Sony realizes mistakes, the time is still not right for an all digital console!

[Joelcool7]

MonstaMack said:

twesterm said:

The time is absolutely right for an all digital console, you just have to actually do it right. The Go was a fantastic idea, Sony just did a poor job of doing.

If you want all digital to be a success, just look at Steam. Make every game available day one, make it cheaper, and have constant sales and bundles. From what I remember of the Go, not all games were there, games weren't day one, and games were as expensive or more than the physical copies. It's no surprise the Go failed.

I would love for them or someone else to give digital distribution only another go because when I travel I hate carrying around 10-20 games.

I agree. I would gladly buy a digital only console *if* there was: 1) day one content 2) weekly sales, or bi-weekly sales along with current price drops 3) Other good incentives.

I bought Dead Space 1 on Games on Demand for the 360, but in general It's hard to root for a digital format outside of steam.

That would work as long as physical formats remained around to lower software sales. Look at the reason software sells so cheap these days, game prices are dropped by retailers most often or at the request of retailers. Very often its to get rid of stock which is taking up valuable shelf space at a retailer. Another reason is the manufacturer made too many copies and those copies aren't selling well enough meaning the manufacturer has to get rid of the stock fast.

The only two reasons I can think of for dropping software prices on a DD model is competition from physical formats which the retailers will drop prices. Publishers or developers are frantic to break even and there software has been severely underselling.

There are many reasons that if digital distribution actually took over the industry entirely (All game console went DD) prices of software would not drop like it does today. Developers and publishers would make much larger profit margins. Meaning they would need to sell far fewer copies of the game to break even, meaning the desperation that some manufacturers and publishers have will be greatly diminished. A publisher would be reluctant to lower the price of there software as long as it continued to perform alright, a much lower level then would be required by today's physical market.

In fact developers and publishers wouldn't worry as much about selling to a wider audience as much as they do now. Sales figures wouldn't mean as much if the game was profitable. Look at Activision for example right now, they kept CoD4 at 49.99$ for years in fact last Christmas I remember seeing it that expensive. Now that the game has been dropped by many retailers and stock is becoming harder to shift the prices have finally plummeted. Another perfect example is Nintendo, the company doesn't reduce software prices unless they have to do so out of necessity.

In the end publishers wouldn't have to worry about liquidating stock. A smaller amount of sales over a long period of time is worth maintaining a price rather then cutting prices to increase downloads. There wouldn't be as much pressure on the publisher to reduce prices.

Example the yearly games like NHL, NFL etc...etc... the reason these games prices implode each year is because the next version is coming out or is out and retailers need to clear shelf space. EAGames and other companies know that the older product is no longer worth supporting and try to sell off remaining stock. But if the physical market was gone EA would either be tempted to pull the old game altogether to encourage gamers to buy the new one, or maintain a much higher cost.

Competition drives sales, remove competition for shelf space and the fact that stock need to be sold and their is far less reasoning to cut prices!