Best News Ever: Halo and Fable coming to Xbox Live Marketplace

[Garcian Smith]

thranx said:
i think people are missing another great plus, to me the most important, no need for a disk. I refuse to use a disk for my music and movies (in fact the only thing i use disk for are games), if i buy it on disk i rip it to a hard drive. disks can be lost, scratched, stolen, what ever, but i will not loose my hard drive, and if i do i am sure microsoft will keep a record of my purchase and i can re download like the arcade games. if they eventually allowed me to download this gen games, then when i want to switch games I will not have to worry about getting up and getting a disk, yes i am that lazy.

The lack of physical media is both a blessing and a curse. Discs can be lost, scratched, or stolen, but they can also be resold on the secondary market or taken to your friend's place.

Also keep in mind that digital distribution of normal games would result in the publisher - not the secondary market - setting the standard price for games. So, say goodbye to being able to walk into your local EBGamestop and being able to pick up a good old PS2 or Xbox game for a fiver or less, because publishers will be charging several times that with their monopoly on distribution. Also, when a publisher decides to stop selling a game (and, as I'd imagine most will, decline to release it for free), good luck trying to find a copy. You know how you can go on eBay and still find old copies of games for your Commodore 64 or MSX? Well, forget doing that for your digitally-distributed games down the line.

That's why I'm all for the continuation of physical media for games. You may praise it now, but several years down the line when publishers are still charging $20 for a 10-year-old game, you'll be regretting that praise.