Digital distribution thoughts

[Words Of Wisdom]

bardicverse said:

I posted this in response to another conversation, but I figured it had enough merit to begin new discussion. So here it is:

What people don't realize is that digital distribution can be done in other forms than downloads. Take a firewire hard drive, for example. Put a firewire port into a console, hook up a 500 GB HD, and you have faster access speeds than you would have off of optical media, with a lot less heat buildup inside the system. No laser, no internal HD, it'd be a breeze (no pun intended ) to build a high end system without wasting time on keeping the unit supercooled.

You'd still need to cool the internet CPU/GPU as those pieces are likely the ones to run the hotest, not your hard drive. Hard drive speeds are fast, but flash memory is even faster. A solid state solution with comparable cost to CDs would put optical media in the trash real fast.

Back on the firewire hard drive. You can unplug the drive anytime you want, and have it embedded with a registered serial number. Take your drive to your local game dealer, they register your purchase online, and load the game onto the drive from their local server in the store. If your HD fails, they verify the failed HD serial number, authorize a new HD for your account, and you can get your games added back on, free of charge. Need more HD space? Buy another firewire HD drive, and you're all set.

This relies on a dealer capable of maintaining the product. The idea will automatically fail for that. The less work retailers and consumers have to go through, the better.

I see this as the way that the industry will go, in addition to downloadable content. Optical media has one foot in the grave.

Cost and availability keep it alive.  Retailers also have a say in this matter as they make money off its sales.



Before you go and say "but I like holding onto physical copies of games, movies, music, etc" just remember that all that manufacturing takes up resources (plastic is made from oil products, energy costs to run assembly lines). Also, by not having to spend money making "hard copies", developers/publishers can pass the savings from the process to the customer in the form of cheaper games. Also, videogames won't have to fight for shelf space, as they'd all just be digital, on the local servers. You won't have to worry about a game being sold out, or phased out due to age. It will always be there sitting on the server, waiting to be copied to your HD.

Of course, a 500GB FW HD is common these days, who's to say that a TB FW HD won't be common within the next 4 years? Or maybe even that a faster port connection, faster than firewire might be available by then?

Right now, internet penetration and speeds are not high enough for digital media to prevail over physical media on consoles. However, we are also in the pioneering age where developers are testing the waters of profitability for digital media so this could quickly change.

As for your 500Gb External argument. Price a 500Gb external Seagate or WD and tell me what you get. Available and cost effective are very different things.