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Digital distribution looks like by the next console could finally be coming into its own but is this a good thing for us the gamer? 

There are so many unanswered questions. Will they let us back up or burn our games after we buy them?  My guess is NO WAY!!! , but then if our hard drive fails we lose all of our games and we know that happens too frequently?  We want to go play a game at a friends house we cant just take it?  What about if we want to let a friend borrow it cause we beat it?

One solution is to be able to re download the game once you have bought it but as we have seen MS starting taking old games down for re download, plus as the library of games gets bigger and bigger you know they will start pulling titles.

I am intrigued by the idea but not sold on it yet. 

What about you?

I want what I own to ocupy physical space for now.

umm.... you dont lose the games... maybe your game saves but not your games.

Downloadable games are synced to your ID. You delete the game off your HDD you can download that game at a later date and repeat this process as many times as you want.

If you want to lend a game you can do two things, have your friend log into your ID on their console and download it or you login to their console and download it. Of course there are download limits but who cares, if you share your games that much you deserve to pay for more copies of that game.

I doubt Sony will be taking old games down from the PSN. I dont see them doing it. Microsoft is doing it because they are to cheap to fork out for larger HDDs or better servers for their LIVE service.

For consoles I can't see it working well on a massive scale for a while longer.

For PC it's already great, Steam's great. I can download a game like TF2, burn it onto as many DVDs as I want and play it on as many PCs as I want, all legally. And if I bought it in a store I still have the digital rights and can always download the game if I lose my disc.

The benefits are so great, I see no point in buying a pointless DVD. There is virtually no worry about Steam ever dying, and if they went out of business or something, they have stated that all the rights will stay with the buyers.

Something like this could work with consoles, but there's a lot of hurdles to jump.

I dont want it, I like to actually physically own the things I own.

I love it, I already have tons of DVDs lying around in my room ^_^

Learned something new today!

I am with you not saying wont happen but I like to own the disc of course my kids scracth and destroy them so digital distribution would help with that

Yeah, I don't see how owning the game on a DVD that get can get scratched and unreadable is so desirable.

It's nice to have a cool box, and you do own something physical...but it's just data on a disc. Data that you can download and burn onto 50 discs if you so desire. The game's what's important...and being able to buy a game online and download without ever leaving home is something I'd trade for a simple DVD.

Owning the discs. Some day you might get rich on a rare copy you have laying around. EBAY!!!