Microsoft: Digital Distribution Will Outstrip Physical Sales

[NJ5]

Groucho said:

Do you guys even realize how much "bandwidth" a semi-trailer full of BDs, travelling 60 mph down the highway has? A heck of a lot. Bandwidth is indeed an issue, and will be for a loooong time coming. I can take a single CD to work and have "transmitted" 600 MB 10 miles, in just 20 mins. 30 MB/min == 500 KB/sec. That's more than the limit of the best available downstream household DSL connection (the limit is usually about 3 Gb/sec, or about 360 MB/sec after you factor in IP overhead), even in high-tech areas (which represent a minority of consumers, not a majority), and that's over an uncontested route (meaning there's not too many other folks trying to download CDs).

Now fill my pickup truck with CDs (probably several thousand).

Now fill the truck with single-layer BDs (~40 CDs each). Or fill 40 pickup trucks with CDs -- how many CDs do you suppose that is?

Now how about I drive a semi-trailer truck, instead of a pickup.

Digital distribution more efficient than physical? Lol. Physical production and distribution is much more efficient, in terms fo cost, for large amounts of data like AAA-games and movies. Internet trunk bandwidth isn't increasing at some magical rate (its the "leaves" that have been growing dramatically in size in the past few years) -- it will *never* be large enough to support serious digital distribution, unless all the distribution download centers are localized... and, go figure, that costs money... a LOT of money. Digital distribution, en masse, is not only impossible from a centralized location, its financially impractical with a distributed system.

You're kidding us if you think digital distribution isn't already logistically possible. Look at companies like Akamai which already have huge content distribution networks in place. To use their CDNs for something like games wouldn't put any significant additional strain in their network...

Heck, look at what Valve is able to do for PC games with Steam... If you think it wouldn't be possible (and easy) for Microsoft, Sony or Nintendo to do the same for console games, you're delusional.

With digital distribution, you also save significant energy by not having to make plastic DVD cases, printing labels, producing and pressing the DVDs themselves... Not to mention the savings in transportation of raw materials AND finished/intermediate products.

PS: Your truck example has no bearing here. Your truck is carrying massively redundant data (i.e. many copies of the same game), which content distribution networks do very efficiently with server-to-server communication. You don't need the digital equivalent of that truck to distribute games through the Internet. A more accurate analogy would be a bunch of motorcycles carrying a single copy of the game to each ISP, which then distributes the game very efficiently to their customers.