Why not make a whole full-size game downloadable on XBL?

[superguy]

Think about it, it's the next step.

First, I'm speaking of first run, big title games. Something like Tomb Raider. Of course, it would have to be available in stores as well for those without internet or live. This is only a secondary option.

Next you have no box, instructions etc. So knock say ten bucks off. Game is $50 or something, instead of $59, to be more enticing.

Hell I'd do it once just for the novelty factor, even if I didn't want the game that much!

How about older games for $20? What I mean is say, in two years when nobody cares about Battlefield:MC, make it avaialable for DL for $10 or $20. Do this of course with dozens of out of print games..

Of course you'll need a bigger HD. MS needs to and will get on the ball with that.

In this case, a DVD is a GOOD thing. It self-limits the games to 9GB and below. A managable size for download by default.

 

[superguy]

I thought some numbers through as well.

I have 4MB cable. I think 3MB+ is fairly common.

That's 8Mb every two seconds, 1MB every two s, 30MB a minute. 300 MB=10minute. 3,000MB=100 minute. 9,000MB=~9GB=300 min=5hr.

So total worse case five hours. However say, even the largest games run 4.5 GB now. So 2.5 for that. 1.25 hours for a 2.25 GB game (I assume many average games fit here).

Not easy but not too bad. Probably 1-2 hours for most games right now.

It's no panacea as there's not much real ADVANTAGE, but you do save a trip to the store if you're feeling lazy.

The whole idea of cutting out the inventory chain is coming in all media I think. I'm hearing that soon movies will be burned to disc for you right at the store. In that case there is still a physical disc burner etc at the store though.

 

[drpepper]

Not everyone has broadband. What's the percentage of console owners subscribing to broadband internet connections?

Plus, MS would probably have to implement some sort of DRM to prevent/reduce piracy. That would take a while to mature.

I think downloading whole games over the internet is a bit of a pipe dream.

 

[superguy]

It's inevitable. If you can dowload a 1+ gig demo why not just the game?

There are already PC services like this. IGN's "Direct to drive' for example, lets you download full PC games.

Your objections seem centered on the belief it would be the only way to get the game. Not so, it could only be another option. The games would still be sold in stores also.

Also dial up is not allowed on XboxLive..

Piracy I dont know about though..maybe would make it to easy too hack? This definitly could kill the idea.

 

[cam]

I think for distribution to go that way you would need more storage, what happens when you run out of hard disk space? Just trash a game you paid full price for? I'd love to see in the future downloadable full games that let you burn one copy of it but that isn’t going to happen in the console world (dvd/br burners built in? cool but not likely).

But if you could easily (not file type restricted) link the consoles up to a pc you could always back up what you have.

I’d buy a game over the counter than download any day, just so I have something physical in my hand without all the hassle.

 

[Inane_Dork]

I don't think MS is interested, yet, in providing several 7 GB downloads to thousands of people. Having just one would do more harm than good, as people would expect one to mean that more would come in the future.

This, too, will change. It's not easy to have enough bandwidth for these kinds of things. They'd probably need to copy Steam's P2P capability or preloading of data (or both).

 

[superguy]

I think for distribution to go that way you would need more storage, what happens when you run out of hard disk space? Just trash a game you paid full price for? I'd love to see in the future downloadable full games that let you burn one copy of it but that isn’t going to happen in the console world (dvd/br burners built in? cool but not likely).

But if you could easily (not file type restricted) link the consoles up to a pc you could always back up what you have.

I’d buy a game over the counter than download any day, just so I have something physical in my hand without all the hassle.

Well, I'm assuming of course that soon enough, 60-200GB hard drives are made available for 360 from Microsoft.

If the average game is 5GB, which I think is a way high guess, well you do the math.

It does point out though, they would need to replace the default HD on the premium pack with a larger size, which is probably inevitable eventually anyway. And then early adaptors kinda get screwed. In the other case they only offer larger add-ons, then you have to go spend more money to get them and the userbase is low.

I'm sure it would work like XBLA. The system knows when you "own" a game and you can redownload it at any time in the future. For those times of if it was necessary for any reason.



Still, even the original, you could dabble in it. The 13 gigs could hold say, 4-5 games. And you could delete and re-download the older ones. Really you would think of the HD as just a holder in that case. Like a CD changer. Would many people really be playing more than 5 games at a time? Ofg course, now you have the idea of having to download for 1+ hour to play your old games that dont fit. Another strike against the system. However there are positives. No more worrying about a scratched disc.



