With Sony’s recently released PSP Go, we saw Sony introduce a new idea purchasing your video games. For those unaware, the PSP Go has is UMD-less, meaning all of your games are purchased online through the PlayStation Store from your PSP, PS3, or PC. Although the PSP Go is not replacing the PSP-3000 model, and Sony will produce both models alongside each other, it’s still interesting to see a system that runs solely on games purchased digitally hit the market. This brings up some questions, concerns and thoughts to us as gamers. One of the most prominent thoughts being, are we slowly moving into an industry that will begin to sell all of their media digitally?
The PSP Go is not the only means of acquiring your games digitally. Both Microsoft and Sony have released many games on their online networks such as original titles, old arcade hits or classic titles from the days of PlayStation and beyond; and even Microsoft, with the recent introduction to purchasing full Xbox 360 titles from your Xbox LIVE account. Original Xbox games were made available just a couple of years ago, too. We currently purchase most of our games through retailers, online stores and local stores, but how soon can we expect this to possibly change?
If the next wave of consoles were to sell all of it’s games solely digitally, what would become of stores such as GameStop? those which thrive and profit off of the games traded in by people who were finished playing them? It would be interesting to see if any of these companies were to introduce features to let our friends “borrow” our digital copies of the games, if at all possible. At the end of it all however, would the value of games be diminished if we didn’t have hard copies of them? It would be a little upsetting to people like me, that enjoy collecting and displaying their games on a shelf or in a cabinet of some kind if I wasn’t able to actually own a real copy of the game. But that’s just me.
On the other hand, we wouldn’t have to worry about losing our games, or damaging the discs rendering them unplayable. It could be less costly for developers to sell their games digitally without having to distribute them through retailers, print the artwork and manuals, shipping them all over the world. It may also be convenient in the sense that we wouldn’t have to worry about securing a copy of the game, or have to travel to purchase our games either, but there are people (such as myself) who actually enjoy spending their money on a factory sealed game, opening it up to that new game smell and slipping the yet-to-be-played game into the system.
Although we might not see these changes for another couple of decades, (or maybe it’s closer than we think) it is interesting to feed the thought of having a console that operates solely digitally. What do you guys think? Leave your comments and ideas in the comments below and let us know.
It’s a very interesting subject, and I only recently made a topic in the SCRAWL Forums about it myself. Personally, I do not beleive that Digital Distribution (DD) will ever completely overtake the practice of buying our games on a disc or other storage medium.
Too many people, myself included, like to collect video games, for example I am proud of my collection of games and systems I’ve collected for decades, and going all “Digital” would take away a big factor of the experience for me. Also the high street stores would be entirely forced out of business. In a world where the high street is increasingly becoming deserted, the last thing we want is to take away literally thriving establishments (I cant walk past a game store without going in!), in favour of a publisher pleasing DD.
Furthermore, draconian DRM systems and reliance on servers to “store” our games is not my idea of fun. There are too many issues, such as downtime, limited installs (why would anyone think this is a good idea) and importantly the fact that an internet connection would be NEEDED in order to even play a single player game.
This brings up yet another point – As long as ISP’s keep their ridiculous ‘usage allowances’ and download caps on broadband use, buying whole new games from the internet would not even be possible. Adding to this, who really would want to sit and wait for hundereds of GB to download, specially on a server-crowded launch day, when they could go to a shop and buy the game in less than 30 mins?
I must admit, DD is something I have never liked, and I do not beleive I am alone in this. I think the PSP Go! is in for a very shaky future partly due to this reliance on digital content, and any next gen system without a disc drive would be sure to fail (especially with the less technically minded ‘casual’ market).
There is of course a place for DD, and offering it as an option, and in the way of smaller/older games like what is already happening is all fine – but I do not believe, and more importantly I REALLY hope that DD never becomes the only way of buying games.
Ok I’m sorry my post was FAR too long! lol ^_^
I don’t think the PSPgo has a shaky future. On the contrary I think it has a very bright future so long as pricing is fair and games stay below 2GB. Apple’s business model proves that you can have a successful game system that’s based on purely digital content. Sony’s system will only push that further but I also believe the all digital market exists solely as a portable venue. Creating an industry that is digital only has more than its fair share of issues. Most of which you and TezChi already mentioned.
The biggest problem being storage. Yes, storage is getting cheaper and more reliable but as TezChi said, who would really want to download 50GB worth of data? Both Uncharted 2 and MGS4 fill a dual-layer Blu-ray disc. I couldn’t imagine downloading those games to ANY storage format. I don’t care if I had a drive with an exabyte, I would still prefer a disc over a digital collection any day.
We also have to consider the industry. Yes, stores like Gamestop would suffer because a good portion of their profit comes from used games but don’t forget about Wal-Mart, Best Buy, Target and any other outlet that sells games. You’re talking about shutting down entire distribution channels, trucking companies that deliver the games, overseas retailers, artists that design the box art, packaging plants; a HUGE piece of the economy would be gone making DD a major factor in yet another fall of the economy.
Maybe that’s a bit steep and over-dramatic but it’s true.
I think so long as developers are making games that have uncompressed audio, super high-res graphics (even 3D graphics since we’ll have TV’s next year that support them) and complex storylines and controls we’ll always a have a disc format.