Cartridges -> disk -> Cartridges come back??

[dharh]

jack100 said:

dharh said:

jack100 said:

dharh said:

Lets see. Pennies per gig (disc based, Direct download), or dollars per gig? Do the math.

We have a long long way to go before flash catches up with disc based mediums, by that time people are going to accept downloading their games. Downloading games is way more convenient. Game gets released, everyone who wants a copy can get a copy, nearly instantly (donwload time). No waiting in line overnight, no worrying if they are sold out.

If you want a 'physical' copy, make a backup to a USB flash card. 

it's not the same to have a physical copy on a USB flash card compared to going to the store to pick one up.....for me at least.

Downloads can be a pain if they don't have a good server, can you imagine how slow it will get if millions of people were to downlaod a game at the same time?  It would be faster for me to go to me closest game store.

The servers would be able to handle it, the download servers could be made scalable so they turn on extra servers and bandwidth when necessary. Millions of people would be downloading every single day, a new release (even a mega hit) might not even be more than a blip.

What you really want is the case, to show off on your shelf, I seriously doubt most people care about the disc itself, other than the fact that its part of the package (case, instructions, disc). Even if some people do want the physical version, developers could always do both. You should obviously pay more for the physical game, but if you want it, then by all means.

yeah, I guess your right, they can do that.  The problems that do arrise is that next gen if you use HVDs for example that can hold theoritically 1 TB of data.(I think I can't remember right now), I don't want to wait that long to download that, especially in my area.  In my area I don't know about all, but most ISPs have bandwidth cap, meaning I would have to pay by the gig to download more than the cap.  If I have an 80 gig cap per month, then this will really fail for me and I will be picking up a physical copy.  Also it IS a little faster, but I still would have to wait proabaly a couple of days to download  even 500gigs. (didn't do that math for speed, I apologize if it seems wrong.)

That is one major caveat which I think ultimately means we will not see download only for at least 1 more generation possibly 2. The end user is not going to want to be waiting for a couple days while their game downloads. In a couple years, yeah, 25-50 gig game downloads are viable, not 1TB though.

That said, there will be tons of games that fall in between a while spectrum of game sizes. The previous gen games can all be re-released via download. Many games in the current gen, minis, etc, maybe in more than half of all games released on any given console, can be done via download. But the rest are indeed going to need physical a medium to distribute. Whether that just means USB ROM drives or they go ahead and stick with BDR or HVD who knows yet. This is already the case anyway. Tons of games are being made exclusively download only, though those are called by special names Mini, Arcade, WiiWare.