retail chain is no longer the only option, not only that but the bigger the DD push the less they matter. On top of that they can still carry your games on "flash" that you pay a premium for - if you don't have internet, for a gift, to avoid waiting for download etc.
The second hand market can be totally allowed and the publisher can still take their cut by setting up simple transfer system which will be trivial within an established DD/authentication system.
If you pay attention you'll notice recently all the major players slowly moving in this direction. Sony with PSP Go, Microsoft allowing user provided flash memory, Activision establishing a business unit for downloadable games, Steam saving PC gaming and pretty much being the last/only place that still makes money for PC games etc.
Just my 2c.
 
NeoTechni said:
Sony has said 1/3 of all PS3s arent even connected to the internet

Thats quite a lot of people to be excluding from buying games. Especially when PS3 has a hard enough time getting developer support as it is.
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that might have more to due with PSN being an also ran released well after the console was released instead of being part of the integrated experience.
 
aaronspink said:
that might have more to due with PSN being an also ran released well after the console was released instead of being part of the integrated experience.
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Its about 1/3 for the 360 aswel i believe. 30% not connected, 20% silver, 50% gold.

And PSN was there from the start IIRC. In fact i remember signing up for a PSN account long before the console was released... :???:
I would have thought the free multiplayer and built-in wifi would encourage more of the userbase to connect PS3 online than 360 infact, though im not sure we have any true numbers for either. Care to explain what you mean by an also ran? It was more of an only ran im not sure what other alternatives were available to PS3 users.
 
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aaronspink said:
that might have more to due with PSN being an also ran released well after the console was released instead of being part of the integrated experience.
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PSN was literally up days BEFORE PS3 even came out! (people were allowed to pick usernames before launch) I had my PS3 on PSN at about 8 am the day it came out. Try again. The truth this time

Also

http://games.venturebeat.com/2009/0...-million-xbox-live-accounts-cross-20-million/

Microsoft announced today that it’s sold more than 30 million Xbox 360 game consoles and that its active user base of Xbox Live online gaming service is now over 20 million.
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This is old data, but that shows more than 1/3 of all 360s aren't connected either (given many people have multiple accounts)

Do you really think either company wants to exclude 1/3 of their userbase?
 
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Barbarian said:
Second, CD keys just piss off consumers and was a big no-no on consoles
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Sony has started doing it on PSP.
Online games now come with a key, so pirates wont be able to get online since that costs devs bandwidth.
If you buy the game used, you have to buy a new key.

So I say again, if they wanted to kill used game sales off, they could.
They are going out of their way not to

If you pay attention you'll notice recently all the major players slowly moving in this direction. Sony with PSP Go, Microsoft allowing user provided flash memory,
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PSP Go shows Sony isn't going that way. They aren't forcing devs to support it even with new games. Even stores claim Sony expected it to fail. They made a system that doesnt appeal to most pre-existing owners. Sony has flat out said they aren't going to offer full PS3 games for download cause they are too big.

MS allowing people to use 16 GB doesnt really show that either. That's enough for what, 2 games? I'm sure MS wants you buying more. If MS was doing as you claim, they'd allow the full space to be used without formatting it.

Activision establishing a business unit for downloadable games,
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Did they do the assassines creed thing or was that someone else?

EDIT: Ah, that was ubisoft.
 
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