a 1 tb hard drive isn't much, download only games for console won't be bad. piracy isn't a problem unless the person has a separate console that never goes online. (not like piracy has ever been a big problem for games anway)

Digital distribution is the future, but IMO a distant future. downloading a 15GB game is a pain even on my internet which is pretty fast. plus no more used games which is bad for the gaming industry as a whole, whether they want to believe it or not.

Of course companies want more intrusive ownership of your products, but despite what everyone thinks, consumers aren't stupid.

Granted, i'm waiting for the day when Sony claims that they have the ability to stop you from playing any retail game you own if you violate certain terms. After the laughable legal ninjutsu they attempted with that PS3 hacker, it's also inevitable.

Always online...

*shakes head*

I have to say it, but Diablo 3 has it's issues. I'm thinking we'll see quality of support of games dip as well.

We in Austria have for years now cheap 100MB/s Download and nearly the same Upload speed.
Sweden and other countries in europe have even stronger internet i think.

I downloaded complete Diablo 3 in about 10 Minutes - Its nothing special here.
No download ever took me longer than 10 minutes in the last 2 years if i remember correctly - Not even downloads from different programs*cough*
When the Internet worldwide would be on our level we would move towards the DD Standard a lot faster.

You can beta test even 100MB/s lines for (Smart)phones now in some places.

I hope DD comes a lot faster and retail and especially used game sales die out.

i have 50mb/s and its nothing special, still too slow to make DD the standard..

The US is the worst place for internet speed. Mainly because no one is spending the money to competently overhaul major cities. Till cities like NYC can have internet speeds that you can download 50GB is a few hours. DD won't take off. 24 hrs to dl 50GB isn't nice. When I can take a train to Best Buy. And get it in 1 hour. This is probbaly 15-20 years off. Plus, a lot of major companies will fight this heavly. Because this would destroy Christmas, and major game retails. Companies can easily screw Microsoft, Sony, and Nintendo. The consoles can't be downloaded. So stores could easily refuse to stock them.

Oh, and 1TB drives are cheap, yes. But if every game is 50GB+ in the future, 1TB will be killed off in only 9 games. That's another issue. Paying $540 for games. Then another $100 every few months sucks. You'd be filling shelves with hardrives. You have to manaully mark. Then have physical discs with artwork.

I'm OK with digital distribution as long as I manage to own the game without any killswitch / always online / streaming crap.

But, alas, to the likes of Bobby Kotick, Orwell wasn't a bad guy... he was hot, and he was on.

Anyways, talking about "natural progression" falls to the technological progress myth and places people as slaves to technological progress instead of it's controllers. Of course if technology progresses in a way to harm huge companies in a certain way, you can be sure it won't be called natural by them. File sharing? Kill it with fire! Modding? Anti-ethical antics!

"people as slaves to technological progress instead of it's controllers."
this is so true dude....good point

As long as I can play my stuff in more than 1 device I am happy :D. So my brother and I can play the game for 1 price ;D.

That is why we are buying every PSVITA game from the PSN

 I don't know where you pulled the 50GB figure from as most games come in much lower, but either way DD will sooner or later move to the model where you can download the game say, a week before release, but it only becomes playable exactly on release date. Which obvious then cuts out the 'speed' advantage of the retailer and probably means you can playing the game from midnight rather then 9am, if you really can't wait.

 If DD does come through then games won't be 50GB either, as companies pay Sony / Microsoft / whoever a fee for the amount of data transfered for their downloads. It's only pennies per GB or whatever, but it'd add up if all their games were 50GB+ lol.

 I embrace the DD future, provided the content prices are right. Steam has done a great job with pricing and PS+ is a service that I find extremey good value. PSN in general is getting some better and better sales too, albeit it's still got a ways to go. I personally don't care for owning the physical 'thing' though, rather get rid of all the clutter in my room and have everything nice and easily accessible, whether that be on my hard drive or the 'cloud'.