Cliffy B Doesn't Want Discs For Xbox 720, PS4- Could this possibly happen?

[JEMC]

spurgeonryan said:

 

 

Cliff Bleszinski, lead designer of games like Gears of War at renown studio Epic Games, has spoken out about disc-based console systems. In fact, he's spoken out about disc-based gaming in general especially for next-gen consoles, saying “no disc-based games.” That was pretty clear.

The Videogamer picked up the quote from a Reddit AMA, where the popular designer made his intentions clear to focus on digital only outings. This is nothing new given that Cliffy B., was pretty adamant about the future of digital distribution for gaming on the bonus round at Gametrailers.

Cliffy B's comments are equivalent to a lot of what companies like Ubisoft, Funcom and Electronic Arts have been saying throughout the year after retail took a major hit on the monthly numbers. The obvious result is that gamers have probably grown bored with this generation's elongated cycle, but leave it to the “industry experts” to assume that people have given up on hard copies and simply want to download everything.

For sure, it's become quite clear that Microsoft and Sony's newest consoles will launch in a very interesting and different kind of gaming landscape, a lot of it is due to their own doing with the way some hardware choices were handled (i.e., Microsoft sticking with DVD) and with some of the design choices (i.e,. Sony's unnecessarily complex structuring of the Cell and its SPUs).

This also brings up a rather interesting question. What happens to Epic's biggest brand yet, Gears of War if it's not going to be disc-based?

 

 

I highly doubt that Sony will dump their prized Blu-ray disc format on the PS4. But stranger things have happened. Not to mention all the retail sales that will disappear. Am I right?

Quoting so everyone can read what the OP says.

It won't happen anytime soon. Just look at what happens with Steam when they are doing its sales or the problems that Blizzard had with the launch of Diablo 3. Their servers, from 2 companies focused on online content and prepared for that, couldn't take the amount of traffic and left many people without access.

Can you imagine what will happen if consoles go the digital-only route and games that sell millions of copies on day one like GTA, CoD or whatever-comes-next-gen launch? There's no infrastructure that can suport that.