The physical part, I agree. But some people probably dont care. Valid objection though. Still, I've been tempted sitting at my PC at 10PM or something by that "Direct to Drive" PC service I mentioned.

 

[RancidLunchmeat]

Sorry.. I'm confused.

What do you mean "Why not?"

Of course that is clearly the direction that MS wants to pursue. That is the end goal, to have ALL content... (and not just games) downloadable VIA Live!

The reason they haven't quite gotten there yet is rather simple... not enough people have broadband access, and even those that do aren't very willing to let their X360 sit there and do nothing for the 3-5 hours it would take to download the game.

As broadband access increases and as broadband speeds increase, this is exactly the sort of thing you will see. Which, quite clearly, is the only reason MS even got into the console sector to begin with.

But whether it happens this generation or next generation is the question.

With all due respect, Me thinks you don't quite understand why MS got into the console business to begin with if you are asking this question.

Yes that's one of the end goals.. (actually.. it's more of a short-term goal.. first they download demos.. then they download entire games... then they download EVERYTHING and we charge them for it! BAHAHAHAHHA!!! <my attempt at Bill Gates evil laugh>)

But, obviously by only "including" a small HDD in the X360, MS doesn't believe that the general consumer population is ready at this point to download entire content that you are referring to.

By N and S's offerings, I would say that they most certainly agree with MS's assessment on this issue.. they are pretty much either waving the white flag and not competing in this area or are only doing so in a general sort-of way.

The entire premise behind Live! was that people would actually download ALL their content over the internet. The X360 version of Live! is the next generation of improvement (not only communication and interaction.. but also content and demos!)

What you are asking for WILL be realized, but most likely not until the next generation of consoles which is 5-7 years away.

 

[randycat99]

There is also a "be careful what you wish for" component to this. Whereas on a DVD, it is encouraged to fill up that space, online will have an inherent encouragement to shrink the size of games. Games could become shorter, textures and sound cut back, etc. This could become an awkward area for game design not unlike when Nintendo 64 was trying to make things work out with ROM cartridges while the competitor had free open reign in relatively "bottomless" CD-ROMs.

Additionally, consider that the bandwidth of the receiving end of a broadband scenario is often not the bottleneck in the process. You can have 8 Mb/s wired to your house, but the upload from the server (for whoever is hosting the game download) may be capped at a mere 100-150 KB/s (around 1 Mb/s). That is not even counting high-traffic conditions, yet. You can imagine a server getting hammered by the userbase at large for a highly awaited game, and the results may not be so pretty. 20 KB/s? A 6 GB game, let alone a 1 GB game, would really stray the line of practicality. You could argue you could just let it run all night, but then that is what everybody will try to do, so that just pushes traffic contention from 10's of hours to maybe even days for everybody while aggregate bandwidth of the server upload gets divied down to dial-up speeds.

I have no doubt that online distribution will happen sometime in the future, but I project it will be much farther out than the time of obiquitous 8 Mb/s home service. It will also require major rethinking of infrastructure on the server end, as well. Shipping costs of physical media will surely be saved, but that may only be exchanged for not so trivial cost of hosting hardware and backbone-level digital services. Is that something companies will be will to pay just to get a game out...or perhaps they pass the cost onto the price of the game?

If I were to pick an analogy, the wheel was invented long, long ago, but it still remains a nearly unbeatable solution to making things mobile. Second to that is Bernoulli-enabled flight. Magnetic levitation/propulsion may replace all of that one day, but we have a long way to go before it becomes trivially practical like the good ole wheel.

 

[Nicked]

Retail interests, viability, and at present - hard-drive size. And I'm sure security will also be an issue.

Retail is the biggest one. The console makers don't want to piss off retailers.

 

[Shifty Geezer]

There is also a "be careful what you wish for" component to this. Whereas on a DVD, it is encouraged to fill up that space, online will have an inherent encouragement to shrink the size of games. Games could become shorter, textures and sound cut back, etc.

