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SvennoJ on 27 May 2013
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ironmanDX said:
SvennoJ said:
ironmanDX said:
Everyone complains about the cost of games going up gen on gen, MS puts in a solution that in the long term will drive down the prices like steam, MS still gets bashed.


Ok.

And how do you get to that conclusion? They had that option this gen, offer digital games at competitive prices to second hand games. Did not happen. Eliminating competition only makes the prices stay high longer.

Steam is a different beast, way more competition, different royalty system.

Steam is a different beast. It's had time to feed and grow. If Sony jumps on board, which given they had DRM this gen makes it likely not to mention the patent... The competition will change. More devs will jump on board, they'll sell more games new, get more money from second hand games thus getting more profit to make more games as other devs do, they drop prices as other devs would also. It's pretty win win... Are you a Steam user?

They have failed this gen with digital though in many areas is agreed. Though progress was still made and will be further made with the Xbox ONE.

I use Steam, never bought a grame for full price though. Only with big sales at less then $10 per game. That's less then the royalty MS and Sony charge for new games. The last full game I bought was The witcher 2 box edition.

Plus Steam is all digital so they can go lower. MS' system still has to keep shops happy that sell an (almost worthless) retail disc.
Steam has competition from other digital sellers, plus you can buy games direct from the publisher. On console you are resticted to one portal.

They won't sell more games new, a lot of new game purchases are funded by trade ins. Restrictions and taking money away from there will affect new game purchases.

It's only good news for Steam, since there won't really be a difference anymore between physical and digital, people will choose the cheapest option. Steam can easily go lower then where consoles can go. I became a console user for the convenience and actually being able to still own my games. I might as well go with a Steam box if both next gen consoles take game ownership away.

And no it hasn't been like this with pc's. They have had product keys for 20 years, but they unlock the game with no further restrictions. You could install them as many times as you like. Games like Unreal and Half-life even let you run it simultaeneously on 4 networked pc's per 1 product key. I have played tons of pc games in LAN with only 1 disc. Only since Steam and online drm has the pc market been locked up.