Microsoft: Digital Distribution Will Outstrip Physical Sales

[Godot]

Sqrl said:

akuma587 said:

Sqrl said:

Digital distribution is better in every meaningful way, the only downside is a psychological one. Physical media can be lost, broken, stolen, etc..where as digital can be re downloaded at any time. If your console gets stolen there is no games for them to take also, you just remove your console from your account and re-attach it to your new console and voila you only lose the console and not the 20 games you own.

The only thing holding this back right now is bandwidth for most consumers, but that will get much better in the next 10 years and I would be surprised if we weren't downloading the majority of our games by 2018 when the Xbox 1080 launches =)

So me having to delete and redownload 10+ Gig games is a psychological barrier?  Maybe if I had a T3 connection, but I don't, so it is definitely more than a psychological barrier.  This is why I am waiting for the Blu-Ray release of Siren: Blood Curse.

Digital Distribution will be a solution 10 years from now, IF we have some serious investment in the bandwidth infrastructure in the U.S., which I frankly don't see happening unless you live in a heavily populated area.  I know the city council in this town won't even allow fiber optic to be put in some parts of the town due to backroom deals with the local cable company.

People have to remember that games are only going to get larger too, so we need a corresponding increase in bandwidth, not just a temporary one.

 

Why would you have to delete the game in the first place? 

If you're just complaining about the DL speeds then thats exactly why I pointed it out as the major obstacle, not sure why you brought it up like I had missed it. Even so, it only takes about 2 hours to download 10 GB of data for folks with 10Mbps connections and those are available in most areas already, hell I live in Nebraska and I'm on a 15Mbps connection.

The fact of the matter is that the initial download doesn't really matter much since if you really have to have a game you'll want it on day 1.  In which case you'll just preload the game and you'll have it far faster and easier than you would waiting in line at the mall.

While I would have agreed last year that our net infrastructure was going nowhere fast there have been quite a few telecoms that have opened their eyes to the problem as of late.  With other countries already up at average speeds of 45Mbps like Japan even if we catch up to that downloading a totally full dual-layer BR disc (~50GB) would only take about two and a half hours.

I don't know about you but a 2 hour download every time I'm silly enough to delete my games is more than worth it if I don't have to swap discs again, can never lose my games, and don't have to drive to the store to begin with.

 

 

 

I would kind of agree with you but since in Canada, we can't have anything near what see everywhere else... I don't think people will change for a long time here.