What if PSP2 and 3DS are Download Only?

[MaxwellGT2000]

twesterm said:

MaxwellGT2000 said:

The reason for consoles both home and handheld are for ease of use, go to the store, buy a product, go home, play instantly.  Download only really doesn't fit that format, since not everyone has online, not everyone has wifi, not everyone that has net and wifi know how to use it sadly, so download only would be a bad business choice.

As for me I guess I wouldn't mind it so much, I just want more discounts and price drops for online games, much like steam does, for PSN, XBLA and Wii/DSi Ware that just doesn't happen and so I buy less from them.

What are you talking about?  Digital Distribution is all about ease of use.

To play a normal DS game:

• Drive to store
• Buy product
• Go home
• Play game
• Switch cartridge to play another game
• Carry around cartridges so you can always have games

To play a 3DS game if it were digital only:

• Download game
• wait some time
• play game
• instantly be able to play your full library still

Either way, there's some wait or hassle time but downloading something that probably wouldn't be over a gig in the first place is nothing compared to actually going somewhere to get something.

Again, true some people don't have Wifi but that's what hotspots are for (which I'm sure Gamestop would have) or just use the iTunes method where you can download on your computer through their service and then transfor to your product through USB.

It's just crazy to call digital distribution harder when compared to traditional cartridges, UMD's, ect.

-edit-

As an added bonus, download only games should be cheaper.  I know that wasn't the case with the PSPGo but that's why we learn from mistakes.  So you have cheaper games, easier access to all games at all times (I don't know how many games I would have bought if I could buy them from my couch at 2 in the morning), a lot of possibilities for demos, and you don't have to lug around a collection of games.

As long as it's done right, digital distribution only is a good thing.  Nintendo isn't good at online, but if it were something the system was built around I think they would do fine and Sony hopefully learned their lesson with the PSPGo so if the next PSP is digital only they should be in good shape too.

-edit #2-

I wouldn't even call space  a factor.  Flash memory is dirt cheap and even huge hard drives are cheap.  I forget how much USB sticks are but I know they're cheap and I can get a 1.5TB portable hard drive for $80.  Both options are small, cheap, and holds a crapload of games.

I'm not saying ease of use for me or you, working at retail and the average customer really doesn't even know what they're really looking for or even informed about games, much less going online to check out what new games are out, some of which don't even know how to hook their systems up online.

A model with online only would be a terrible model unless it has something like the iPhone app store and the ability to download from anywhere, that's true ease of use.  Basically anything that keeps the consumer from using any mental power at all is the best way to go.  Driving to the store isn't as big of a deal to these people since they know how to drive but anything with "technology" is automatically too hard to set up and they *must* get the "tech" people they know to set anything up, most won't even bother.

And honestly downloading is still a pain in the ass, have you tried to download just small files on the PSP?  Full games are even worse, it's like if you took the typical download speed for PS3 and slowed it down times 5 or 6, I typically have to plug in my PSP and leave it sitting to download a game, in the same amount of time I could and probably would rather get in my car, spend not even a gallon of gas to get to the local store and get the same game for sometimes half the price cause PSP games get marked down often, while PSP games on PSN rarely have deals going.

Simply put right now the download only model is crap until they can make it effiecient and clean, Steam does this well, since PCs are typically already hooked up online, your info is saved so no need to keep entering it, and then you gotta make sure there aren't limits like with the app store cause if you're gonna have PSP level graphics... you need at least a gig to work with for the game itself...

It'll be the model home consoles can move to but with handhelds they better have cell phone abilities built in cause it's not gonna work :P