Interesting point. Music and movie downloads are compressed to poor quality, and don't give the same quality as hard-copy media. If the downloads are only of disc-based products, it won't matter, but if there are download-only titles, I guess there might be a case for cutbacks. Though I think, in the balance, if a game is going to take 45 minutes to download with cutbacks, you may as well go for the full hour and get the 'original'. There's be no major advantage or competition for quicker downloading games. People aren't going to choose one game over another because it'll take 25 minutes to download instead of 45 minutes. In fact you might get a reverse, where people prefer to buy the bigger games because they expect better from them. At the moment gamers have no idea how mocu of their shiny disk is content, but given a choice between games, both equally appealing in the main but one half the size of the other, expectations would naturally tend to favour the larger game as having more assets.

 

[Captain Chickenpants]

I thought some numbers through as well.

I have 4MB cable. I think 3MB+ is fairly common.

That's 8Mb every two seconds, 1MB every two s, 30MB a minute. 300 MB=10minute. 3,000MB=100 minute. 9,000MB=~9GB=300 min=5hr.

So total worse case five hours. However say, even the largest games run 4.5 GB now. So 2.5 for that. 1.25 hours for a 2.25 GB game (I assume many average games fit here).

Not easy but not too bad. Probably 1-2 hours for most games right now.

It's no panacea as there's not much real ADVANTAGE, but you do save a trip to the store if you're feeling lazy.

The whole idea of cutting out the inventory chain is coming in all media I think. I'm hearing that soon movies will be burned to disc for you right at the store. In that case there is still a physical disc burner etc at the store though.

Traditionally modem speed is quoted in M bits /sec not M bytes/sec.
So either you have 32Mb/sec (which would be very nice), or you have 4Mb/sec ~ 500KB/sec

So for your example there you have to multiply all your times by a factor of 8.

CC

 

[London Geezer]

Traditionally modem speed is quoted in M bits /sec not M bytes/sec.
So either you have 32Mb/sec (which would be very nice), or you have 4Mb/sec ~ 500KB/sec

So for your example there you have to multiply all your times by a factor of 8.

CC

He got the first two numbers wrong, but his calculations following the 8Mb figure are right as far as i can see... with 8Mb, it takes 2 secs to dload 1MB (assuming top speed the whole time), and after that all the rest seems right...

 

[MrWibble]

He got the first two numbers wrong, but his calculations following the 8Mb figure are right as far as i can see... with 8Mb, it takes 2 secs to dload 1MB (assuming top speed the whole time), and after that all the rest seems right...

Speeds are getting faster. A 20G title (full-on blu-ray stylee ) would only take me about 2.5h at home and a DVD sized download would only be about 40 minutes or so.

If you kept downloadable games under single layer DVD size and with background streaming, I could probably download the first bit of a game while streaming the intro movie, and have the whole game cached before I'm done with the first couple of levels...

That's virtually play-on-demand...

Of course more of an issue would be the transfer limits most people have on their broadband connections - some wouldn't even let you get as far as a single DVD before they max out.

 

[London Geezer]

Speeds are getting faster. A 20G title (full-on blu-ray stylee ) would only take me about 2.5h at home and a DVD sized download would only be about 40 minutes or so.

If you kept downloadable games under single layer DVD size and with background streaming, I could probably download the first bit of a game while streaming the intro movie, and have the whole game cached before I'm done with the first couple of levels...

That's virtually play-on-demand...

Of course more of an issue would be the transfer limits most people have on their broadband connections - some wouldn't even let you get as far as a single DVD before they max out.

The funniest thing i've seen lately is Bulldog selling 8Mb broadband - fabulous for those BIG downloads - with a 1GB/month limit (anything more and u pay...) for 9.75 a month...
I mean, it takes some real genius to come up with that obscenity, such a fast connection is obviously targetted at people wanting big downloads, yet they impose a limit of 1GB which will be used up in about 15 minutes at full speed. You could go "over the limit" 2880 times in that month. (that is if i can still use a calculator, but it should be right)
Only in the UK...

I should clarify, they do offer an unlimited service too for 20 quid a month or so, which makes the "cheaper" option look even more ridiculous.

 

[MrWibble]

The funniest thing i've seen lately is Bulldog selling 8Mb broadband - fabulous for those BIG downloads - with a 1GB/month limit (anything more and u pay...) for 9.75 a month...
I mean, it takes some real genius to come up with that obscenity, such a fast connection is obviously targetted at people wanting big downloads, yet they impose a limit of 1GB which will be used up in about 15 minutes at full speed. You could go "over the limit" 2880 times in that month. (that is if i can still use a calculator, but it should be right)
Only in the UK...

