Oh man. Shadow lowered the boom on this with #TruthFacts.

You da real MVP :)

I think Digital would do better on console if :

1 - ISPs weren't so frequently horrible in the US (price, availability, caps, etc)
2 - There was some kind of legitimate pricing advantage for digital vs retail a la PC/Steam/GoG/etc
3 - There was a way to equalize the trade-in value that retail offers (admittedly this is impractical to the point of being utterly ludicrous)

Look at how digital grew with music and movies. How did that happen? First off, you're talking literal impulse buy territory in terms of expense in many cases. Additionally, with music and movies there is little residual value for trade-in/resell after purchase. And finally, with services like Netflix, Hulu, Spotify, etc, the perceived value in purchasing these things is lower than ever. This doesn't even touch on the convenience factor where even a mediocre internet connection can download songs rapidly, or stream netflix competently. Contrast that with AAA gaming, where 20-30GB games are already common, massive day zero patches are frequent, and we're easily headed to 50GB+ gaming as a AAA standard as cross-gen falls away. Preload or not, anything short of god-tier connections make purchasing a $60 game anything but an impulse decision.

Guy with 1.5mbit ATT Uverse (rebranded DSL) living in an area without a great alternative :

"Yeah, I will download the new gunbanger 14! *click*. Oh look, only 89 hours remaining. Whee."

DD AND the average internet infrastructure in the US needs to evolve to reach broad appeal in the US. It's ignorant to look at it in the same realm as music and movies when the pricing, associated pros/cons, and technical issues are so vastly unique with the evolving gaming scene by comparison.

The US is 19th in the world in internet speed, and in fact, I know many fairly well-off towns and suburbs in the DFW area that have average speeds worse than Ghana (2.1mbit), simply due to unavailability of quality services.

http://www.networkworld.com/article/2959544/lan-wan/u-s-internet-connection-speeds-still-lag-behind-other-developed-nations.html

Im so sad
RIP gaming

Even with 50% digital Halo would be underwhelming, those 50% likely including all bundle copies. So yes. Question is does digital do better or not, which is what Gamestop's telling us.

Digital is growing, if one likes it or not. Question is how much. And probably some titles right now benefit more than others.

People can try and downplay all they want, but digital will is eating into retail and is on the massive increase.

I don't think anybody disagrees that digital sales are rising 

i'll bet that 7% is because halo is up 3000% selling 9 digital copies for every physical copy and everyone else is down massively. on average digital halo outsold mcdonald's hamburgers (LTD) and the rest of the industry is in a complete collapse.

anyone that disagrees with me is wrong.

do you have any sources?

i'm an industry analyst hence why my opinions are in fact factual #truthfacts.

Isn't 'successful' relative? Why are we still discussing Halo in a vacuum when surely that 7% should be applied to every game on every platform?

My god. i dont even know how i doubted you.

Accept my apologiez great one. and deliver my thanks and appreciation to the all mighty "sources" that you have.