| bobobologna said: @ ConAir: Prices for downloads won't be going down any time soon. The majority of money games make are still made at retail stores. If you undercut a retailer's price, they could and most likely would take your game off their shelves. |
That's thinking in todays terms. The future is online. Yes, more and more games will go to digital only distribution. It cuts significant costs. There is no more guess work and having 500,000 copies of a game go unsold because you thought demand would be higher. Publishing costs push prices way up as well. It's been rumored that if a game sells for $60 the developer will only get $30. By going online, they will cut these costs substantially. You'll also sell to more individuals. For example the only way for me to share my wiiware games is to actually take my wii with me. So me and my friends that play will probably all have copies of the games we like versus having one copy and passing it around. Do to these digital downloads should be cheaper. It reminds me how credit card companies used to fight you transferring money from your bank account electriconically by charging you a fee. But having an individual open my mail, go through the companies controls to the check actually got cashed costs 10 times as much. So I would just send a check until they made online bank payment free. Eventually games will be distributed mainly online. Sure there will always be the Metal Gear Solids that would be insane to download and thus will be sold at retail. But 80% of the games can work with download.
