I dunno. We keep hearing how a lot of games generate a huge percentage of lifetime revenue from the crazy Steam sales, probably because they're so cheap that all the Steam whales buy them even if they never get around to playing them due to their disgustingly massive backlogs. I don't really think that's going away if retail dies. There will still be a reason to be competitive on price. Especially with Sony (and Nintendo, I believe) allowing devs to set their own prices and do self-publishing, which will allow smaller developers to fight for attention rather than being squeezed out by the usual shithEAd behemoths (which is something that XBLA has been prone to in recent years).

I support blocking banned but if they do that then both Sony and MSFT needs to do it or they are basically committing suicide so yeah ill be worried if they block used.

I dont support always online because not everybody is capable of that.

When something official has been announced, then I'll worry.

Until then, some of the rumors don't jive with what Microsoft appears to be planning on based on patents.

btw...The next generation Xbox controller has been "outed".  There is a patent out there for it, though it has since been pulled.  The patent number is still there, just the patent itself is not.

You could definitely be right and I certainly hope you are. I prefer digital and I'd like to see normal market price variation continue.

Maybe a new thread for this... but can you elaborate?

i hope they are not cause blocking use games and always online just sounds retarded

If you plan to have Steambox you will have nothing to worry about!!

I get this feeling that we're going to hear about a Microsoft/Valve partnership with the next generation of consoles. Microsoft seems to be eschewing its own service for full-retail games, even some downloadable games, in deference to Steam.

There was talk of Valve being bought out...that went away...
Then there was talk of Valve making a Steambox, but all the players in that game were let go...

Now, Microsoft is going to Exclusively release Age of Empires II HD on Steam? That makes total sense. Not unless the two are up to something.

What ecxclusives (apart from timed exclusives) could they make that would interest core gamers?

Gears of War is almost certaincly multiplatofmor in next gen.

Fable lost a lot of credibility, I would argue it's not a series that are in the minds of core gamers anymore.

Halo obviously, but the next one will porobably not come in a few years.

Alan Wake 2?

We'll see. I really do think that expectations have changed on PC so that, even with retail withering away, a certain share of the market won't bite until a game hits a very low price point, and it's always much better to get some money from them than no money at all. I think it's also part of why we're seeing digital distribution on consoles getting more competitive: both to be competitive with Steam, and because it's just good business generally. And also because the back catalogs are big enough that there are many older games which see virtually zero sales until they are marked down super cheap or put up for free on PS+ or something.

I'm way more concerned that the digital future holds a lot of shitty DRM practices.