Microsoft intelligently designed their system to have a smaller disc capacity to take advantage of next gen internet speeds. Thats why I put it here rather than in the gaming forums as the Wii doesn't have a HDD and the PS3 doesn't have games you could reasonably download anyway. Obviously many people already do so with Steam so yes, you got here first apart from the rental part.
If Microsoft started offering you the chance to download and buy/rent games which are older than say 3 months (to not piss of the retailers too much) would you take advantage of that feature? Lets say you can download the game for $25 and play it once to completion or 28 days, whichever comes first and then pay another $25 if you want to keep it for life or straight up pay $45 up front and own it from the start. Im not sure about the price that they would charge, thats just a rough guess.
Its a safer way to make a purchase and you obviously didn't pick the title up when it was released because you were either not sure about it or didn't have the money at the time. Pay $25 on what is essentially a far lower risk, essentially its about the difference between the new and used trade in prices from gamestop without the hassle of dealing with those blood suckers. Unlike rentals from other places, you have time to finish a game and you don't have to worry about the local place having the game you want in stock. Furthermore you can easily convert a rental into owning a game, so for example if you're short on cash you can make your purchase in two steps rather than one large payment.
It gives users another option if they want to just play games once, there are a lot of titles that may not justify a full price purchase, but are worth a single playthrough. It gives developers an extra source of revenue, perhaps even enough to help some of the smaller ones sustain themselves between releases and it can help keep money out of the slimey hands of gamestop (Who are essentially doing this themselves without giving the developers a cent in royalties), so do you like the idea?
Thoughts/Comments/Suggestions?
Tease.