I should clarify, they do offer an unlimited service too for 20 quid a month or so, which makes the "cheaper" option look even more ridiculous.

For 14quid a month yyou can get a 24Mb/s connection with a similar 1GB limit... you could then trip your monthly limit in around 5 minutes

 

[London Geezer]

For 14quid a month yyou can get a 24Mb/s connection with a similar 1GB limit... you could then trip your monthly limit in around 5 minutes

Exactly, and i think it's 5 quid for every GB more you download. Imagine if someone leaves their PC on the whole time, having chosen the wrong option.... We're talking about 10 grand bills...




Joking
Their price plan is:
If you use up to 3 gigs in any given month you pay an extra £4
If you use up to 6 gigs in any given month you pay an extra £8
If you use up to 9 gigs in any given month you pay an extra £12
If you use over 9 gigs in any given month you pay an extra £16.


Personally, i don't know why people don't just go Unlimited... After seeing how fast it is, and after finding places to download things from, they WILL start big downloads sooner or later...

 

[MrWibble]

Personally, i don't know why people don't just go Unlimited... After seeing how fast it is, and after finding places to download things from, they WILL start big downloads sooner or later...

I'd be interested to know what the breakdown is between customers on the "normal" unlimited plan, and customers on the el-cheapo council estate special.

Next they'll be installing a slot on the ADSL modem to shovel 50p coins into.

 

[London Geezer]

I'd be interested to know what the breakdown is between customers on the "normal" unlimited plan, and customers on the el-cheapo council estate special.

Next they'll be installing a slot on the ADSL modem to shovel 50p coins into.

A real Pay-as-you-go!!

What a great idea, a coin-op ADSL modem! Kind of a retro style, i love it!

I'm not council estate! Really!




OK back to topic.

 

[LightHeaven]

There is also a "be careful what you wish for" component to this. Whereas on a DVD, it is encouraged to fill up that space, online will have an inherent encouragement to shrink the size of games. Games could become shorter, textures and sound cut back, etc. This could become an awkward area for game design not unlike when Nintendo 64 was trying to make things work out with ROM cartridges while the competitor had free open reign in relatively "bottomless" CD-ROMs.

Additionally, consider that the bandwidth of the receiving end of a broadband scenario is often not the bottleneck in the process. You can have 8 Mb/s wired to your house, but the upload from the server (for whoever is hosting the game download) may be capped at a mere 100-150 KB/s (around 1 Mb/s). That is not even counting high-traffic conditions, yet. You can imagine a server getting hammered by the userbase at large for a highly awaited game, and the results may not be so pretty. 20 KB/s? A 6 GB game, let alone a 1 GB game, would really stray the line of practicality. You could argue you could just let it run all night, but then that is what everybody will try to do, so that just pushes traffic contention from 10's of hours to maybe even days for everybody while aggregate bandwidth of the server upload gets divied down to dial-up speeds.

I have no doubt that online distribution will happen sometime in the future, but I project it will be much farther out than the time of obiquitous 8 Mb/s home service. It will also require major rethinking of infrastructure on the server end, as well. Shipping costs of physical media will surely be saved, but that may only be exchanged for not so trivial cost of hosting hardware and backbone-level digital services. Is that something companies will be will to pay just to get a game out...or perhaps they pass the cost onto the price of the game?

If I were to pick an analogy, the wheel was invented long, long ago, but it still remains a nearly unbeatable solution to making things mobile. Second to that is Bernoulli-enabled flight. Magnetic levitation/propulsion may replace all of that one day, but we have a long way to go before it becomes trivially practical like the good ole wheel.

Ms has developed a bittorrent-like p2p transfer system. It hasnt been used any where yet, but it was developed for Ms to distribute large files that everyone wants at once.

Link: http://www.infoworld.com/article/05/06/16/HNmsbittorrent_1.html

Actually there are advantages over BT and aby other type of file transfer: Each part you download has some keys with information of other parts. When you collect enought keys the system is capable of "creating" some parts of the file you havent downloaded yet, making distribution even faster.

BT already makes large file distribution possible to thousand of people at once, without stalling the server BW, or computational resources. This would have all that advantages and more.