I'd rather have the original version: By now, they are cheaper, and there's no ridiculous DRM that will not let you play the game without being connected to live after a repair.

@ mrstickball: It looks like you just pulled the most expensive eBay prices you could find. By contrast, here's what I found with a cursory search of completed auctions. (Note that you may need an eBay account to view these.)

Fable, new & sealed: $6.95 + $5.95 s/h. http://cgi.ebay.com/FABLE-THE-LOST-CHAPTERS-XBOX-NEW-FACTORY-SEALED_W0QQitemZ160178294526QQcmdZViewItem?hash=item160178294526

Crimson Skies, new & sealed: $0.99 (no bids) + $7.95 s/h. http://search-completed.ebay.com/crimson-skies-new-xbox_W0QQ_trksidZm37QQcatrefZC5QQfclZ3QQfisZ2QQfromZR7QQfrppZ200QQfsooZ1QQfsopZ1QQnojsprZyQQpfidZ0QQsacatZQ2d1QQsofocusZbs

Halo 1, new & sealed: $9.99 BIN + $6.95 s/h. http://cgi.ebay.com/Halo-1-Combat-Evolved-Xbox-X-BOX-P-Hits-vers-NEW-SEALED_W0QQitemZ180178015370QQihZ008QQcategoryZ62053QQssPageNameZWDVWQQrdZ1QQcmdZViewItem

It's not that hard to find a better deal than what MS is offering. Two of the three you mentioned I just found for less than $15 at their final selling price, including shipping, in less than 5 minutes' searching. As for the third, it's easily a game that you want to have in disc form so that you can take it to a friend's place. And those, of course, are brand-new, sealed copies; if you search for like-new used copies, you can go even less.

i think people are missing another great plus, to me the most important, no need for a disk. I refuse to use a disk for my music and movies (in fact the only thing i use disk for are games), if i buy it on disk i rip it to a hard drive. disks can be lost, scratched, stolen, what ever, but i will not loose my hard drive, and if i do i am sure microsoft will keep a record of my purchase and i can re download like the arcade games. if they eventually allowed me to download this gen games, then when i want to switch games I will not have to worry about getting up and getting a disk, yes i am that lazy.

 I hope for you.

The lack of physical media is both a blessing and a curse. Discs can be lost, scratched, or stolen, but they can also be resold on the secondary market or taken to your friend's place.

Also keep in mind that digital distribution of normal games would result in the publisher - not the secondary market - setting the standard price for games. So, say goodbye to being able to walk into your local EBGamestop and being able to pick up a good old PS2 or Xbox game for a fiver or less, because publishers will be charging several times that with their monopoly on distribution. Also, when a publisher decides to stop selling a game (and, as I'd imagine most will, decline to release it for free), good luck trying to find a copy. You know how you can go on eBay and still find old copies of games for your Commodore 64 or MSX? Well, forget doing that for your digitally-distributed games down the line.

That's why I'm all for the continuation of physical media for games. You may praise it now, but several years down the line when publishers are still charging $20 for a 10-year-old game, you'll be regretting that praise.

"Also keep in mind that digital distribution of normal games would result in the publisher - not the secondary market - setting the standard price for games"


Not really, just as now, the market will set the price, and for convience sake i would pay upto 15 dollars of old games, i am willing to pay that right now with games with the vc on the wii if they are that much. and publishers will not price themselves out of the market, and thay are not always out to gouge, they are just out to make a good profit.

How big are the games going to be ?? I suspect MS might gimp (increase compression) the video's and voice overs and convert all audio tracks to mp3 (if that was not being done already).
15$ is nice, but MS needs to resolve the issues with upgrading HDD's on the 360.
Many people are still pissed off they need to connect to xbox live to play thier XBLA games offline.

Because they're the only legal medium of distribution for those old games in your scenario, the publishers could charge more than what the secondary market would normally pay and people would still pay them. They couldn't reasonably price themselves out of the market, unless they started charging absurd prices, because they ARE the market. Read up on how a monopoly works sometime

they do not have a monopoly, there is more then one publisher, they will compete, there is no monopoly. you can't just spout off monopoly when there isn't one.